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Topic: Ressurection of the Dead, Which Reincarnation

Deborah Ambrose from Toronto, Canada wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

How can the principle of believing in the Resurrection of the Dead be reconciled with the concept of transmigration of souls. Both are Jewish beliefs but I have a hard time understanding how, when a soul has so many bodies, we are all resurrected. Whose body gets the soul?


Dear Deborah Ambrose,

Kabbalistic sources teach us that the main reason for reincarnation is for the soul to fulfill its role in the creation and achieve the spiritual level for which it is destined. If a soul does not manage to do this in its first life, it is given another chance, and another. If the soul did not succeed in three times, it will have to settle for whatever it has gained in the everlasting afterlife. Another reason for reincarnation is to repay a soul for its deeds in a way parallel to its sins; for example, a rich miser might be reincarnated as a poor beggar and be disregarded by a rich man, who was himself one of the paupers disregarded by the rich miser in his previous life.

The question arises, if a soul can be reincarnated into several different bodies, which body 'gets' the soul in the time of the resurrection? The answer is that the soul will be in the body in which the soul achieved its nearest completion, the last body.


 
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