Antoninos, the Roman emperor who maintained a famous friendship with Rabbeinu Hakadosh (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law)), once posed a penetrating theological question: When a person dies and the body decomposes, how can God possibly stand that person in judgment? The body has returned to dust. What is there left to judge?
Rabbeinu Hakadosh did not answer the question directly. Instead, he redirected it with characteristic brilliance. "Before you ask me about the body, which is tamei (ritually impure)," he said, "ask me about the soul, which is pure. If you find it difficult to imagine the impure body standing in judgment, how much more difficult should it be to imagine the pure soul being judged?"
The implication was striking. Both body and soul contribute to a person's actions during life. Neither can claim innocence alone. The body without the soul cannot act. The soul without the body cannot sin in the physical world. They are partners in every deed, good or evil.
Rabbeinu Hakadosh then offered a parable — the famous analogy of a king who owned a beautiful orchard, which is elaborated at length in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 91a-b). The parable involves a blind guard and a lame guard who conspire together to steal fruit, each claiming innocence because neither could have done it alone. The king places the lame man on the blind man's shoulders and judges them as one.
So too, the Mekhilta teaches, God will reunite body and soul at the resurrection and judge them together — because together they lived, and together they must answer.