The Afterlife and Jews

 

(I bet you somebody finds a reason to ban this article for hate speech!)
I came across an interesting sermon by a rabbi called Simon Jacobson who addresses some subjects that makes me think he is revealing some secrets from inside closed Jewish sects. Judaism is a religion with a huge amount of variety, almost as much as Hinduism; and this has led to a lot of internal conflict. There's an old joke that if Robinson Crusoe had been Jewish he would have built two synagogues on his island; one to worship in and one to refuse to worship in. Rabbi Jacobson's video has the most intriguing title: Why Jewish Knowledge of Reincarnation was Kept Secret. He begins by explaining the popular New Age refrain: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And, like the New Age, he discusses the difference between soul and body and asks if we have had past lives before the one we are currently living. He brings forward evidence in the form of déjà vu. He uses the analogy of a fridge and electricity, which is the equivalent of the old TV set and radio waves one, to illustrate the difference between body and soul. He also seems to understand Karma in a similar way to the Hindus and neopagans. According to the Hebrew Bible and Talmud, human souls after death go to a place called Sheol or Olam Haba in which souls live together without personality or strength, in a state known as "shade". Depending on the specific teaching, the souls may or may not be separated according to their earthly conduct. There is no concept of eternal damnation or Hell in the Christian sense. These souls would only be resurrected after the Eschaton and the arrival of the Messiah, see here for details: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/apocalypse-soon.html and: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2023/01/ben-emlyn-jones-live-at-truth-seekers.html.
 
Despite the above orthodox teachings, many Jews still believe in reincarnation. They cite several biblical passages, including the best known, John's Gospel 1-21 where somebody asks Jesus: "Are you Elijah?" meaning the prophet Elijah from the Book of Kings. The questioner must therefore believe in reincarnation. Jews even have a name for it: Gilgul, literally "wheel", illustrating the notion as a recurring cycle. This is a common folk belief, especially among the Ashkenazim, the world's largest Jewish ethnicity. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4vLzaVER80. Rabbi Jacobson's lecture reminds me of Anthony Peake, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2023/02/anthony-peake-book-launch.html. The rabbi's theory about the secrecy of reincarnation is not political, but theological; he says souls only have very limited past life memory, if any, so that we can play our role in our current incarnation with fresh minds, unaware of the bigger picture that might influence us. He compares it to watching a play and obeying spoiler alerts. This is also a common idea in other faiths. According to the Greeks, there was a river between the world of the living and the dead called Styx and those who crossed it lost all memory of the life they had just completed. An equivalent in popular culture is from the Wachowski's The Matrix film where the Oracle lies to Neo and then later tells him: "there's a difference between walking the path and knowing it." I don't doubt that idea. If I've had a million past lives, for instance, what would I do with all those memories? However, I think there's a political element to the matter which is strangely equivalent to the UFO cover-up, see the background links below for details. Rabbi Jacobson expresses no knowledge of this and I'm curious to know if he understands it. I find ideas most interesting when different people independently converge of them from separate perspectives. This makes them far more likely to be true.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-discovery-film-review.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/01/what-if-we-discover-life-after-death.html.