When you see a group of Hasidic Jews with their characteristic black hats, earlocks and long black coats, you are looking at people who believe in reincarnation. But most of us don't even know that it's found in Judaism. In fact, reincarnation in Judaism goes all the way back through the Middle Ages to before the time of Christ, as we will discover in this chapter. Hasidic Jews got their ideas about reincarnation from the Kabbalists, medieval Jewish mystics.

Hasidism is a form of Judaism that was founded in eighteenth-century Poland by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (c. 1700-1760). He took elements of Kabbalism and made them accessible to the common people in a movement that spread across eastern Europe. Reincarnation is a fundamental Hasidic belief. One Hasidic bedtime prayer asks forgiveness for "anyone who has angered or vexed me . . . in this incarnation or any other."

Ark, Tempel Synagogue Kazimierz, Cracow, Poland

The following Jewish mystical tale from the sixteenth century illustrates the belief in reincarnation. It seems that a famous Kabbalist rabbi, Isaac Luria (1534-72), once showed his students a stone in a wall in which he said there was a soul imprisoned. "It has suffered through the wheel of transmigration [reincarnation] . . . All that it needs is a prayer to set it free." The disciples began to pray for the soul to be set free from the round of rebirth. As they finished praying, the story concludes, "they heard a flutter of wings, although there was no bird to be seen anywhere." The soul was free.

Both Kabbalists and Hasidic Jews tell us that every person has a divine spark imprisoned inside of him and that man's destiny is to liberate the divine spark and, as scholar Ben Zion Bokser puts it, to unite with "the larger unity of creation and Creator."

The twin ideas of reincarnation and union with God have been a part of Judaism at least since the time of Christ. However, these ideas have often been suppressed or kept secret. Mysticism, which involves the search for either direct contact with God or union with God, could have easily been misinterpreted as a violation of the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And so the mystics ran the risk of being accused of blasphemy. Therefore the rabbis who practiced mysticism guarded their secrets as closely as they guarded the Tabernacle. They preserved the secrets and passed them down in an oral and written tradition that survived the centuries.

In the nineteenth century, however, mysticism was almost entirely obscured by rabbis who wanted their faith to appeal to those with a scientific world view. Then, in the twentieth century, scholars rediscovered mystical Judaism—along with its ideas about reincarnation and divine union. The Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Jewish manuscripts confirm that mysticism was an important part of early Judaism.

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), a well-known Jewish scholar, believed that Jewish mysticism originated before Kabbalism and before the time of Christ. Some Kabbalists claimed that their tradition actually dated back to Moses. We may never be able to nail down its origins since much of the teaching was never written but was passed on orally and in secret. Nevertheless, we can uncover evidence of these mystical beliefs in early pre-Christian Judaism.

What we now know as traditional, or rabbinic, Judaism was founded by groups of rabbis who studied and explained the scriptures in the last centuries before Christ. What many scholars are now realizing is that at the time of Christ, mystical and rabbinic Judaism were one—the rabbis who founded traditional Judaism were also mystics. Thus, if Jesus did teach reincarnation and divine union, as I believe he did, he could have absorbed those ideas from the great rabbis of his day.

The Afterlife

Reincarnation is only one among several conflicting ideas in Judaism about the afterlife. One common view is that there is neither a soul nor an afterlife. People can be said to live on only through their descendants. The Old Testament's emphasis on genealogy—"the begats" —illustrates this idea. A modern version of this view is that the deceased live on through their reputations or in people's memories.

A second idea is the Sheol of the Old Testament. It is said to be a place of forgetfulness and silence where disembodied spirits live apart from God with neither reward nor punishment. People believed that these spirits could be contacted, as when King Saul asked the witch of Endor to conjure up the spirit of the prophet Samuel.

A third afterlife belief is the resurrection—bodies will rise from the dead at some time in the future. At the time of Christ there was a smorgasbord of ideas about who would participate in the resurrection and where and when it would occur.

A fourth afterlife belief is reincarnation. In Judaism, reincarnation reached its most developed form in the writings of the Kabbalists. When we understand reincarnation in Kabbalism, we can more clearly trace it back to the time of Christ.

The Mystic Thread of Reincarnation

The earliest known Kabbalistic text, Sefer ha-Bahir, published around 1180,7 treats reincarnation as a given. It uses a dialogue about reincarnation to explain misfortune:

Q: "Why are there evildoers who are well off and righteous who suffer evil?"

A: "Because the righteous man was . . . an evildoer in the past and is now being punished."

Q: "Is one then punished for his childhood deeds?"

A: "I am not speaking of his present lifetime. I am speaking about what he has already been, previously."

In other words, the Bahir is telling us that bad things happen to good people because they have done bad things in previous lives. The early rabbis who interpreted Jewish scripture had instituted the practice of reading one word for another. The Kabbalists were thus relying upon an ancient system of agreed-upon inner meanings. The Bahir used this technique to "discover" reincarnation in the Old Testament. It tells us that the biblical term generations can be replaced by the word incarnations.

In this way, Kabbalists developed their own interpretation of the covenant God made with Abraham and his seed. God said, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant." They believed God made this covenant with the seed of Abraham not only for one life but for thousands of incarnations.

For those who are skeptical of the Kabbalist view, the Old Testament offers a less esoteric reference to reincarnation. God tells the prophet Jeremiah that he knew him before he was conceived. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations." This passage implies that Jeremiah's soul existed before his birth in the sixth century B.C.

Jewish Wisdom Tradition

Preexistence, the belief that the soul exists before the body, is often associated with reincarnation. This idea appears in the Jewish wisdom writings, which were composed between the first and sixth centuries B.C.

The Wisdom of Solomon, accepted as scripture by Roman Catholics but not by Protestants, alludes to the concept of karma and the preexistence of souls. The unknown author of the book, who presents himself as Solomon, writes: "I was, indeed, a child well-endowed, having had a noble soul fall to my lot; or rather being noble I entered an undefiled body." Clearly, the author believes that the soul exists before the body.

Because the soul was "noble," she entered an undefiled body. If the soul had never before been born in an earthly body, when and where did she become noble? The writer is implying that good karma from a previous existence follows the soul and that the momentums of personality,
ego and character are cumulative.

In addition to the wisdom writings, the Jews also composed a large body of scriptures between 250 B.C. and A.D. 200. Many of them were written under the names of famous Old Testament figures like Enoch and Moses.

One, the Testament of Naphtali, was probably written during the third century b.c. The book purports to be the final words of Naphtali, who was the father of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Naphtali says that God makes the body "in correspondence to the spirit" and "instills the spirit corresponding to the power of the body." In other words, he makes bodies to match the spirits that will inhabit them. Or, as Naphtali puts it, "From one to the other [from body to spirit] there is no discrepancy, not so much as a third of a hair."

God knows the potential of a body before he puts a soul into it, says Naphtali: "Just as the potter knows the use of each vessel and to what it is suited, so also the Lord knows the body to what extent it will persist in goodness, and when it will be dominated by evil." Again, the author is referring to the idea that the soul exists before the body. And, as we will see, there is not much of a leap from preexistence to reincarnation.

The Essenes and the Pharisees

We find further evidence for reincarnation in Judaism when we examine two important Jewish sects at the time of Christ, the Essenes and the Pharisees. The Essenes probably founded the religious community whose ruins lie at Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. This community existed from the second half of the second century B.C. until the Romans wiped it out during the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 66 to 70.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the Essenes lived "the same kind of life" as the followers of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. And we know that Pythagoras taught reincarnation. According to Josephus, the Essenes believed that the soul is both immortal and preexistent. They also believed that the soul is separate from the body, he said. Souls are "united to their bodies as in prisons," but when "set free from the bonds of the flesh," they "rejoice and mount upward."

As we will see in the next chapter, these beliefs are quite similar to the Pythagorean view of the soul. If the Essenes shared this view, they may also have shared the Pythagoreans' belief in reincarnation.

Josephus also implies that the Pharisees, the founders of rabbinic Judaism, believed in reincarnation. He writes that the Pharisees believed that the souls of bad men are punished after death but that the souls of good men are "removed into other bodies" and they will "have power to revive and live again." Some scholars believe that these are references to reincarnation, while others believe they refer to the resurrection of the dead.

The Pharisees were the most popular Jewish sect. The Sadducees, the other prominent Jewish sect in Palestine, did not emphasize life after death. But they did not represent the majority of Jews. New evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that the Pharisees dominated the Jerusalem Temple for a good part of the period between 164 B.C. and a.d. 37. So if the Pharisees believed in reincarnation, that would mean that an important segment of Palestinian Jews did also.

After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.C. 70 and the Jews were once more dispersed,
the Pharisees were at the heart of rabbinic Judaism. If Josephus is correct about the Pharisees' belief in reincarnation, we can be fairly certain that it was a part of pre-Christian Judaism. And, as I said earlier, we also have evidence that the rabbis who founded rabbinic Judaism sought mystical union (see also chapters 22 and 23), which, as we have seen, is a companion belief to reincarnation.

Divine Visions

A few centuries before Christ, Jewish rabbis began secretly practicing an elaborate system of rituals designed to bring them a mystical vision of a divine being on a throne. This vision became a symbol for union with God. To achieve the divine vision, the rabbis fasted, purified themselves and spent hours repeating the names of God. They reported ascending through heavenly palaces as they journeyed toward brilliant beings of light. The system was known as Merkabah mysticism, or "throne-chariot" mysticism. It also became known as Hekhalot, or "palace," mysticism, after the heavenly palaces the mystics traveled through.

The system of Merkabah mysticism is based on the first chapter of Ezekiel, which tells us that the prophet saw a divine being come "out of the north" surrounded by a "great cloud with brightness." In the cloud is a vehicle, or chariot, powered by "four living creatures," cherubim. The divine figure is seated over the heads of the creatures on "something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire."

The rabbis who composed the Talmud (working between the third and fifth centuries a.d.) knew about Merkabah mysticism and may have even been practitioners. However, perhaps fearing accusations of blasphemy, they did not teach it openly but reserved it for their closest disciples. The Kabbalist text the Bahir seems to be connected with Merkabah mysticism because it uses the term Ma'aseh Merkabah, literally "Workings of the Chariot."

As we will see, some passages in Christian scripture reflect Merkabah and Hekhalot ideas.
This indicates that Jesus or Paul may have known about the tradition. But can we be certain
that it predated Christianity?

The mystics claimed that their tradition had been passed down from Old Testament times.
They said that Jacob's vision of a ladder going up to heaven and Moses ascending Mount
Sinai to commune with Yahweh (the God of the Old Testament) were examples of mystical communion. However, we have no way to verify their claims. Much of the Merkabah literature was written after the Old Testament, between the end of the second century and the fifth or sixth century A.D.

Some scholars used to think that Merkabah mysticism could not date before the second century. Other scholars pointed to pre-Christian manuscripts that contained accounts of both divine visions and heavenly ascents. But the debate was pretty much resolved by the Dead Sea Scrolls, a group of ancient manuscripts discovered in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds.

More than eight hundred documents have now been discovered, most in fragments, in the caves near Qumran. They include biblical commentaries, prophecy, community rules and portions of every book of the Hebrew Bible.

Most scholars believe that the scrolls belonged to the Essene community at Qumran. The Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the Jewish mystical tradition went back at least to the first, if not the third, century before Christ.

Some of the hymns found at Qumran are similar to the Hekhalot hymns sung by the Jewish mystics. One text gives us unmistakable evidence of Merkabah mysticism. It is called Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Scholars have dated it to the first century B.C., although it may have been copied from an earlier work. It tells of a vision of a divine being on a throne-chariot surrounded by brilliant light and angels. Analyzing this text, scholar Neil Fujita argues that it is likely that the Jews "embraced the mysticism connected with the chariot-throne of God . . . even before the establishment of the sect at Qumran in the second century B.C."

Fragments of 1 Enoch, which is considered the oldest evidence of Merkabah mysticism, were also found at Qumran. The book is attributed to Enoch, "the seventh from Adam." Genesis 5:24 says he "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."

Chapter 14, probably written in the third century B.C., describes Enoch's ascent to heaven. It contains the essential elements of the Merkabah experience—ascent into heaven and a vision of a divine being on a throne.

"Its appearance was like crystal and its wheels like the shining sun . . . And the Great Glory was sitting upon it."

If Merkabah existed in the third century before Christ, as Enoch indicates, then it would certainly have been present in first-century Judaism. In Part 5 we will explore whether Jesus was familiar with it. In our search for evidence of Merkabah mysticism in early Christianity, we will examine the transfiguration, Paul's description of his ascent to the "third heaven," and Gnostic texts. If we can trace the twin ideas of divine union and reincarnation back to early Christianity, we may have the key to the heart of Jesus' message.

A New Covenant

Before we examine Jesus' teachings on reincarnation, we will examine one of the most important influences on the Judaism of his day. In the long and difficult centuries between King David and Jesus, the Israelites were conquered several times. They absorbed ideas from their conquerors—first the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., then the Babylonians and the Persians in the sixth century B.C.

But the greatest influence on Judaism would come in the fourth century b.c. By that time, many Jews had returned to Palestine from Babylon after the Persian king Cyrus, a tolerant ruler who had conquered Babylon, gave them permission to rebuild their temple. They found life difficult and made slow progress in their work. At this time, both the Jews in exile and those in Palestine undoubtedly gave thought to the ideas of reward and punishment. They could see that good deeds were not always rewarded and bad deeds were not always punished. Had God abandoned them?

They took comfort in the prophecies of Jeremiah, who had predicted that God would establish a new covenant, different from the one he had made when he brought them out of Egypt. "They broke that covenant," said the Lord through the prophet.

He offered a new covenant: "Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then
I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know Yahweh!' No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest." A clearer description of the God within cannot be found in the Old Testament.

As the Jews sought the fulfillment of this promise, they may have begun to look outside their culture. And they may have found a new perspective after a blond, charismatic Macedonian turned the world upside down.