Although belief in the afterlife is a mainstay of rabbinic Judaism, the Hebrew Bible is largely silent on the topic. However, notes Hayyim Angel, two of America’s most prominent academic Bible scholars have argued that the Tanakh does indeed endorse belief in the hereafter. Angel explores the questions of why this concept gets so little attention in the Bible, why the talmudic rabbis gave it greater attention, and the implications for contemporary Judaism. He takes as his point of departure the story of the Garden of Eden:

There were two trees at the center of Eden. The Tree of Life seems supernatural. Were Adam and Eve to eat from it, they would have become immortal. . . . [N]early every ancient mythology had a tree, a plant, or something else “of life.” This mythology reflects the obsessive quest for immortality in the ancient world.

In stark contrast, . . . the Torah decisively downplays the Tree of Life. That tree becomes significant to the narrative only after Adam and Eve sin by eating from the Tree of Knowledge and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. [Only then does] God send cherubim to prevent Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of Life. . . .

Even though the [idea of a] Tree of Life was prevalent in other ancient literatures, the Tree of Knowledge is otherwise unattested. The Torah is a revolution in human history, shifting focus away from nonexistent mythical fruits that give immortality and replacing them with an emphasis on developing a genuine relationship with God. It teaches that we must live religious-moral lives and take personal responsibility for our actions. The ultimate vision of the prophets is a messianic world, which will achieve a perfected, religious-moral society, [rather than immortality].

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.