Why do bad things happen to good people?
There’s nothing new in looking around and seeing good people suffer while bad people thrive. Religions have had to grapple with the apparent inconsistency between this and the concept of a just and loving God. One answer is reincarnation. Hindus have rebirths on the journey to Nirvana, and Jews have the transmigration of souls as gilguls, as Howard Schwartz points out.
The idea of gilguls dates to the eighth century Karaite sect, but became more prominent within Judaism when it was embraced by medieval Kabbalists. Unlike a dybbuk, a wandering spirit that attaches itself to a living person and must be expelled through exorcism, the gilgul is a soul that returns to earth to complete a mission, rectify a past wrong, or purify itself so it can enter heaven. In this context, the child that dies might represent a soul that only needed a few years on earth to complete its mission from a previous life.
Rabbi Yissocher Frand retells the Talmudic story of the children of Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha. The son and daughter were taken by the Romans as slaves when the Temple was destroyed and sold to different masters. Sometime later, the masters met, raved to each other about the beauty of their slaves, and decided to breed them and split the profits from the resulting children. They put the two in a completely darkened room and told them to have relations. Neither brother nor sister knew who the other was. But each recoiled at the idea of the forced union and cried the entire night. In the morning, they recognized each other, embraced—and died. Rabbi Frand cites the 16th century Italian Kabbalist the Maharam m’Pano that these two were the reincarnated souls, or gilgulim, of King David’s children, Amnon and Tamar. The bible’s Book of Samuel II tells of Amnon’s lust for and relations with his half-sister. As a result of that sin, says the Maharam m’Pano, the two were reincarnated so they could withstand a similar temptation and achieve purity.
Some souls pass through many cycles on earth, being reborn as animals or inanimate objects if they continue to fail in their missions, or as higher and more holy people as they become purified. Gilguls could pass from animals to people if the animals were slaughtered and eaten without the pronouncement of the proper blessings.
Water was a particular danger; those who were careless in their blessings before drinking water could be reincarnated as water. J. H. Chajes quotes the early 17th century Kabbalist Rabbi Abraham Azulai, who teaches: “Know that there is no spring, nor well, nor pool of water, nor river which is not infested with countless transmigrants. Therefore it is not fitting that one place one’s mouth on the stream to drink, but one should rather take [the water] into one’s hand. For it is possible for one of them to transmigrate into him, as is known… and then that evil soul impregnates himself in him and abets him to sin. [On the other hand,] one who is learned and who eats with the proper intention is able to elevate and to fix those transmigrants.”
The gilgul isn’t as well-known in popular fiction as its bigger brother, the dybbuk—but he does make appearances. The New Yorker published Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s haunting story Gilgul in 2011. Nathan Englander’s breakthrough collection in 1999, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, featured the humorous story “The Gilgul of Park Avenue,” in which a non-Jew suddenly discovered his Jewish soul.
Perhaps the gilgul appeals to writers because transmigration is so much like the writing process itself: If you don’t get it right this time, there’s always the next draft.