[Avodah] Gilgul Hanefesh

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 12:43:04PM +0200, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote:
: As I understand it, gilgul neshamot is not the same as the eastern
: idea of reincarnation, where one person's soul literally incarnates
: again in another body and lives another life...

RSGaon says in (Emunos veDei'os 6:8
<http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/kapah/6b-2.htm#8> tr R' Yosef
el-Qafeh, "Kapach"; emphasis mine):
    Venineini omer
    ki anashim, mimi SHENIQRA'IM YEHUDIM,
    matzasim ma'aminim begilgul
    veqor'in oso haha'ataqus.

I left that in Hebrew because I want to be medayeiq in lashon in a
moment. To continue, with my translation from the Hebrew:
   The matter to their minds is that the ruach of Re'uvein will be
   in Shim'on, and after that in Leivi, and after that in Yehudah.
   And from them, or most of them figure that it could be that the ruach
   of a person will be in an animal, and the ruach of an anumal in a
   person. And a lot of such delusions and confusion.

And then the rest of the chapter lists their errors.

RYeQ footnotes that R' Uzziel concluded that the people who are "called
Jews" who believe such things are the Qaraim. Anan (the founder) picked
up this idea from the Greeks.

I do not know the original Arabic, but in this translation, notice
that it's possible to read RSG as being against people to take the
idea of gilgul and call it "ha'ataqus" and describe it as souls
migrating from person to person or even to animal, etc... But not
against gilgul itself. Which would support Lisa's understanding.

This read has two open questions to resolve, not that I am saying
they're unanswerable:

1- RSG does use the same Arabic again at the end of the chapter (and
ma'amar) that R "Kapach" translates to "gilgul" -- "And I say: what
does this say that teaches about gilgul?..."

Perhaps it should be read: How do they think those pesuqim indicate
that gilgul means ha'ataqah -- they don't talk about gilgul altogether?

2- My bigger problem is that RSG would then be spending all this time on
a heretical misunderstanding of gilgul, without even one sentence saying,
"But what gilgul *really* means..."? It would even be an important point
of the ma'amar's discussion of souls and afterlife. This omission I find
highly unlikely.


As to how they would differ.

The kind of people who talk about gilgul also talk about Naran and
sometimes even Naran Chai -- Nefesh Ruach Neshamah, which are the 
penimios aspects of the soul, and Chayah and Yechidah.

For that matter, RSG discusses Naran in the very same ma'amar (6:3
<http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/kapah/6-2.htm#3>) as three
kochos. To RSG, they are an indisible singularity that has three
abilities. But in more Qabbalistic sources, they are described as
parts even as the soul's unitary nature is also asserted.

If ruach and nashamah are indeed parts, then there is a huge difference
between

1- Gilgul nashamos: The neshamah -- and according to the Ari, even
"sparks" of a neshamah rather than a whole one -- "revolves" from one
life in one body to another.

And
2- Ha'ataqa: where the ruach migrates.

Neshamah is much less associated with the notion of "self" than ruach
is. E.g. "Neshamah shanasati bi, tehorah hi." The "bi -- in me" receives
a neshamah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
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