Q&A: Resurrection of the Dead and Reincarnations
Resurrection of the Dead and Reincarnations
Question
“Behold, all these things God does, two or three times with a man,” and they explained that each person returns in reincarnation two or three times until he completes the rectification of his soul, and then the soul returns beneath the Throne of Glory and enjoys the radiance of the Divine Presence. And today we are all reincarnations, and there are almost no new souls.
The question is: if I came in a reincarnation, and the previous time I was some peddler in a small town married to Zelda with four children, then how will I rise at the resurrection of the dead? Will there be two people with the same soul? And then if the peddler eats chocolate, will I also feel the pleasure? Or will only one rise, and then in effect most people of the later generations, who are actually old souls, will not rise in the resurrection of the dead at all? That really troubles me. I want to rise again as myself.
Answer
Excellent question. I promise, without making a vow, that the next time I meet the Holy One, blessed be He, I’ll ask Him. If you meet Him first, please update me.
Discussion on Answer
Another question: when people come back in reincarnation, is there a chance for improvement regarding various defects that God gave me? For example, I started going bald at an early age. At the resurrection of the dead, will I have normal hair, or am I stuck with the baldness forever? If someone had his leg amputated, will he have an amputated leg for all eternity? What’s the logic of that??
The whole topic of reincarnations is of course disputed. It appears neither in the Babylonian Talmud nor in the Jerusalem Talmud—and it’s not as though those are lacking parables and obscure stories. Which implies they knew nothing about this whole matter.
The Talmud says, “They will arise with their defects and then be healed” [in the chapter Helek, at the end of Sanhedrin]. A bald man rises bald, and suddenly hair grows. Unless perhaps the baldness is what gets healed and the hair is the defect. Because some say that a person with a lot of hair who isn’t bald is a clear sign of a fool who asks one too many klutz-kashyes of Rabbi Michi.
He told me to ask you, and whatever you decree down here according to your Torah judgment, that is what He will decree up there, because He created the human intellect so that through its understanding it can arrive at conclusions matching the view from above. That’s why I asked.