Judaism does not shy away from close encounters with death, but frames them ritually. Much attention is paid to treating the dead (and even a dead body) with respect (k’vod ha-met) and to comforting mourners (nichum aveilim).
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/death-mourning-101/
We begin with this piece which you’ll also find in Comprehensive Jewish Studies and Darshan Training
Notes: Life, Death and Mourning
There have been many different understandings of the afterlife in Jewish tradition. To summarize, Judaism focuses on a here-and-now theology: that what one does in this life, and for this life, is more important than a reward. Originally Judaism believed the afterlife to be an amoral, shadowy world called sheol which can also mean pit or grave.
Central to a Jewish afterlife is the idea of olam haba, the World to Come. This is not heaven. It is this world, made better. All of the righteous of the world, Jewish or otherwise, have a share in this world to come. Those who do not life righteously will simply not be there.
The Reward and Punishment elements of the afterlife do come into play in some Jewish theology. Heaven (often thought of as an Edenic paradise) and hell (called gehenah or gehinom — named after a real place — the Valley of Hinnom in Israel which was a flaming Roman trash pit where idolaters once sacrificed their children) are temporary states of being until this judgement day and the world to come.
Some Jews believe in a kind of reincarnation where one experiences multiple lives, often within the same family lineage, with the punitive aspects of the afterlife as a way to cleanse the soul. Some Jews are atheists and put the matter to rest. Alas, we’re a diverse bunch.
