Reincarnation
written by: Sivan Kaplan
grade: 10th
score: 90%
date: 16/2/97
Reincarnation is the belief that after death, one's soul keeps existing and
is reborn another person or animal. It keeps reborning until it redeems itself.
Then it returns to the temple of god, which the Buddhists call "Nirvana" -
eternal tranquillity. Two of the many ancient tribes who believed in
reincarnation are the Greeks and the Egyptians.
Karma, the belief that our actions determine our future, is one of the
foundations of reincarnation. For example, a person who lived a sinful life will
return, after death, as an animal, as opposed to a person who lived an honest
life, who will return as a person.
Despite the resistance of many Jewish leaders, reincarnation also played a
role in Judaism due to the Kabala who developed this idea. Some Jewish
philosophers even believed that a soul of a sinner can enter a live man's body
and "posses" him. Special rituals were used in order to "cure" the man.
T. Gomertz, a famous philosopher, thought of three very good reasons why one
should believe in reincarnation:
1. It is believed that dreams are attempts of the soul to live the body. If this
is true, than the soul can leave the body and it does so when a person dies.
This also means that a soul can exist without a body.
2. If we assume that the soul dies with the body it is connected to, than we
will have to assume there is an endless number of souls which i ...