Reincarnation and Resurrection in Judaism: Who Rises — and With Whom?

After understanding the principle of the reincarnation of souls, many practical questions arise. If I lived as different people in different lifetimes, in which of those lives will I rise at the Resurrection of the Dead? If I had different spouses across various incarnations, who will rise alongside me?

“Each time the soul comes here, it repairs something specific,” explains Rabbi Eli Amar. “For example, if in a previous life I was quick-tempered, here I need to correct the trait of anger. Everyone receives the rectification they need, and once a person completes that rectification, the soul is perfected. Accordingly, that same soul will be divided among several bodies.”

How can one soul divide among several bodies?

Sometimes we feel ‘soul ties,’ as if another person is essentially me. For instance, if someone harms my child, I may feel as though it happened to me — even though we’re in different bodies. The same principle applies across incarnations, only in different intensities.

Does the soul feel pain when it’s divided among several bodies and identities?

We tend to evaluate spiritual matters by physical measures, but in the metaphysical dimension the system is different. The soul does not suffer while it is in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden) even when a spark from it continues its rectification. What descends here is the part that was not yet corrected.

Rabbi Yitzhak Gabay explains: “With the sin of the first human, Adam, his soul split into 600,000 root souls. Today we have far more than 600,000 Jews because those roots split into soul-fragments. When a particular soul descends to the world, it comes down in an unrectified state, since Adam’s sin was an inborn flaw in the human soul. Other collective sins, like the Golden Calf, added to that. That soul performed mitzvot (commandments) and repaired certain things. In some areas it managed to repair its root, while in others, it did not — and may even have caused damage.

After some decades, the person departs this world and the soul divides: the part repaired in the first incarnation ascends to the World of Souls, and what descends in the second incarnation is only the part not yet repaired. The third and final incarnation (there are no more than three), is likewise a part of that same soul, originating from the same root.

When the soul is in the higher world, it is composed of two potential halves — male and female. When a boy is born, only the male half of the soul descends. The female half waits until its time comes, and sometimes it even comes to the world earlier. The boy and girl grow until they meet under the chuppah (wedding canopy). This is referred to as a ‘match from the soul’s root’ — what people today call a soulmate. Essentially, it’s the same soul.

With which spouse will we rise at the Resurrection, given there are up to three incarnations?

It’s the same spouse, because in every incarnation they were a pair. It’s possible for the match to be missed through excessive pickiness without real reasons, or through improper behavior — but that’s another topic.

Which of my incarnations will rise at the Resurrection?

There’s a well-known dispute. Some say one body will rise and include all the parts of the soul from the different incarnations. Others say all the bodies will rise for a certain period, because they too deserve reward for serving as instruments through which the soul repaired itself. Only afterward do we arrive at the World of Souls, where there are souls without bodies.

From a consciousness standpoint, after all the soul-parts are unified, will we know exactly who we were?

Certainly we’ll know. Even today our soul knows everything; it’s just that we are limited by the body. Through mediums, hypnosis, and the like it’s indeed possible to uncover things — though that is, of course, not desirable. In the future however we will know everything, and we will also understand many things that we didn’t grasp here in the material world.