For Ida

I was at a dinner party earlier, when the topic of conversation, before devolving into international politics and conspiaracy theory, was religion. There is no official Jewish concept of the afterlife. Growing up around reformed and conservative Jews in Chicago, everyone believed that they would go to Heaven or just stay dead, rejoicing in the fact that the Talmud makes no mention of Hell.

I read somewhere that the concept of resurrection comes from The Book of Daniel, when the Jews lived in what is now Iraq. When the Persian ruler known as Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, and won the Jews, they adopted the Zoroastrian principles of a final judgment. I know that the Pharisees believed in reincarnation, but the Saducees did not (actually I don't know anything, but this is what I've read). The Book of Zohar talks of a journey one takes on the road to nirvana, where, before becoming one with God, you happen upon the masculine and feminine aspects of God intertwined in an erotic embrace. I think you'd like that.

I don't know where you are right now, or where the Mourner's Kaddish might send you. It would be nice to think that you had reached nirvana and become a part of the consciousness inherent in all things, and it would be nice to think of you reincarnated, that a whole new generation might be able to someday hear stories the way only you know how to tell them, but today is one of those rare times where I actually do want to believe in Heaven, and that you're up there, right now, calling some poor angel a shmuck, a motherfucker, and a sonuvabitch.

I'll miss you. Rest in peace.