Death and Philosophy of The Halakhah

This collection of articles deals with the connection between the concept of death and the philosophy of the Halakha. Many would argue that recoil from death and flight from it underlie in every culture, including the Halakha. To understand a culture one must examine its attitude toward death. The articles in this volume and its special symposium on the denial of death follow this assumption by studying what the Halakha has to say on this subject.
Three themes that link death and Halakha lie at the heart of the book: the issue of fear of death and the tools for coping with it; the connection between human experience and Halakhic conceptualizations and tools pertaining to the issue of death; and the influence of meta-Halakhic views on Halakhic rulings and thought on the issue of death.

This diverse collection presents the voices of the leading scholars and intellectuals in the field; it touches on existential issues whose sources lie in deep Halakhic and philosophic study, from the Sages and Maimonides to the Holocaust and the technological age. The book, whose foundation is the philosophical discourse of the Halakha, constitutes a cornerstone for broad study that encourages additional scholarship. It presents the Halakhic world’s deep insights on the end of life, coping with these moments, and the Halakhic implications of the concept of death, including all its derivatives in the Halakha and the Aggada.