Do Jews believe in reincarnation

Answer 1

Orthodox Judaism believes in reincarnation, mostly in human from and a little (heaven forbid) into animal form. It has been mentioned by the Jewish Sages in the Midrash (part of the Jewish oral Torah), along with many other sources, that our soul is here to improve the world and achieve closeness to God. If the soul is able to do it all in one life with out ruining anything he/she goes to 'gan eden' (loosly translated as Heaven). If however the person was not able to complete his 'mission', he must go through a cleaning (known in Hebrew as 'gehenom') and down again into another body. This happens again and again until he or she is 'fixed'. There are some 'fixed' souls that come to this world to help others. The Midrash tells us of many cases of reincarnations.

Answer:Rabbi Shmuel Strashun of Vilna, in his Talmud commentary, points out the interesting fact that reincarnation is never mentioned in the Talmud. This may mean that it is a mystical subject not to be elaborated upon publicly; or perhaps that there isn't a consensus regarding it.

Answer 2

Some, primarily those unconcerned with or unlearned in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), do not.

The Kabbalah is very popular in most movements in Judaism right now, an so there are many Jews that do believe in reincarnation, as surprising as that would be considering reincarnation is roundly rejected in its sister religions.

Those Jews who believe in the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), also believe in reincarnation. The reasons why one would be reincarnated vary according to the tradition. The reason most spoken of is that a man who fathers no children is reincarnated until he has fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Some expand this to including any commandment, e.g. a Jew who dies not having fulfilled every aplicable commandment in all of his or her lifetimes will return until they have. One hasidic story implies that a Jew who has died due to antisemitism is allowed to reincarnate to take vengeance, although the martyrs given that option in the story choose to remain in Heaven instead. The Kabbalist known as the Ari spoke of biblical figures being reincarnated as later biblical figures or even normal people, in order to further the divine purpose. It is possible for not the whole person, but only a piece of their soul to reincarnate.

Taking all traditions regarding reincarnation in Judaism into consideration, it would seem that one could reincarnate for any logical reason.

Answer 3

No, Judaism does not believe in reincarnation. Jewish people believe that when people die, they are in the grave and don't know anything. It's like they're asleep, only longer. They stay this way till the return of 'Messiah'.

Answer 4

Judaism barely spends any time discussing what may or may not happen when we die, in fact, there's barely any mention of this subject in the Tanach (Jewish Bible) at all.

There are some loose theories of what might happen though:

* When we die, our souls are cleansed of any wrongdoings. This is done by our accounting of every action done in life. It's believed that this process takes no longer than 12 months but most people don't do enough bad in life to warrant it taking a full 12 months.

* Our souls return to HaShem to wait for the world to come.

* Our souls may be reincarnated into different people so that we have additional chances to work to become closer to HaShem.

* Those souls that choose to be truly evil in life, cannot survive the process of cleansing and cease to exist.

Answer 5

Yeah most do... but not all

Answer:

It's not mentioned anywhere in the Talmud or Jewish laws, but it is mentioned in mystical texts such as the Zohar.