Judaism: Self, Death and the Afterlife | AQA A-Level Religious Studies (7062)

Judaism: Self, Death and the Afterlife

77 questions
6 subtopics
Component 2: Judaism, one religion of five
Component 2

Judaism: the self, the purpose of life, and what is held to follow death.

Part of Component 2, sat only by students who take Judaism as their chosen religion.

Sample questions from Judaism: Self, Death and the Afterlife

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Kiddush Hashem and the Purpose of Life

Explain the term kiddush Hashem.

Show the answer
The sanctification of God's name through conduct that brings honour to God, and in the extreme case through martyrdom.
Kiddush Hashem and the Purpose of Life

Where does tikkun olam acquire its mystical sense?

Show the answer
In kabbalistic teaching, where each mitzvah gathers up the divine sparks scattered at creation and so restores the world.
The Messiah and the Messianic Age

Will the Messianic Age involve a change in the natural order?

Show the answer
Views differ, some expecting a transformed world and others, following Maimonides, expecting the world to continue as it is but freed from oppression and war.
The Messiah and the Messianic Age

How has the Holocaust affected Jewish thinking about the purpose of life?

Show the answer
For some it made survival and continuity a purpose in itself, while for others it sharpened the demand to repair a world capable of such evil.
She'ol and the Reticence of the Tenakh

How were divine reward and punishment normally understood in the Tenakh?

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As worked out within this life, in the prosperity or the suffering of the nation and of the individual.
She'ol and the Reticence of the Tenakh

What happens when Saul consults the medium in I Samuel 28?

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The medium at Endor brings up Samuel, who rebukes Saul, foretells Israel's defeat and says that Saul and his sons will be with him the next day.
Nefesh, Neshamah and Ruach

What does Genesis 2:7 contribute to Jewish understanding of the soul?

Show the answer
It describes God forming the human from the dust and breathing life into him, so that body and soul together constitute the living person.
Nefesh, Neshamah and Ruach

Why is the Kaddish significant in mourning?

Show the answer
It is a prayer of praise for God recited by mourners, so grief is expressed by affirming God rather than by describing the fate of the dead.

The 6 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Kiddush Hashem and the Purpose of Life	Recall questions on the basic Jewish answer to life's purpose, why obedience is a response rather than a burden, and the meanings of kiddush and chillul Hashem.	8
The Messiah and the Messianic Age	Recall questions on the traditional expectation, the principle of Maimonides concerning it, the Reform reinterpretation and the Messianic Age.	17
She'ol and the Reticence of the Tenakh	Recall questions on She'ol and the Tenakh's reticence about the afterlife, reward and punishment in this life, Daniel on resurrection, and Saul's consultation of the medium at Endor.	12
Nefesh, Neshamah and Ruach	Recall questions on the episode used in discussions of She'ol and on the three Hebrew terms for aspects of the soul.	10
Resurrection of the Flesh	Recall questions on what resurrection of the flesh means, the principle affirming it, its place in daily prayer and how Reform prayer books altered it.	13
The Pittsburgh Platform, Divine Justice and Gilgul	Recall questions on what the Pittsburgh Platform affirmed and rejected, Gehinnom and the afterlife as completing God's justice after Job and the Holocaust, and gilgul in the Zohar and Luria.	17

Judaism: Self, Death and the Afterlife is 77 of the 3,683 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.