[Avodah] Reincarnation (was Women and Tefillin)

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 09:33:45AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: The Talmud may have talked about reincarnation, but not explicitly.   

I promise you that if Rav Saadia Gaon claims that reincarnation is an
alien idea first being imported into Yahadus in his day, it's not in
the gemara even implicitly.

"Pinchas zeh Eliyahu" is said by Reish Laqish, but the earliest source
I could find for this quote is Yalqut Shim'oni. So, those in favor of
gilgul could simply argue that RSG didn't have that quote. But to say
a gaon didn't know all of shas be'al peh???

: It is at least a plausible inference in such cases that  the person who 
: lived later is a reincarnation of the earlier person or in some  sense shares 
: the earlier person's soul or a spark of the former's  soul.

The latter two aren't what RSG objects to.

I also suggested many years ago (v10n134, Mar '03) that R' Saadia
Gaon's problem is with reincarnation of a particular aspect of the soul,
something which made the belief more Greek / Hindu and about a cyclic
view of life and history. But PERHAPS gilgul haNESHMAH where the word
is "neshamah" in a Nara"n sense of the term (and RSG discusses Nara"n
in Emunos veDei'os) would not have bothered RSG.

See <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=G#GILGUL>
and <http://bit.ly/oKh7e5> (or
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=C#CLASSICAL%20AUTHORITIES%20WHO%20OPPOSED%20BELIEF%20IN%20GILGUL%20NE)
for previous iterations of this topic.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht