[Avodah] other inyanim (like buddhism)-nirvana??

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 12:49:27PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: R' Harvey Benton asked:
: > they hold we have gilgulim (and we do as well) perhaps thier
: > exact numbers of gilgwhat does buddism expound and is it
: > azara??

: There are many such things which are common to many religions. My
: approach is to ignore them.

In general I agree, but in the case of gilgulim...

It is interesting to note that in Emunos veDei'os 6:8, R Saadia Gaon
rejects a concept R' Ibn Tibbon translated to "haataqah". (I don't know
the Arabic original.) RSG's description: "the soul of Reuven will return
to Shimon, and then to Levi, and then to Yehuda. Many of them say that
there are times when the soul of a human enters an animal and the soul
of an animal enters a human, and many other such matters of madness and
confusion." (Translation from Ibn Tibon's Hebrew by Amitai Halevi.)
And RSG describes people who believe such things as "people who are
called Jews", who bought into a belief that isn't from the mesorah and
did indeed originate in those other religions.
(See <http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/kapah/6b-2.htm#8> for R' Yosef
el-Qafih's [Kapach's] translation.)

See also the Iqarim, 4:29, who writes, "umikan yatza lachakhmei haqabalah
daas hagilgul" then gives a philosophical basis to their belief. But
continues "aval ein zeh nachon"!
(See text at <http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/ikarim/d11-2.htm#2>.)

And also numerous old threads.

In any case, the relevent bit in revisiting this topic is simply that
according to RSG, if not RYAlbo (the Iqarim), the answer to RHB's general
question might be RAM's, but not when speaking of gilgul in particular.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
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