How Reincarnation the Afterlife & The Messianic Era are all Connected - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

[Music] today's topic is going to really stretch across a few different ideas what we call jewish mysticism first of all reincarnation is this something that judaism teaches and believes in or does it come from somewhere else at that we want to also talk about the whole idea of the afterlife what happens to the soul when it leaves this world is that the end of our story or does does it continue what goes on there um the ultimate idea that we want to also touch on today is the concept of the resurrection of the dead the concept of mashiach coming one day the messiah and the idea of the world reaching its perfection and living eternally at that time and place so let's try to you know put all these ideas together first of all reincarnation so many people here also ask me you know during the different classes do we in fact believe and teach about reincarnation and you know i sometimes have to laugh at that because really the concept of reincarnation not only do we teach it it comes from judaism judaism is where the concept of reincarnation really finds its its roots its source now a very interesting idea about about reincarnation you know it's what we could call a true test of faith because other ideas other ideas that are really hidden we can try to test at least on some level for example belief in god when you look around a world world like this so fascinating so complex so much detail it testifies it screams of a divine creator so believing in god is is not necessarily necessarily so difficult although there are some unfortunately that that do not yet understand and appreciate that but many do believe in in the divine creator and that's almost easy to see once you want to believe that it's there's proofs for that reincarnation has no real proof because we are not conscious of a past life if we ever lived one we're not conscious of it all we are aware of barely struggling to be aware of this life so we can't testify to reincarnation the average person doesn't know a thing about it nor does he experience anything connected with that and if there are random stories that kind of say that a person experienced it so it's hardly believed and it's not really something that you could base an entire way of life on so where do we get the idea of reincarnation from so the truth is like all of kabbalah jewish mysticism reincarnation is rooted in the prophecies received by the early righteous leaders and ultimately the jewish prophets and leaders like moshe rabbenu moses it's taught in in the oral tradition that along with the different ideas of kabbalah reincarnation was explained by moses to that generation of leaders meaning at emotious time there were select leaders that received a secret tradition from him that was part of the torah we call it the oral part and within the oral it was the secret part of the oral torah and they received this tradition of reincarnation in fact the bible itself has a lot of hints to the idea of reincarnation although it doesn't explicitly mention reincarnation but in a hidden way it does speak of it although in order to appreciate that you must first have received certain keys keys to open up those secrets for example the zohar is really one of the first sources which is essentially a recording of the oral torah the zohar is really written at the same time as mishnah so when we look at jewish law which everyone accepts as authoritative and binding all orthodox jews follow it we understand that the mishnah that was written around the common era is a recording of a tradition that was clearly received and proven on many levels at harcina you know the sinai revelation what we interestingly connect once we see the zoma written by same some of the same rabbis the most famous of them is rabbi shimon bar yochai he was also is mentioned in the gemara and the mishnah he his book the book that he taught the secrets of torah that are recorded in the zohar speak about reincarnation in a very interesting place it speaks about reincarnation when speaking about the idea of monetary law now you might think as a someone seeking mysticism seeking spiritual heights the the last place you're going to find a discussion about this concept of souls coming back into this world is dealing with the intricacies of you know who owes who money who damaged what but it's interesting to teach you that the highest of things the soul in its highest state concept of reincarnation is really rooted in the most grounded aspect of jewish law and tradition and the unbelievable stories that go with this idea explaining why jewish monetary law and reincarnation are linked by the holy zohar very famous story from the baal shem to one of the great mystics of the 1700s one of the greatest of mystics that have ever lived today there are hundreds of thousands millions upon millions over the generations that are following his his leadership as the founding father of the hasidic movement so very beautiful expression of this concept of the incarnation the most grounded sense comes in the story one day he told his main student the dove bear from his rich he tells him to go to a particular place by the lake and spend an afternoon there so of course following the advice and instructions of israeli he goes and sets himself up at a distance watching this particular scene by the lake a soldier comes up on a horse comes out rests has a bit of a snack gets up in a hurry seemingly late runs off not realizing that he dropped his wallet his wallet full of money he goes on his way a man comes sits down to have a snack takes that while it finds a lot of money takes it and leaves after that an older man comes seemingly a poor man sits down to have a few scraps of bread very tired takes a nap and as he's napping the soldier comes back in a fury crazy screaming looking for his wallet sees this old man resting exactly where he was grabs him wakes him up hitting and beating him where's my wallet where's milo you stole my money the old man scream i don't understand i don't know where you are i never saw wallet what do you want from me he beats him almost to death and then runs off the whole time the market of mesrich is watching this story and is very obviously confused what is going on you have one man loses a wallet another man finds a while and the third man is beaten after death over that wallet so he returns to the balchemtov who explains to him the really secret behind what was going on he explains that in a past life two people went to court over a monetary dispute essentially one person wronged another for we'll say uh five thousand dollars and was not willing to admit it and was not willing to give the money back so they went to court the judge without really investigating the case properly just listened to the seemingly wealthier man and unfortunately sided with him which was a wrong decision to do and the person was left with his money taken from him wrongfully so in heaven it was decided that they would all come back to the world again to fix that wrong one to pay back what he wrongfully took the other to receive what he wrongfully lost and the third to be beaten and that was his punishment for not doing his job to properly investigate and ask some simple questions which would have clarified the fact that really the money should go to the other person so we see in this story unbelievable how profound it is and anyone who hears such a story and there are others like this should start to become almost afraid god is in fact watching everything we do our actions especially between our fellow human being and ourselves that's that's recorded that's measured we don't have the right to take what's not ours it's certain that we don't want what's ours to be taken from us but we also have to be careful not to take what someone else does and make it our own that is on some level stealing even if you swindle it even if you are shrewd in receiving it if it was unjustified you may have to come back again to return that so we see reincarnation is a vehicle that god provides for us to fix to make amends to to make a wrong right and and it's interesting because you come a whole lifetime to do this it's not like you have an extra day that you go back and work it's a whole lifetime that we're faced with a need to do this and this is specifically in when we wrong a fellow person now we don't always think of wronging ourself but there's also an aspect of reincarnation that really is related to one's personal life me myself the fact that i'm a body and a soul living in this world with a responsibility with an opportunity so another reason for reincarnation explained is that if i don't accomplish what was meant for me to accomplish and that's again that's a lack of doing positive things and there's also there there's a chance to come back and fill in that void to come back to fill in what was missing because again a person's soul is created with a certain amount of potential and the soul is stuck with that potential and it needs to come into this world and live in a body in order to actualize fulfill that potential and so a great injustice we do to ourself is when we don't really take on that opportunity and that challenge and work together instead we become misguided distracted even selfish on some level just pursuing baseless things pleasures and a life can be wasted much much precious time can be wasted and at the end of that life we go to heaven and we're judged and we're measured it's we've seen what we accomplished and we feel that tremendous regret that lost a third most serious purpose and reason behind reincarnation is unfortunately when we go a bit further than just not accomplishing what we were supposed to but but the opposite destroying doing the things that are damaging and harmful to our self to our soul in particular and to the world around us that damage we are held accountable for you know it's interesting there's a famous uh saying from one of the great mystics rabbi nachman of breslav a great kabbalist and hasidic leader if you believe that you can destroy then you should actually be a bit smarter than that and believe you could build and that's an opportunity that we have when we come into this world we have an opportunity to build but unfortunately when we destroy so then we have to come back to fix all that what we destroy and that's another reason why we keep coming back over and over again now it's interesting god's kindness is infinite and we can come back many many many times to fulfill all of what we must but of course when you realize that we come back over and over again so anyone would realize that it's obviously much more advantageous if we fulfill what we need the sooner the better the less times we have to come back the better it is for us um so here's a real application of that and we'll connect to the other idea we wanted to discuss is how does this concept of reincarnation relate to the end of days essentially there's a question very fascinating question to me at least is that if i come back to this world many times then when the messiah will come and we'll all be alive again together at the end so how many knees will there be so that's a very fascinating question and the answer to that is this there are different parts to our soul and all those parts require fixing and perfecting the amount of times it takes me to reach my perfection perfection destined for me by god is the amount of different bodies i come back into this world in so what essentially can happen is that one soul can be divided into several bodies and so in the end of days the answer is there will be a bunch of use but different variations of use because they'll each take form in a different body but it will be parts of the soul divided into these bodies and they will all be connected to the same root soul so sounds very nice you come once come twice come 10 times come 25 times and it'll just be a dividing of the soul and everything sounds great but we have to appreciate a bit deeper why it's so important for us to take advantage of the opportunity we have now and not wasted because imagine a person coming into the world one time and being so focused and so accomplished that he fixes all of the parts of his soul and of course does no damage so he comes one time and comes out perfect and complete without ever having to come back again so the end of days that person will be in one body now compare that to someone that had to come back 25 times so his that same all-inclusive soul power will be divided by 25 bodies so now look at the difference imagine seeing that one person that has his soul complete within him how how what what a towering figure what a beautiful perfect wholesome uh perfected person that he will represent and the sole power that that one person will represent compared to the sole power of this 25 individual people so we have a lot to gain by getting it right in fewer times and again there are few these are the holiest of the righteous that we we learn about that are able to get it right in one lifetime but most people almost all people require several lifetimes and it's sim interestingly it's taught that today we are in fact all reincarnated almost and we can almost we're not going to find someone who it's his first time in this world and we've all really been through many chances many tries and interesting knowing that should even help us to really connect with the idea of our past and particular struggles we're dealing with now because when i see that certain things i have issues with without even without even realizing why i have an issue there or or this is difficult for me or i have this particular test sent to me by god so one answer to appreciate why i've been given the specific challenge that i've been given is because it's connected with my past life you know we don't know for sure and we can't really testify to it but it answers a lot of questions the idea of you know that i've been here before and i have to make amends for what i've done in the past can answer a lot of different questions why i don't have as much as someone else why i have this struggle and he doesn't and so we have to know first and foremost that god is absolutely just there is no more loving giving just there's no such thing as more love and kindness and giving and justice than from hashem and so whatever we feel we're going through how difficult it is how dark things might seem we have to know that it's all for this ultimate good purpose and it's all connected with our past and ultimately it's going to define our future as well because again the story that we're in the middle of going through right now this story that began with adam the first man and woman adam and eve created is all this length of stories because hashem is not giving up on us you know the first sin drastically changed the course of world history and unfortunately what could have been fixed in a short time is taking thousands upon thousands of years but the idea that we're still here is a sign that hashem is devoted to us he's still with us and he's not giving up on us and so we also must not give up on ourself may we merit with the strengthening of these ideas a greater faith in god a greater faith in god's providence and how the things that happen to us are from him and just and may we accept our role in working on ourselves to be a better person better with our fellow better with ourselves and better with hashem and then we help bring the ultimate completion of all of the rectifications that this world needs to go through so we can merit the coming of the messiah and the messianic era speedily in our days you