Our Gemara on Amud Aleph quotes a verse that describes the ignoble demise of Queen Izevel (II Kings 9:10): “And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel.”

She was generally recognized as an idolatrous, wicked, and cruel woman, who murdered prophets and devised a treacherous plot of false witnesses to appropriate a section of land from innocent householders (I Kings 18:4 and I Kings ch. 21). Yet, despite this, Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (17) praises two aspects of her chessed activities. When a funeral procession would pass by her palace, she would wail along with the procession, clap her hands in grief, and follow along for ten paces. Similarly, if a wedding procession passed by, she would clap her hands with joy, sing the bride or groom’s praises, and also follow along for ten paces. The Midrash says that in this merit, her skull, feet, and hands were spared from being eaten by the dogs.

There is an obvious lesson about the power and persistence of chessed, and even, shall we say, the strong urge for Jewish solidarity that possessed this despotic ruler. However, I wonder what kind of reward this is, exactly? In the end, she was dead.

Pashut peshat, we could say that the sparing of her skull, feet, and hands was no more a reward than the eating of most of her body was a punishment. Rather, they were signs of heavenly contempt and acceptance. The punishments she suffered in the World to Come were whatever she deserved, but the contempt for her body was evidence of God’s contempt. In the same manner, the sparing of certain limbs was evidence of God’s partial acceptance. On a deeper level—though this is hard to fully understand—we have a tradition that there is not only an afterlife, but somehow the soul can suffer various indignities from the decay that occurs to the body after death. For example, we see in Yerushalmi Moed Kattan (1:5, and Korban HaEdah) that the soul suffers while the flesh decays from the body, and feels relief when the process is completed. This link between the body and the soul speaks of something beyond life after death. It seems that, despite the disdain for flesh and earthly matters and the elevated status of the soul, Judaism is careful never to fully ignore the significance of the body.