Sorry, here is the link:

An old story full of doubts. He probably saw British TV series. His general level of knowledge is like that of a 3-year-old child, and the language is a language that exists and is common today. A few somewhat strange things in the story don’t justify exaggerated theories. If, for example, a 3-year-old Druze child were to grow up speaking Akkadian (and help researchers decipher a few unclear words along with some illuminating historical observations), then I for one would be extremely amazed and would seriously consider that there is something astonishing here, to the point of reincarnation of souls.

I have no explanation. I don’t see G.’s emphatic claim that this is “full of doubts.” You can suspect fraud (the neighbor, television), and it’s still hard to explain such a British accent. Also the familiarity with old concepts and objects (= a chamber pot). And the difficulty with Arabic versus the quick absorption of English.

Indeed, the word “full” was a gloriously emphatic flourish, and it doesn’t really hold up. If he is drawing knowledge from the past, then there should also be something there that doesn’t exist in the present—either a language or some information of that sort. That’s the first doubt, and in my eyes it’s a very strong one. The second doubt is exposure to television (regarding the differences between English and Arabic, they described cases there of a child speaking literary Arabic from television even though his life was conducted in spoken Arabic). When you write “I have no explanation,” I take it to mean that it is indeed strange, but not convincing enough to believe in reincarnation of souls—and if so, then that’s what I think too.

I think you’re underestimating the evidence too much. The claim that he doesn’t know things from the past is also problematic: 1. It’s not entirely true (they did bring things from the past there—the chamber pot). And even if he didn’t know, that wouldn’t be proof. Maybe there’s a filter from the present?
It’s true that I too tend to be suspicious of spiritualistic explanations, and I also don’t see a way to choose among the spiritualistic explanations (why specifically a soul, or reincarnations? Maybe some kind of influence on the brain without souls?). Therefore I prefer not to say that this is evidence for reincarnation of souls, but rather that I have no explanation.

Forgive me, but to the person commenting as G.,
the question was directed to the Rabbi, not to you. It would be proper not to jump in and answer so emphatically and confidently when unfortunately it seems you didn’t really watch the video. And if you did in fact watch it, then it’s amazing that you wrote what you wrote.

And now, to the Rabbi,
a two-and-a-half-year-old child born in an Arab village, in a home where only Arabic is spoken, who barely speaks Arabic but speaks English in a heavy British accent with a conceptual world drawn from the past—one ought, in my opinion, to be honest and fair enough to say that this certainly looks like a soul/consciousness, or whatever other term you want, of someone from another ancient time that somehow arrived in this child in an amazing way.

Dear Cohen or Oren. (I assume it’s the same person under a different nickname. It’s not recommended to do that. It confuses the discussion and the participants.)
Here on the site, when a question comes up it is open for discussion by all readers, so as far as I’m concerned everyone is welcome to participate. I’m also happy to learn from others.
As for your final remark, I saw no relevant addition to the discussion in it. I wrote my position and explained it. If you think honesty and fairness require saying something else, that is of course your right. But my honesty and fairness require exactly what I wrote. No less and no more.

Thank you very much, Rabbi,
the name is Oren, and the change of name to Cohen in the second comment was simply due to a typing mistake.

I commented to G. because when a person asks a question, the other readers should at the very least give the Rabbi the minimal time to answer, and then of course continue a lively discussion afterward—not immediately respond to the questioner with certainty and confidence, when this is obviously not the place.

Does the Rabbi think there is such a thing as reincarnation of souls/consciousnesses from time A to time B?

I have no idea. As I said, I’m fairly skeptical about such concepts, but of course I can’t rule them out. In my experience, many of the proofs brought for them are hasty—either in the sense that the proof doesn’t really amount to anything (it is based on an interpretive mistake or fraud), or in the sense that this is not necessarily the conclusion that follows from the evidence (there are other interpretive possibilities). That is the situation here as well, as I explained.

I’m really trying to understand what other conclusion/interpretation there is for this case besides the fact that a soul or consciousness that belonged to person A reached person B.

There is simply no other explanation for this amazing straightforward case, and I say this with genuine embarrassment as a very rational person who previously denied these stories completely.

In any case, thank you very much.

Oren,
it seems to me that the conclusion “there is no other explanation” is not necessary in this case. First, there may be other explanations; we just don’t know them yet. Maybe one can argue that there is “evidence,” or “support,” for reincarnation of souls here, but one cannot say that there are no alternative explanations.

Second, I see that around minute 19 a brain researcher brings cases that are no less strange, and from them one can try to explain the present case.

Another point: in this area of the psyche there are many strange things that do not have unequivocal explanations, so one should be careful not to jump too quickly to conclusions.
In short, the conclusion that this is proof of reincarnation of souls is rather shaken.

I rushed in, interrupted, was too emphatic—everything is true, and from now on I’ll make my calculations. Originally I’m not such a huge skeptic, and I myself once upon a time tried various séances and the like (a former friend got sucked into that whole world, vacuumed up YouTube on the subject, and sat me down to hear the special gems and join him in experiments because he was afraid to do it alone), and if something convinces the owner of this site, I’m pretty sure it will convince me too.
Oren Cohen, I think you got something useful out of this: instead of receiving only the mature and balanced position in brief, you also got to see its friction with the trivial position, and you even had the chance to scold me with reasonably good cause. That’s enough of the necessary verbal suspenders + lowering the level of certainty to the level of a claim.
As for the present and the past: if there turns out to be no simpler explanation, then even reincarnation with knowledge filtered through the present would be evidence. But it does increase the probability of the hypothesis that there is some mistake here, because assuming a mistake explains well why the information is specifically contemporary (what people call “maximum visibility”), and obviously my prior for assuming error is higher than for “spiritualistic explanations” of other kinds. Mainly because of experience.
The chamber pot is indeed hard to explain, but not enough—and that’s just it: old Kohelet was distressed, “the pitcher will be broken at the spring,” and off we run with reincarnation into the pit.

Dear Shai,
at minute 18, when the brain researcher gives the example of another case of a 50-year-old person, they checked it there and proved that it was a person who had spoken French in his youth, and in old age after a head injury there is a phenomenon called “xenoglossy,” where suddenly he recalled a language he had spoken in his youth even though he had not used it for decades.

That is of course completely different from the case here, which is about a two-and-a-half-year-old child who speaks British English in a heavy accent with a conceptual world drawn from the past, but does not speak the language of his parents or the place where he was born (which of course rejects the explanation that the child simply has an unusual language talent).
Here there is all the clear evidence that this is not something acquired, but something that came to him from the past.

For such a case, it is permissible to say “I have no explanation.” So far, unfortunately, I have not received any logical explanation other than the understanding that this is apparently a soul/consciousness that reached him in some unclear way.

Oren,
the case of xenoglossy shows that one needs to think moderately and not reach conclusions too quickly. There too, had he not reported that he once knew French, we would have rushed to speak in mystical terms.

See also some interesting descriptions here:

http://havabooks.co.il/article_ID.asp?id=391