THE BANALITY OF PARADISE: A CORRECTION

In my recent piece The Banality of Paradise I made the assumption that Christianity had inherited the idea of Heaven from Judaism. I have since received correspondence from a friend pointing out that this is inaccurate.
In the interests of preventing the further dissemination of inaccurate beliefs I quote the relevant section of her correspondence in full.   
'In essence, mainstream Judaism does believe in some sort of life after death, but is vague on the details. For example, the funeral service includes the words, 'So and so, who has gone to his/her eternal home'. What is missing from Judaism is the idea that this life is a prelude to the next one, and also really of reward or punishment in the next life. It's been said that Judaism is a religion of the living, and because of the vagueness about what happens after death, you are encouraged to live as if this is all there is. Having said this (and always in Judaism there's more than one answer) there is the belief in orthodox Judaism in the coming of the Messiah, when all conflict will cease and everyone who's dead will get out of their graves and be alive. Also, there is an idea of hell, Gehenna, but that's kabbalistic, the mystic side of Judaism, coming from the mystics of Safed, and is not part of mainstream Judaism. Not the Kabbalah of Madonna etc, true Kabbalah is not to be studied under the age of 40, and is nothing to do with giving large sums of money!  The main thing is the idea that your life on Earth influences what happens after death, is not really there in Judaism, and certainly not in the detail nor emphasis that it has in Christianity, and I think in Islam too.'

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