Reincarnation in Judaism & It's Karaite Legacy
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Judaism has a strong reincarnation ideology which is called gigul haneshamot (transmigration of souls). This ideology is most starkly found within the Kabbalah which is the core of Jewish philosophy and theology. The Zohar communicates the message of reincarnation and the Arizal taught this concept at length. In the name of the Arizal, Rav Chaim Vital published the formers teachings in a book entitled Sefer haGilgulim (The Book of Reincarnations). But where did this teaching first emerge? The Torah does not explicitly teach reincarnation nor does it concern itself with the concept of the after-life at all. The Torah only states that when the Patriarchs has passed they were gather unto their people which is a direct reference to an after –life wherein we are re-joined with the souls that we are grouped together with in our own cosmic drama. The Prophets don’t discuss the afterlife albeit there are vague references. All of this secrecy is in traditional conformity of the Jewish ideal that we should not consider death as the objective of life. However, later writers would go to great lengths to reveal the teaching of the after-life but then hide their teaching and disseminate them to only an elect few. Among those who disseminated the Jewish concept of the after-life the central theme has always revolved around reincarnation. I set out to find the earliest expositor of the idea of reincarnation in Judaism; who was the first to teach this concept, where did it come from and why the obscurity. The answer I have found is the most surprising and unexpected story I could have never imagined.
To be honest we only have a limited written record of Jewish thought. While our written record is fantastically extensive it is also biased towards the various schools of ideology which assembled such records. The teaching of the ancient Rabbi’s barely scratches the surface of an after-life but it wasn’t amongst the Rabbi’s that I found the teaching being promoted. Rather the earliest teaching of reincarnation was most actively disseminated by the Karaites in Baghdad around the year 765 C.E. That’s right- it was most visible observed amongst the early Karaites. It was advocated quite explicitly by Anan ben David (see: Ben-Shammai chapter 15) who is considered by scholars to be the founder of the Karaite movement. Anan ben David stated that all human souls have one common origin in the primordial man (Adam Kadmon) whose spiritual energy sent forth spark which became the individuation of particular human souls. Later when the lower Adam committed the transgression in the Garden of Eden this event sent confusion into the lower and higher ranks of human souls and necessitated the cycle of incarnations.
Anan ben David sounds quite parallel to the latter teachings of the Arizal and since we do know that reincarnation was not readily accepted amongst all the Rabbis of Orthodoxy then it is not at all farfetched to imagine that the Kabbalah may have borrowed this teaching from the Karaites. After all no other Jewish teaching in such specificity as mentioning Adam Kadmon, sparks of souls emanating from AK, and incarnations is ever seen in Judaism until centuries later!
There seems to have been a struggle against the concept of reincarnation within Karaism and Anan ben David’s teaching was questioned by Al-Basir who asserted that reincarnation is not sufficient to explain the existence of evil in our world based on three reasons:
1.) The Soul cannot remember it previous incarnations therefore its not efficacious for it to pay for misdeeds incurred from a past life in the present.
2.) There are likely many reincarnations of the same soul so therefore was the soul obligated to observe mitzvoth during its first incarnation and if a child is a first time incarnation then what benefit does it receive if it suffers evil since it cannot be paying for a karmic debt.
3.) The theory of being compensated for suffering is more warranted than suffering being the product of debt.
Al-Basir’s objections are actually quite easy to answer and they reflect a basic lack of understanding the finer details of theodicy and its context within the transmigration of souls. However, it should be pointed out that in Al—Basir’s refutation found within Muhtawi there isn’t a specific renunciation of reincarnation as there is an expression of why reincarnation cannot answer the difficult issue of theodicy. There was a fundamental reason as to why Al-Bashir opposed Anan ben David: Al-Basir was of the Islamic school of thought called Mu’tazilite Kalam. Al-Basir in contradistinction to Anan ben David and the rest of the Jewish Rabbinic world held to a rationalism from the Golden Age of Islam. Kalam was an Islamic science meant to provide a system of apologetics to defend the Islamic faith from critics and detractors. Judaism never adopted the principles of Kalam as a whole and later even the movement of the Karaites wholly detracted from the ideology of Kalam. In the 10th century another Karaite scholar, Jacob Al-Kirkisani wrote in opposition to Anan ben David’s teaching. In Kirkisani’s book entitled Sefer Ha-Orot he writes that Anan ben David wrote an entire book dedicated to reincarnation and that many Karaites believed in the doctrine albeit he denigrates them and asserts that Anan ben David and those who followed him broke off from Karaism which is likely untrue. Nonetheless after the 10th century the doctrine of reincarnation in Karaism waned and was eventually expunged from the Karaite consciousness.
The idea of reincarnation also precedes Anan ben David not just in Scripture but also it is mentioned by Josephus who stated that our bodies are made of temporary matter but the soul is of the essence of God and continues to go into other existences both good and bad based upon our activities.
There is a strong historical basis for the concept of reincarnation in Judaism- both mainstream and Karaite. Based upon the modern sensitivities to the scientific method and the thousands of clinically based trials involving reincarnation we now have very objective evidence to conclude that Josephus, Anan ben David and the many other Jewish proponents of reincarnation were in fact correct.
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