Six years ago, Rabbi Benjamin Blech, assistant professor of Bible, was informed that he was suffering from cardiac amyloidosis, a fatal and incurable disease.
The book he has written about this experience, Hope, Not Fear: Changing the Way We View Death, received in the New York Jewish Week by Jonathan Mark, associate editor.
Marks calls it a 鈥渟lender but splendid book鈥 and notes that Rabbi Blech comes to his understanding that souls not only have a consciousness but that they can communicate with the living 鈥渨ith the excitement of a blind person suddenly able to see the aurora borealis.鈥
Alan Rosenbaum, in the Jerusalem Post, also wrote , calling the book an 鈥渆loquent and personal response鈥 to the fact of the death that he and all humans face.
鈥淭o understand death,鈥 said Rabbi Blech, 鈥渋s to enter a realm that of necessity requires faith as a guide...There is life after this life.鈥