<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><font size="4" class="">I have heard many conflicting opinions about our belief in </font><div class=""><font size="4" class="">reincarnation. I hope and pray it is not true. “One life is enough!”</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">Is there a definitive Jewish belief?</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">I have even heard some believe in “Transmigration of the Soul” which</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">is even more scary. As an impressionable kid, I once had a rabbi tell me</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">that if you don’t wash netilat yadayim prior to eating, you will come back </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">as a dog. </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">The following is an excerpt by an article in</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">the <a href="http://Aish.com" class="">Aish.com</a> Newsletter by Sara Yoheved Rigler.</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">there are hints to reincarnation in the Bible and early commentaries (1), while in Kabbalah, </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">Judaism’s mystical tradition, overt references to reincarnation abound. The Zohar, the basic text of Jewish mysticism (attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 1st century sage) </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">assumes gilgul neshamot [the recycling of souls] as a given, and the Ari, the greatest of all Kabbalists, whose 16th teachings are recorded in, Shaar HaGilgulim, </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">traced the reincarnations of many Biblical figures. While some authorities, such as Saadia Gaon (10th century) denied reincarnation as a Jewish concept, from the 17th century onward, </font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">leading rabbis of normative Judaism, such as the Gaon of Vilna and the Chafetz Chaim (2), referred to gilgul neshamot as a fact</font>.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><b class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(1)• See Deut. 33:6, and Targum Onkeles and Targum Yonosson on that verse. Also see Isaiah 22:14.<br class=""></b></div><div class=""><b class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(2)• Mishnah Berurah 23:5 and Shaar HaTzion 622:6</b></div></div><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></body></html>