Reincarnation in Judaism?

A question I have received often the past  few months is a concept spoken about often in the writings of Breslov writers.  Which is the concept of “reincarnation”.  This concept is found often in Rabbi Shalom Arush’s book The Garden of Emuna and the Women’s Wisdom (so I am told in terms of Women’s Wisdom).  


When we go through any concept in religious theology we have to find its origin and the earliest writings and witnesses of the theology.  We search this out to get our internal evidences and then we seek out the surrounding world to understand the external evidences to form a hypothesis and a scholarly conclusion.  With this concept it has become difficult.  


Our earliest mentions of this concept.  Can be seen in the gospels: 


“But, from the days of Yukhanan Mamdana {John, the Immerser/the Baptist}, and up to right now, The Malkutha d'Shmaya {The Kingdom of the Heavens} is taken by force, and the violent are seizing her. For, all The Nabiye {The Prophets}, and The Uraytha {The Law}, have prophesied until Yukhanan {John}. And if you will receive it, this is EliYa {Elijah} who is destined to come.”
(Matthew 11:12-14; The Aramaic Scriptures) 


And: 


“As a time to die is placed upon each of mankind, and from after death, the judgment,”
(Hebrews 9:27; The Aramaic Scriptures) 


Now, it seems we have conflicting report here.  In the gospels and the traditional Pesach Seder we have a “return of Elijah” being prophesied. And the author of iggaret ivrim (the book of Hebrews) we have a hard no in terms of reincarnation.  So we have a real conundrum here.  We may not be able to answer all these questions in this quest and you may be shocked to find that this article in many ways concludes on a note of being open ended.  But we are gonna our best to go through the thought process and see if we can pin down the theology to some respect.  


Usually, in terms of Jewish Theology, I tend to refer to Talmud and Tosefta, I try and go back to the earliest of extra-biblical (yet binding) in terms of Jewish theological documents such as Talmud and Tosefta.  This however, presented an odd challenge, because nowhere in these documents do we find mention of “reincarnation”.  


Why is this so shocking?  Because all Jewish theology starts from two places.  First the Tanach, then the Mishna.  Now, the Gemara could introduce a concept and it can make its way into Jewish life but the Gemara is not binding to theology as Mishna is.  But nowhere in these ancient Jewish documents be it Mishnah or Gemara do we find a concept of reincarnation.  


The earliest mention of this concept we find in the Zohar.  Now, this is odd because even the concepts of the Zohar, being mystical in nature have to have a precedent in which they stand on from earlier documents.  So when our primary document is a text that requires the use of 32 hermeneutical rules to properly interpret, we have an even bigger conundrum.  But, again, we are gonna attempt to do justice to the analysis of this concept.  


When I looked at book 23 of my set of Zohar, which is the book of the Index, I discovered that it is mentioned several times in the Zohar.  


Upon inspection of the passages recorded in the Zohar that mention “reincarnation”, I found this: 


I noticed all of the passages in the Zohar mentioning “reincarnation” are mentioned in a way that seems as though we should be familiarized with this ideal.  It doesn’t take the time to explain it, it seems like an ideal that is just accepted, known, and as basic as the question of “how many fingers are on your right hand?” 


Looking at the Hebrew we see יָמוּת מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן אֶפְרַיִםדּוֹחהַ (yamot mashiach ben Ephraim docha) which literally means “the Messiah son of Ephraim dies and rejects (death) not “reincarnates”.  This can seem frustrating realizing the translation is not literal but it does help us with context.  If the concept is derived from such wording then we can then start to move forward when realizing the word “reincarnation” is actually not mentioned in the Hebrew or Aramaic.  Often times we find מוּת(Mot) or מֶוֶת (Mevet) meaning “death” so the concept of reincarnation is tied to an attribute of “death” or “dying” that is pre-established. 


The thing that is interesting in this find is the fact we have phrasing that also helps us date the Zohar.  Let’s segway into the debates of its dating and how this phrase brings more to life than we realized it would.  


The debate that has been going on for centuries is either the Zohar was indeed written by Simeon Bar Yochai in the 2nd Century, or it was written by Moses de Leon in the 16th century.  The debate has gone on, after de Leon’s widow claimed her husband had written it.  Scholarship had really been split on this for a while, but this passage from Zohar Mishpatim offers us a major clue.  


The term “יָמוּת ______ דּוֹחָה” was a term used before a certain Hebrew word came into existence.  The word not yet in existence was תְקוּמָה(Techiyah: meaning Resurrection).  This word had not yet come into existence.  In fact the term Mot _____ Dochah was used even in the tosefta.  This phrasing forced a word to come into existence to classify what was being talked about.  And in Avodah Zarah 14 and Sanhedrin 90-92 we see this word תְקוּמָה sprout up.  


Also within the Zohar we see Hebrew and Aramaic mingled in with each other which was common for the 1st-6th century, not so much afterwards, with the exception of terms like Bar Mitzvah as opposed to Ben Mitzvah.  But this word מָשִׁיחַ is Aramaic for the Hebrew “Mashiach”.  Now the Aramaic term Mashikha as used in the Zohar here.  This was prominent as well till the 6th century.  After that time the term “Mashiach” was used in both Hebrew and Aramaic texts and the term Mashikha, was not. 


Some cite that the grammar of the Zohar was sloppy, when we investigate this it really isn’t so.  Hebrew and Aramaic share similar grammar but not exact.  A well learned Jew during the time of the 2nd Century such as Simeon Bar Yochai would be weaving in and out of Hebrew and Aramaic with a fluidity and changing of grammar which was common for the 2nd Century as The Hebrew language was only known by the highly educated and religious leaders.  This continued to be the case until the days of Eliezer Ben Yehudah who was considered a heretic for bringing the Hebrew language to the common people for the first time since before the Babylonian exile.   


Now, Moses de Leon was a learned man, but from the limited historical accounts of him, other than the claim of his widow, we really have no evidence to suggest he knew Hebrew.  For as a Spanish Rabbi, most at that time spoke Aramaic as well as Spanish and maybe a little French.  It would be essentially impossible for de León to be able to model his text with the exactness of idiomatic expression used in the days before the gospels.  And to write with the fluidity we find prominent with 2nd Century Judaism.  


This is where we have a theological split that is based on the idea of when the Zohar was written.  If a person believes that the Zohar was written by de Leon, then the idea is the term techiyah was in existence, and given the Zohar is a mystical text, one can say that de Leon brought about a Jew term signifying reincarnation.  But, if one believes that Bar Yochai wrote the Zohar then the term would indicate a use of phrasing used for techiyah before the word techiyah was invented, signifying “resurrection”.  


This now should craft our ideology in terms of the New Testament passages put to us at the start of this article. Let us remember that the idea of reincarnation is not found in the Torah She BikTav, Torah She Be’al Peh, Ketuvim and Nevi’im.  Let us make an educated assumption based on the New Testament texts that would give credence to a later interpretation from some who read the Kabbalists texts.  
Let’s look at  passage mentioned previously: 


“But, from the days of Yukhanan Mamdana {John, the Immerser/the Baptist}, and up to right now, The Malkutha d'Shmaya {The Kingdom of the Heavens} is taken by force, and the violent are seizing her. For, all The Nabiye {The Prophets}, and The Uraytha {The Law}, have prophesied until Yukhanan {John}. And if you will receive it, this is EliYa {Elijah} who is destined to come.”
(Matthew 11:12-14; The Aramaic Scriptures) 


Here, again it seems to make a case for reincarnation.  But notice Paul’s words: 


“As a time to die is placed upon each of mankind, and from after death, the judgment,”
(Hebrews 9:27; The Aramaic Scriptures) 


What can we conclude?  Well, notice even in Judaism at the Seder Haggadah reading during Pesach a child is asked to open the door and check to see if Elijah is there.  Why....Elijah?  Why not Moses, why not Avraham, why not someone mentioned in the Torah?  Why not a greater prophet?  Because, Elijah didn’t die.  The finite spirit of Elijah had not passed away.  But Elijah did at some point have to taste death, and he did when John was killed by the Romans.  


Have you noticed as well that Christians and Hebrew Roots people also teach reincarnation?  Oh yes.  How many times have you heard that Revelation 11’s two witnesses are dead biblical figures?  That they reincarnate, and then get killed a second time and then resurrect? 


This simply cannot be because otherwise we would be stepping right into idolatry that was worshipped in Egypt with the worship of the dead.  The Aramaic however of the Crawford Manuscript of the book of Revelation gives us some insight.  The word used for “witnesses” is actually a Hebrew word which is עֵדִים.  Now why would an aramaic text use a Hebrew word here?  To make ya look at it more closely.  Much in the same way we have Aramaic words in the book of Genesis to do that very thing.  Now the word עֵדִים (edim: witnesses) is used in Yoma 28b of the Talmud, Shabbat 31a, and Likutei Sichoth, vol. 31, p. 137 I’m discussing the tablets from Sinai that Moses came down with.  They are referred to as עֵדִים in relation to one עֵד being the written Torah and the other being the Torah which is Oral.  This makes much more sense considering the context of Revelation 11.  


Would Moses, Enoch, John, Elijah, any of the dead prophets be in the courts of the Gentiles?  They are jews.  This would make no sense whatsoever.  Instead, the witnesses are the written and Oral Torah.  Not prophet reincarnated.  Notice we see a period of them being deceased (3 days: 3 representing completeness) for the Torah of HaShem (written and Oral) to be resurrected to the Gentiles.  This is one of the prophecies that Chabad says that Schneerson has fulfilled in terms of Jeremiah 31.  And yet we will see that these two witnesses will do greater things in the knowledge of the written and the Oral Torah through the prophecies of the talmid of Yeshua in Revelation 11.  


In conclusion, i would say this is one of the very few times I am in disagreement with my Breslov brethren.  It doesn’t happen often.  But, in terms of the concept of “reincarnation” I would say Breslov and Rabbi Arush, because of this concept are not batting 1000 but I would say there is little else I am in disagreement with in the theology of Hasidis.  And that is allowed considering that later interpretation is not bound to halakha.   

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