Reincarnation: Fiction or Fact?

generally when you talk about reincarnation um the response the first response i get from most jews is we believe in that isn't that some eastern religious systems buddhism and and other ones that believe in reincarnation is that really a jewish idea you know and those with a little bit of knowledge will add an argument don't we believe in the process after someone passes away of gehenum of purgatory and then ganeden of paradise heaven and then there's a future a reward system allam habba where meshech will come the world to come meaning once the soul finishes their life here on earth if we believe in the soul which we all do then it moves on what's the idea of reincarnation what are we coming back to the world for and actually the early jewish philosophers rab sadia gone most quoted lived over a thousand years ago they categorically held that the reincarnation is not part of jewish belief some were kind enough to say that we have not seen it yet and if someone proves to us that it's written in the torah then we will accept it but as of now we don't see reincarnation within judaism many things are not written clearly in the torah but they are in the medrash they are in other parts of the oral torah but reincarnation the real source of reincarnation explicitly spelled out is in the kabbalah and the kabbalah was not accessible to most people even some of the greatest scholars until a thousand years ago you know we know the rapture by who lived after the destruction of the second temple was the one who wrote the zohar but it was still a very hidden book that very few people in each generation had studied and they definitely did not share it with anyone else many of its ideas as well was not shared in the time in the spanish era we'll talk about him soon a little bit before the kabbalah started to come out a little more more scholars were aware of it got to know some of his content and that's where really reincarnation is talked about in greater length and the one who really brought it to the fore was rabbi isaac lauria the ariza and rabisa gloria who did not write his own teachings he had his student in in the few years he spent in swat israel and vital who wrote his teachings and there is one of his books is called shah gilgulem it's called the gates of the gilgam of reincarnation and he talks about reincarnation in great depth much more than we're going to cover today and that is really where reincarnation became part of the jewish accepted as part of the jewish belief system and today really you won't find i just heard today an orthodox rabbi said he doesn't believe in it but generally you won't find uh across the board you won't find anyone really who will deny the reincarnation as a part of jewish belief system so what we're going to discuss today is what is reincarnation all about number one what's the place of reincarnation if we do have a full system and we're very well aware of reward and punishment in heaven um punishment is part of a rehabilitation of the soul until it comes to the final place in ghanaian in paradise then we have the ultimate reward the meshech will come what do we need to come back in this world for what is reincarnation all about you know buddhism believes in the fatalism that a person the soul is just has to keep on going in circles goes in one body out of the body comes back in another body and this continues indefinitely but we have a system of what happens to the soul so where does reincarnation fit into in the jewish way of belief and once we do believe in it does it happen to everyone or are there only specific situations where reincarnation will happen as well why in the torah until the kabbalah sort of revealed it why in the torah is there no hints and nothing written about reincarnation if it's such an important part of the process of the soul that we all possess and more importantly why don't we have any inkling of what went on in our previous wives now everyone's familiar with the book many masters many lives from dr weiss written in the 80s where as a psychologist he ended up working with one of his patients through hypnosis and that's when the woman started to talk about her previous lives and then the masters who were involved in their lives and she even revealed to him about his life um we're brought reincarnation to the fore and suggesting that through hypnosis in other ways you could actually access who you were in a previous life but with that we don't really believe in that we're not going to really access who we were in the previous life and why not that's what we're going to try to get into today so let's start from the beginning why what place does reincarnation have so for jews the soul is in heaven gets placed into a body with a mission the mission is that this soul which is spiritual will come into a body a physical body an imperfect world and during its lifetime will elevate the the body that that it's in through following the torah commandments god had given us living as a jew a proper jew and in turn elevate the world that we come in contact with as well and once a person finishes their mission in life then the soul got goes up to heaven for its second chapter now that it's gone through the experience of life in this world and its gains it has to go through some process of cleansing itself rehabilitating itself from some of the sins it may have partaken of or just in the environment that it's in which is negative and evil and then it can go to ganedin but at a higher level because of its experience in life and that's where it stays until when meshech will come when the soul and body will be reunited because the body at that time will also be fully refined and we will be in a perfect state the world and the person reincarnation comes in because sometimes our mission on earth has not ended though our life has ended the person's life the mission has not ended and that could be broken down into several parts one is and the alta rebel and tanya the book of tanya talks about it at length that every soul needs when it comes down to earth to have self-actualization what does that mean the body consists of 613 parts 248 limbs 365 veins and other arteries and that is why we have 613 mitzvos 613 commandments 248 positive 365 negative corresponding to the body parts and the soul also has those 613 parts so the soul coming into the body through the fulfillment of the mitzvos of the commandments of god is elevating every single part of the body which the ultimate goal is to infuse the body totally with godliness and the body should be only full of holiness and get rid of all its negativity and negative physical aspects this is the mission of every soul coming to earth in reality most people cannot or will not fulfill all the 613 commandments in one lifetime it's just not possible just simply today we live in a time when we don't have many mitzvahs don't apply because we don't have the temple many of us don't live in israel so many laws related to israel do not apply to us all the laws related to the temple the sacrifices and everything else around it also do not apply to us not everyone is a kohen so the laws related to a coin or a levy a levite et cetera et cetera so that many laws don't apply even in the best of scenarios but to live and do all the mitzvos fully it's almost impossible to do it in one lifetime and for that reason the soul has to come down to earth again and again until it fulfills all of the 613 commandments once the soul is fulfilled of 613 commandments then it's finished its mission on earth fully certain mitzvahs we don't have to do because no matter how many reincarnations we have there very few of us will be kings the many mitzvahs related to being a king of the jewish people or the coin gadol the high priest so certain general mitzvahs the ones who are filled that position do it on behalf of all the jews all souls but the majority we all have to fulfill and for that we have to come down on earth again and again and the the sample the parable brought down by some of the early writers of reincarnation is like someone who has a plants a vineyard and the grapes that come out are so-so some are good some are not so good it wasn't so successful so what do they do they uproot the vineyard and they try it in another soil and then if it's not so successful they try it again until they get it they it gives out its full potential and this is what happens in life we live a lifetime we didn't finish the mitzvahs were brought down again the souls put down in another body to continue doing the mitzvos and come to self actualization it's interesting a lot of the reincarnation stories you read about is everyone was a prince or a princess or some very fairy tale type of romanticized person in their previous life but judaism doesn't buy into that obviously because it's here it's part of a mission of living life and sometimes there's a mitzvah to receive money so sometimes in life we may have to go through harder times where we have to be on the receiving end of charity and sometimes we're giving to charity hopefully more of that than the other and the many different aspects of life we have to come down again and again and that is the majority of reasons of why this reincarnation why most souls are coming again and again so it's not indefinite it at some point the soul has fulfilled all the commandments and the souls finish its mission on earth but then there's another one and this is very interesting the other reason we have reincarnation is to rectify a sin a sin that had been done here on earth has to be rectified now you will ask everyone sins we're all imperfect people we all sin we all do things that are not the 100 percent but that's what god made the system of punishment in heaven or the rehabilitation we're called that's what judaism really believes there's no internal punishment the rehabilitation of the soul for its going off the track and coming back to its pure state this is what the process of the judgment in heaven the process of purgatory et cetera et cetera this is all to rectify the sins so for what reason do you have to come back down on earth so there are two categories two reasons why what kind of a sin or what kind of a situation will bring you back to earth one is god will forgive us in heaven rehabilitate us for things that happened between us and god so many of the commandments are related to a spiritual spiritual development shabbos fill-in holidays kosher this is an individual relationship that you have with god that you have to do to be able to get close to god and do fulfill his commands but many of the commands that god had given us are about human relations between two people don't steal don't kill don't be dishonest help other people etc etc and for those commandments just like on yom kippur when we stand before god and we pray for god to forgive us the sins that are between us and god the the the shortcomings that we have in life that affect our relationship with god directly yom kippur handles the truth we do in yom kippur is perfect brings us back in sync with god but the sins the things that happen in the in the human relation to one another it's not enough to just stand before god we have to ask forgiveness before yom kippur was supposed to ask people if i hurt you forgive me if we know specifically that we had something with someone we asked them for forgiveness it's not enough just to stand before god so so too after the soul lives its life on earth if there was a human interaction certain human interactions where something fatalistic or something happened that was unjust sometimes you have to come back down to earth to play out this the scene again so very often all the characters will come back to earth they were involved in that scene to play out the scene again and then there is there's rectification in this world then the soul can go back to heaven and if it finishes journey fine if not it will continue on his journey of doing all the mitzvahs and when the balshemptov who really took the idea of reincarnation and and spoke about it more from the time of isaac gloria about 500 years ago that basham tov 300 years ago took it to the next level where he started to relate to people openly about some of the people about what their mission here is and what they're reincarnated for and we'll talk some of the stories his student who became his successor the magadam is rich when he first came as an adult drawn to the baal shem tov in his teachings and he heard about reincarnation he says i don't know i don't get reincarnation explain it to me what's what is it really how does it play out in real life so the vashantov sent him to go to a particular place in the forest and said just hang out there for some time and you'll you'll figure it out so he goes to the place in the forest and he's a bunch of trees and a little brook and he's uh sitting there on the side and he notices a fellow a traveler traveling sees the brook stops takes a drink ties his horse to the tree and then lies down he puts his bags down wakes up an hour later picks up his bags takes the horse starts riding but he forgot his purse his purse was lifted a little while later another traveler goes by sees the brook takes a drink of water sees a purse lying on the ground says ah great find in the forest it doesn't belong to anybody right jewish law says if you find something in a place where people live and you can there are many jews there you have to try to return it but in the forest who does it belong to takes the purse puts it in his pocket and moves on a little while later a third fellow passes by stops takes a drink by the brook he's tired he lays down he goes to sleep while he's sleeping the first fellow who left his purse must have realized he forgot his purse he comes back he sees a guy lying there and the person is nowhere to be found he right away suspects that this guy stole his purse he started to beat him up and then the guy says it's not me he says i don't believe you and he beats him up he doesn't find the person he doesn't know where he hit it he moves on so the maggot sees this unfolding before his eyes like what's going on i mean what does this have to do with reincarnation there's just bad luck of the third guy who came by and the first guy lost his purse so he goes back to his rep and he says rabbit tell me what's going on so rebecca says i'll tell you in a previous life these three people were involved in an incident person number one was involved in a dispute with person number two and person number one owed person number two money but he denied it so they went in front of the judge a bed in a jewish court which was person number three and person number three judged wrongly he gave the wrong judge he was a rabbi but he he misjudged he gave the wrong judgment so god said i'm going gonna bring all them back to earth so person number two gets the money that belongs to him back person number one loses the money that and person number three judge wrongly gets retribution on earth then now they're all rectified and when they end their life they can go further in their ascent in heaven then there's another type of rectification and that is sometimes exotic a great person who may have done something that to this the average person is not considered a sin but to someone who's on the greatest level of holiness and coming to ganeshan to paradise wants to be the deserves to be on the highest levels with the moses mushroom and all the greats but something they did in their life or something that happened in their life is holding them back from attaining that level not it was a sin but an event that happened or some some situation they were in or some circumstance so they come back down to earth to rectify or to relive that part of their life where something went wrong in a pure state now and then they can go to the highest levels and again we have a beautiful story from the balshemptov which describes this and the story goes out there was a couple who couldn't have children and they they came to the balshemptov as followers of the basham they're recognizing his great powers to please pray to god that they have a child there's nothing more in the world they want them to have a child and the bashamtv did not respond they came back the next year again and they asked for a child ashantav did not respond a few years this happened no response the couple is getting very worried because they're getting older in age and there's not much time left we don't have all the medical advances we have today the time is running out and if they don't get a blessing very soon it's not going to happen so the next time they came to measure bush to the balchemtov the woman after asking about for blessing said like i can't help you she said i'm sorry rebbe but i really want a child and i'm not going to leave your room until you with all your powers bless me to have a child so valcanthov puts down his head thinks for a moment picks up his head he says okay god willing within a year you will have a baby boy they were elated they were excited they go home they're preparing for a child because they believed that when the rebecca is a blessing it happens and within a year they have a beautiful baby boy and the parents the whole world centers around this child and the mother is with the child every moment and then at the second birthday of the child the mother goes in the morning to wake up the child to eat breakfast to feed and the child died child their most beloved child they waited for so many years is not around anymore the mother is besides herself is this the blessing that we went to the balsham to get to give us a child only to take him away after two years i'd rather we'd rather not have ever had a child than to have a child and witness death and she carries the child with her said before i bury him i have to find out from the bashantha what is going on how how did he give us such a curse and they stormed to the next town where the bashamtv lives demands an immediate meeting and she starts crying for the rabbit rabbit this is not a blessing this is a curse so the bashantev cries with her says i feel your pain let's do the burial then come back i'll tell you i'll tell you something so they come back and vashantha says i want to tell you a story he says many years ago there was a king a certain part of asia and this king had jewish subjects muslim subjects other other subjects and this king though very successful they could he couldn't have children and the only thing in the world he wanted was to have a child the heir to his kingdom the next king so his advisors told him that [Music] you got to ask the people in the kingdom to pray for you to have a child only god can help you so people started to pray for a child but it wasn't happening so one of his anti-semitic advisers says that you got to it's the jews they don't want you to have a child they don't like you if you have no child there's no future it may be better for them so you got to really pressure the jews so the king made a decree a harsh decree oppressing pressing the jews that they must pray it's their fault and actually said if they don't have a child within three don't get pregnant within a few months they are all going to be expelled from the kings from the kingdom now the jews had nowhere to go they weren't welcome anywhere around that kingdom so they really started to pray and pray and pray and thank god he had his wife got pregnant but that didn't change the situation he still was very oppressive to the jews because his advisor said it's not the jews it's others whose prayers work anyways the child was born and very quickly they saw that this child was a child prodigy he was at a few months he was already speaking by two years old they put him into a proper class but within two years he outgrew all of his teachers so they had to look for the best and they put out the search committee for the best teachers and they found some teacher who they who they brought in as to teach the child it's one of the religions over there anyways the child took to the teacher very much and every waking moment he was near the teacher because he wanted to learn he really connected the teacher was very brilliant and was teaching the child and was teaching about life but one thing the teacher asked when he was hired that he from the king that he needs two hours every morning for himself he's giving his whole life to the child but he needs some private time the king said sure i grant it to you so two hours every day that the teacher disappeared and the child was very inquisitive couldn't understand why can't i be with him all the time what is he doing and his curiosity took him over until he decided he found one of the guards who led him into the room a little early to hide in the closet to see what does the teacher do when he hides himself in his room and the kid notices who the little keyhole in the closet that the teacher takes off all of his religious symbols and then takes out a bag and a shawl puts on the shoal then takes out two black boxes and and straps and he's putting this on this kid never saw this before in his life and he's like breathing heavy like like it's like his curiosity is growing in him and the teacher hears his breathing so he opens up the closet he says and he's shocked what are you doing here this is my private time you're not allowed to be here if you tell the king what i'm doing now i'm going to be fired and who knows what else will happen to me so the kid said i'm not going to tell my father anything just tell me what are you doing who are you so he told him that he's a jew and his father was very oppressive and he had to undertake to be like it's another religion to keep stay alive and he started to tell him a little bit about himself and the child was very curious tell me more about judaism what is it to be a jew what do you believe in and before long their their classes were all about judaism till the point that the child yet young told the this fellow i want to be a jew so the teacher says you fell off your uh your rocker what's going on over here i mean you're the next king you're going to give up to be a jew your father hears about this he's going to execute you definitely me so the child says i don't care i just want to be a jew you have to help me so they devised the plan where the teacher convinced the father that the child is smart he's growing up he has to learn how to run a country so let them they're going to take a world trip for a few years to see how other kingdoms work and then they'll come back and he'll be well versed in seeing understanding what the what's in it for his job the king bore into it gave them money they left the kingdom and he took him to a jewish center he placed him with some rabbis he knew he gave them over he says convert the child and this young child became a jew and became a great great scholar and a sadiq a great person he lived a full life he passed away from this world he comes into heaven all sudden the red carpet laid out all the heavenly gates are open for this fellow look at a person who left being a king to become a jew and such a pure soul to the highest levels of heaven he's going to go but then all of a sudden they said but we can't because he was born to a gentile mother he nursed and he ate everything that she ate for those years which was includes non-kosher so his soul has some negative things to it not that this is a sin there's no sin involved in this but someone on such a lofty level it's a little bit of a blemish so they decided in heaven they're going to send this soul back down to earth to live out the first two years of his life and earth to a jewish parents who are observant will bring them up fully as a jew only kosher etc and then they'll take his soul back and he'll go into the highest places in heaven and this was the child that you were blessed with so these are sometimes the stories of reincarnation of special people you know sometimes you see there was a tragic story in canada a shaliah lost their six-year-old daughter in a terrible drowning accident and you know they have beautiful children several beautiful children but this child that unfortunately drowned passed away at such a young age was like the light of the family was unusual child and sometimes you hear how sometimes the some people who are taken young i've seen some people who passed away young and there's something unusual about them some special soul that they have and perhaps sometimes reincarnation plays a role in why they had to come back down to earth and many other stories that want to get into them but reincarnation helps us sometimes see things in a little bit different light a third reason much less is the soul will come down here not for their own uh self-actualization not even to rectify sin it's for the public good it's for public benefit and that is that assault comes down on earth in a selfless manner to be able to help other souls achieve an elevated life sometimes you find people who are mentally disable or have other types of illnesses where sometimes you wonder what's their purpose here on earth or someone gets into a difficult stage in life where they have no ability to do anything and you wonder what's the quality of their life but sometimes the quality of the life is that through this person many other people become much better people and you know we have a niece my brother and sister-in-law their ninth child was born down syndrome it was a very unknown to them until the birth it was very shocking initially but they quickly embraced god's blessing they called her actually bracha this summer very soon as her basmitzva because they felt this is a blessing from god and to their family and to a certain extent to the larger family what this child has done to bring out the humanity the sensitivity about for those around them it's incredible to see the blessing she's brought into home that what she has brought the light she has opened up none of the other children as talented as great as they are did anything like that sometimes these souls are souls that agree to come down to earth just to allow us to become much more sensitive to other people and to elevate our soul so these are some of the reasons that are given for why reincarnation can happen now it's interesting that was a capitalist he actually explained one of the one of the most difficult laws or mitzvahs through reincarnation there's a law in the torah called yibum yibam is leveraged marriage so someone is married to a woman and he dies unfortunately childless so the mitzvah is that the brother of this fellow should marry this one now it's interesting law because in jewish law this is incest you're not going to marry someone who's married to a family member but yet here the torah says it's a mitzvah now the torah gives a way out if the person doesn't feel comfortable khalifa they can sort of divorce but they're bound to each other until they either marry or divorce and nachman has explained what is behind this idea he explains it through the story in the in genesis and voracious of of yehuda and tamar i don't know how many you are familiar with the story of yahudah judah after they sold joseph he felt bad about what he did and he ran away and he married a woman and he had three children air onan and shayla air marries this woman tamar a very special woman but he dies young without children yehuda knew already about the laws of levith marriage because they were knowledgeable of the jewish laws and he had his younger son onan marry tamar as par per the law of leverage marriage marriage tamar but he doesn't want to have children with her he also dies young there's a third child left the young one shayla yehuda doesn't want shayla to marry tamari's too young she pushes her off she realizes after a while that the maybe never wants shayla to marry her so she ends up getting dressed up as a prostitute even though she was a great woman she heard where yehuda was traveling and she lures them into a relationship and that relationship that one-time relationship turns into twins that she has parrots and zara and you heard the lady later acknowledges that there is children and he embraces her fulfilling deliberate marriage which after the torah was given a father-in-law cannot marry her but before the torah was given that restriction wasn't there so what was the story what was the story what celebrate marriage so he explains like this what happens sometimes a person passes away young because they got off to a bad start on life something went wrong and they're just going in the wrong direction so sometimes god will take the soul from earth and replant like we said before replant the soul back on earth to give it a second chance so someone dies childless meaning they don't leave a future they're the end of the line then that must be that they really need a reincarnation who better to reincarnate the soul than the wife who he was married with his closest kin his brother who carries a lot of the genes spiritual and physical of himself and that's what they married to the child is a reincarnation of the brother that died so what happened was on heir died onan gets married but ono knows that he's going to bring in the child into the world that's not going to represent him he's going to represent his brother he wasn't he wasn't interested i want to bring my child into the world i don't want to bring my brother's child into the world i don't want to bring his reincarnation so he also didn't want to have a child and he died now yehuda was scared that his third son will have the same challenge and will not be able to stand up to the challenge so he sent tamara away but tamar also knew the secret of reincarnation and he knew that aaron onan came from judah they were great souls but they somehow messed up on earth so she died she was desired so much to have to bring these souls back down to earth so she she came up with a plan of how she would lure judah into a relationship and out of that relationship was born parrots and zara who were the reincarnation of her own and they became they were great people actually mashiach comes from that relationship so that's explains one of the myths in the torah which is a mystery era that the arizona revisit gloria um he mentions actually some reincarnations in his book or shahrukh gul and the gates of gulen he mentions various reincarnations i want to mention a few so one of the stories in the torah is shechem and dina so jacob is traveling back home he stops off in in an area and dina goes out and shem who is the son of the appointed by himself the appointed the king or ruler of the area rapes dina yaakov and his children end up making a pact that if they circumcise they'll accept them but his two sons shim and levy kill the whole city now something was very wrong that dina who was a noble woman from a priestly family from jacob abraham isaac jacob's family was raped by this nobody it just doesn't make sense that nobody i mean his father made himself the ruler but he had no real royalty and nobility in him how does this person come in so shechem's soul came back a few generations later in the body of zimri uh in in the body of uh zimri ben salvo zimri was a was the leader of the tribe of shimon who at the time midyan by the suggestion of bilaam the midianites sent out their women to lure jewish men into the relationship and to bow down to idols as a way of destroying the jewish people after his cursing didn't work zimri bensallo unusual to have a leader who was a fine person fell into the trap and ended up being lured by one of the princesses cosby basser and he ended up having you know parading her around this is my woman to the point that created such havoc within the jewish people that pinchas killed zimri ben salut so now shechem came back as a soul that belonged to nobility so at least the sin happened from nobility to nobility now pinchas who survived knowing the god actually blessed them came back as a reincarnation according to most in elijah the prophet elijah navi elijah the prophet lived in the time of when when idol in the first temple was rampant who uh achaev had a wife izebel izevel chased eliyahu his whole life trying to kill him jezebel isabel was a reincarnation of cosby bastour who picha's killed before you follow it a little bit so one interesting things we see is that reincarnation helps us see the continuum of life you know to us we live every generation is its own one second is its own uh is its own time and it's disconnected except for our parents but really to god this one long thing going on and every generation is connected in one way something that happened before okay so another thing the inquisition from there was a time there was a period of time from the crusades to the inquisition where there was an unusual period of few hundred years where though we lived under oppression for many years and though we lived through the most difficult times and dictators and people who made our lives miserable but during those few hundred years there was immense pressure on the jewish people to convert to christianity that didn't exist at any other time with such immense pressure and such a prolonged period of conversion now though we know about the muranos and there were people who converted but the truth is that most people did not convert most jews were ready to die at the stake most jews gave everything up to run away and not convert most jews lived through the greatest hardships because they didn't convert in the time when the crusade started then through several hundred years on spanish jury the question is why did they have such tremendous pressure for conversion at that time and he explains that they wore a reincarnation those generations were a reincarnation of the time in the that we mentioned before in the first temple there was a period of time we had the temple the jews were religious but somehow idol worship crept into jewish life to most jewish people there were saved a few thousand that did not worship idols so we were religious we kept shabbos and we worshiped idols and other worship is one of the worst sins you can't just in heaven wreck the fight it's a it's a you have to die for instead rather than not worship idols and that needed rectification on earth so god brought back all those souls who chose to worship idols in the time of the temple though they had the temple with all the glory and the presence of god so they would be able to make the choice again do they still want to worship idols or would they rather choose god most souls chose god that's how they rectified that sin that happened at that time someone wants to ask the rabbit does that mean that we can justify the holocaust as a part of reincarnation and the rebels said that the holocaust is something that we can never understand the answers because the the the you know the the scope of the of the murder and the way they murdered and children et cetera it's it's it's beyond understanding and sheikh will come maybe we'll understand but we know it came from god but we we shouldn't just write it off as part of reincarnation another thing we're going to read in yom kippur the ten martyrs rabbi kiva one of the famous ones is so these were great martyrs after the time of destruction of the second temple they chose the 10 best rabbis over a period of some 30 years and each one they tortured in a unique way in a terrible terrible way and he explains that these were the reincarnations of the souls of the the brothers of joseph who who took part in selling him which never had rectified they never we found we never found that they really were punished or they really we found that they regretted but we never find the full circle was closed and they came back down and that's why god said to the koi gadol yeshua when he went up to heaven he says so god they want to kill us all what do we do do we hide do we fight god says he got to accept it it's part of the plan and that was because they were a reincarnation it said actually that the generation of mashiach is coming with the rebels said we're in the generation we're in the cusp of the coming of meshiach is a reincarnation of the generation that left egypt now the generation had left egypt many jews didn't leave egypt they didn't want to leave egypt they didn't believe they didn't have faith so we have to in our generation embrace come back to embrace the wanting to go out of this exile with meshiach and that's why interesting everything that happens in the world falls somewhere in torah that's why the feminist movement begun in our era because in the time of of egypt who were the ones that held the jewish people strong the jewish women the women when they held the jewish people strong it was their power so now as we're getting close to mashiach the women are emerging again obviously within the rules and the proper way of torah you see here by the retreat so many women speaking and inspiring this is their moment because that's what's going to help us get out of exile as well so besides the fact that this helps us understand how really we don't understand how god runs the world we don't know what's going on around us and a lot of things that are happening there's a plan going on that's way beyond whatever we can ever understand and that's why in torah doesn't talk about the any parts of the revealed torah doesn't talk about reincarnation because all it can do is possibly confuse us and interfere in what we have to do that's why we have no recollection of our previous lives because the only reason we come back down to earth is to rectify by our own free will what we miss we did wrong in our previous life and there's a great story with the balshampton how a fellow was not the follower of the bashantav heard of the balsam the great rabbi a great man and he wanted to meet him to test himself a wealthy fellow who traveled around the business was knowledgeable in torah is he real so he gets he passes by measure bush's town and he gets an audience he goes into the rebbe and he sits down to the reshanta says what can i do for you she says listen i'm traveling by i heard many things about they wanted to have a little discussion in torah to see your your power in torah so they had a few minute discussion but the vashantha had no time to just sit and discuss with this fellow tori had a lot of things waiting so he tells the fellow do you mind if i tell you a story so the guy says no i'll be happy to hear a story she says many years ago there were two kids born into a certain town who were best friends from when they were young they were best friends and their friendship was as tight as ever came time of marriage and they each married a girl from a different area but before they moved out to their father-in-law's homes they made a pact that they are brothers and whatever happens in life they are brothers even though they're going to be distances away they're going to be in touch with each other they're one anyways they both go out in life and they both become very successful one of them will call him at some point business turns bad and very shortly loses all his money falls into great death and he doesn't know where to turn to she remembers i have my brother let me go and check him out i'm sure he'll be able to help me he knew that he was successful he goes to this fellow called shimon he goes to him knocks in his door very very heavy shoulders with his burdens and his debts and he says is shimon here so the household helps us sure we'll call him he calls shimon comes downstairs reuven they hug each other how are you and they're talking invites them in and gives them tea and coffee then after he takes care of him he says do me a favor you didn't come here just to say hi what's going on she said he told them this whole story so shimmer says listen you're my brother stay here and i'm gonna help you he calls in his accountant he says count up my assets he counts up his assets he says ruvain you're my brother fifty percent of what i own goes to you and he takes a sack of money says one day if you have money you'll pay me back. reuven is excited he goes back pays up his debt he starts business again shimon now his turn in life things go bad he needs money where's he going to turn to no one in town wants to lend the money he goes to ruvain he comes to reuven he sees he built himself up again a beautiful mansion he knocks on the door expecting he's going to take him in and he knocks on the door by now is a long trip muddy shoes and the household help like opens a little window on the door who are you here for he says i'm here for the ruvain ruvain he has no time to see anybody you want money here's a little note 18 the guy said no no reuven is my brother you have to let me in he knows who i am the guy says i'm sorry we don't let anyone in and he starts banging the door and where where is rouvey so reuven hears the commotion he comes downstairs and he sees a guy with dirty shoes torn clothes and he starts screaming at him what are you making my carpets dirty get out of here he says reuven don't you recognize me i'm your brother he said i don't know who you are here you want some more money here's another 18 and he sends them off the guy was so shocked our friend his brother we just helped a few years ago sent him away he and he was hungry and third yet that he died a few minutes later he he died they come to heaven shinkansen ruvain ashima natsadik he helped his friend has to go straight to the canadian but roofing the way he behaved with such such a no gratitude no thanks no no he has to go to to purgatory to hell so shimon says no no no no this is my brother he's my friend you can't just send him there he's my brother i cannot see him go to to gehenom so in heaven they started to look at the case and said okay we're going to put you both back on earth reuven will have money shimon will be poor and he'll have another chance to try to to give him charity so reuben is born wealthy very successful shimon a poor person knocks on ruevae's door obviously they know nothing about this he knocks on his door and he wants to come in and the owner and he makes a commotion i don't want i want the owner i need to have some money i need to have some food and the owner comes out and he's so upset at him again he's dirting his uh his floors and his smells and and he gives him a piece of old rotten fish and he says get out of here take the fish and get out of here he ate the fish and before long not even 100 steps from the house he dropped and he died as the bashantha was finishing the story this fellow sitting on the other side his face becomes white he says rebbe that happened to me just before my business trip that's exactly what happened to me the guy died 100 is that me that's you this was the purpose you were here on earth she says does that mean i'm doomed i failed and my soul will never have rectification so the bashantha told him that there's still a chance and that's why god brought you here if you go back find the family of this poor person and give them all your money and you live for the rest of your life then your soul will be rectified and and that's and that's why he came back he came back here on earth now if they would have recollection he wouldn't be able to rectify his act because he would know exactly what's going on so we have no recollection of our previous lives because we have to live our life not knowing anything previously what happened but do the right thing that's for rectification exactly so that you need free choice now that does not mean that a person there's nothing remaining from a previous life and sometimes you find that people have knowledge of ideas somehow intuitively they have knowledge of ideas sciences or other knowledge or of places that they never visited but some of them have an uh intuitive knowledge of a place of languages sometimes you have those things because they were part of a previous life it's deeply embedded within you but you can't really access it it's just there a little bit of it is there it may help you in your mission or may not but we are not able to really access while we are we don't look to access we look as jews to do in our life than what we have to do now the question this also by the way helps us understand a little bit why the age-old question why bad things happen to good people and we wonder why someone is so great and they suffer why sona is so wicked and they're prosper the age-old question but if we reincarnation helps us understand a little bit not always because we don't know all the answers but very often it can play a role that something's happening in this lifetime to rectify a previous lifetime even infertility sometimes after someone tries and tries and can't have children they already did that part of their mission now they have to concentrate on other parts of the mission maybe that's sometimes why why it may happen now if we believe in reincarnation we do believe in reincarnation and a person comes out many times by the resurrection of the dead who is going to come back which body which body comes back so i'll tell you because the soul is spiritual what happens is every one of us in our lifetime elevates a different element of the soul the soul is not like a person you can't cut it up into pieces the soul is not spiritual doesn't have space and time so therefore every lifetime the part of the soul that you elevated in your lifetime that is going to come back to your body so many bodies will share one soul but every one of us in our lifetime did something and you know how do you know what it is that your main mission your main goal is or what you have to fix in your life you have to emphasize and the two ways of knowing number one is sometimes our biggest challenges especially in jewish things the things that are most difficult for us that's very often a sign that this is the area you should concentrate on the area where you have the greatest obstacles and challenges is god telling you pay attention you overcome this you have now fulfilled the mission in your life that you had to fulfill for your soul coming back to this earth so very often we run away from the difficulties we want to do the easy but not necessarily god gives us the strength to overcome our difficulties but that's sort of the pointer of what it is that we have to fix uh in our life and you know there's a concept in talmud called mahavis or its faith what was we were supposed to do all the mitzvahs but every one of us has a mitzvah that we we take much more to heart that's much more important to us whether to someone is shabbos whether the doing the people who know the lava monkey the meal after shabbos or prayer or or charity we live in a time when charity is tremendously emphasized so everyone has a a a mitzvah as personalities also many facets but we always have one or two things that stand out to everyone so every one of us has one or two misses that we gravitate toward that we that we undertake more and that very often is our mission in this world as well of what we're trying to fix in our life or to give our souls that fulfills that part of the mission that part of the mission here in life click subscribe to see more exclusive content for the most sought after jewish speakers teachers and thinkers

Channel: Jewish Learning Institute

Views: 121,534

Keywords: jli, Jewish Learning Institute

Id: uzpUWYu0iMA

Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021