Reincarnation and Judaism: The Journey of the Soul [Hardcover]

DovBer Pinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1999

This is a comprehensive look at the intriguing concept of reincarnation as taught by the masters of the Kabbalah and as analyzed by major Jewish thinkers throughout history. Rabbi DovBer Pinson, born and raised in a Hasidic family immersed in the study of Jewish mystical thought, has made a thorough search of Jewish teachings in order to present his readers with a rich and engaging study of life's most perplexing question: What happens after a person dies?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Buried beneath the abstruse jargon of this esoteric treatise lies a rabbi's labored effort to explain reincarnation. Pinson, a follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, relies on Jewish mysticism to validate his view that Jewish thinkers who rejected reincarnation failed to follow the Kabbalah, Judaism's central mystical text. In supporting his thesis, Pinson displays remarkable erudition, citing many rabbis as well as Freud, Jung, Tolstoy, Shelley, Hawthorne, Plato, Pascal, Schopenhauer and Spinoza, among others. Pinson's bewildering array of categories includes three souls with ten states of consciousness, various compartments, divisions and levels as well as "three types of reincarnations." Circular reasoning abounds, as in Pinson's argument about the dybbuk, the evil spirit that possesses another person: since it is impossible to prove that the dybbuk does not exist, we should rely on the sages who say that the dybbuk does exist, thus eradicating doubt. Child prodigies are "proofs" of reincarnation because they inherited their talents "from their previous lifetimes." Such tautologies are hardly persuasive. Additionally, Jewish feminists may be antagonized by Pinson's assertion that the "souls of women do not reincarnate." Jewish tradition restricts study of the Kabbalah to married men over 40, yet men and women, under or over 40, married or single, will have trouble deciphering this book's arcane mysteries. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

I have neither learned about reincarnation in Hebrew school, heard my rabbi speak about reincarnation, nor have I ever seen a reference to the subject in any of the doxens and dozens of books on Judaism that I have read from the public library while growing up. And yet, in recent years, it seems that more and more references to reincarnation in Jewish thought have been surfacing... "Reincarnation and Judaism: the Journey of the Soul," by DovBer Pinson, is a comprehensive review of the literature as well as a clearly written exploration of reincarnation and its implications..." (Arthur Kurzweil, Jason Aronson, Inc, Editor-in Chief, Jewish Book News, Nov. 1999) -- Recommended by the Jewish Book Club in 1999!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc. (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765760649
• ISBN-13: 978-0765760647
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,176,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rav DovBer Pinson is a world-renowned scholar, author, thinker, and beloved spiritual teacher. Through his books, lectures, and consul he has touched and inspired the lives of thousands.Rabbi Pinson is an internationally acclaimed speaker and has lectured in both scholarly and lay settings throughout the globe. Rav DovBer Pinson is the Rosh Yeshiva of the IYYUN Yeshiva and heads the IYYUN Center in Brownstone Brooklyn. For more information please visit www.IYYUN.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reincarnation through Lubovitch eyes, September 27, 2000

By 

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Reincarnation and Judaism: The Journey of the Soul (Hardcover)

Years ago, when people looked at me in disbelief after I said that reincarnation is a part of Judaism, I would challenge them to call their local Lubovitch rabbi and ask him. (For non-Jews reading this, the Lubovitcher Hasidim are very Orthodox Jews.) Now I can simply refer them to Rabbi Pinson's book instead! "Reincarnation in Judaism" is an excellent presentation of Jewish teachings about rebirth, as filtered through the 200-year-old Hasidic line of the seven saintly Lubovitcher Rebbes. (The author himself is a Chabad-Lubovitch rabbi.)

He begins with some Jewish sources on reincarnation which pre-date the Lubovitcher movement, taken from earlier kabbalistic works. He also points out that some of the classical Jewish sages, such as Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, rejected the idea of reincarnation, mostly because (A) it could not be proven based on intellectual logic, and (B) they probably did not have access to the kabbalah. Belief in it, for Hasidim, is a matter of faith, Rabbi Pinson explains. Although there are veiled hints in the Bible, one must rely on the kabbalah for further explanations, which have been received from the unbroken line of teachers reaching back to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

The heart of Rabbi Pinson's book is his explanation of how the 613 Torah mitzvot (commandments) correspond to different "compartments" (his word) of a person's "Godly soul", each of which must be developed through the incarnation of a new personality here on earth. Each incarnation, in turn, focuses primarily on one of these mitzvot, so that it can take many, many lifetimes -- 613 or more -- to perfect the "Godly soul."

There are parts of this book that I disagree with, such as his rather skeptical analysis of modern pastlife therapy cases. Rabbi Pinson takes the stance that only very highly-developed holy persons (such as the Hasidic masters) actually remember their previous incarnations. The other cases, he asserts, are more likely to be caused by dybbuks or ibburim (types of possession) or are psychological in origin. This would be consistent with Lubovitcher thought, which puts a Hasidic Rebbe on a higher plane than ordinary human beings. However, my own Rebbe, the Breslover, maintains that there is not such a big gap between the souls of Rebbes and ordinary people, and that "everyone can achieve the highest level." This debate goes back to the earliest days of the Lubovitch and Breslov movements, and continues today. (Ironically, the cover art of Pinson's book features a Breslover quote! Guess the marketing department didn't know the difference.)

One weakness of the book is that it doesn't have a glossary, and often assumes that the reader knows Jewish terms like "mitzvah" and "sefirot." It also would have helped to have one or more diagrams of the Kabbalistic Tree, for better visualization of various concepts in the text. Ditto for a chart defining the different "souls" and what they are called in Hebrew. Readers who are not familiar with the Tanya (on which much of Pinson's soul theory is based) may have some difficulty following certain chapters. Nevertheless, it is a valuable work and well worth studying.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book,, October 5, 2000

By 

Jay Front (Seattle.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reincarnation and Judaism: The Journey of the Soul (Hardcover)

For some reason I always thought that the idea of reincarnation is not Jewish until I picked up this book. I must say that I was truly amazed at the authors breadth of knowledge citing hundreds of sources to prove that it is very much a Jewish idea. The great thing about the book is that the author does not speak down to the reader, and he writes it the way it is. I for one recommend this to anyone who is intrested knowing how the Jewish masters teach reincarnation.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good read for anyone interested in this topis, February 15, 2000

By 

M.Y. Spalter (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reincarnation and Judaism: The Journey of the Soul (Hardcover)

I have been interested in locating a book describing Judaism's view on reincarnation, that is not a storybook, for a while. Finally, a book that discusses it comprehensively.

It is a fine book and I suggest it to anyone interested in reincarnation from any religious affiliation.