Mystical systems
Gilgul
Direct answer
Gilgul: Gilgul, short for gilgul neshamot, the rolling of souls, is the kabbalistic teaching that a soul may return in a new body to complete or repair what it left unfinished.
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At a glance
- Also called
- reincarnation in judaism, jewish reincarnation kabbalah, transmigration of souls kabbalah
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Reincarnation, Lurianic Kabbalah, Tikkun, Zohar
Gilgul, short for gilgul neshamot, the rolling of souls, is the kabbalistic teaching that a soul may return in a new body to complete or repair what it left unfinished.
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Does Judaism believe in reincarnation?
Gilgul comes from a Hebrew root meaning to roll or turn. The teaching holds that a soul which has not fulfilled its task is sent back, in another body, for a further attempt. In the Lurianic form each soul has particular commandments to keep and particular flaws to mend, and it returns until that portion is done.
The doctrine has no clear footing in the Bible or the Talmud, and it has never been an article of Jewish faith. It belongs to the kabbalists, who found it hinted at in verses of Job and Ecclesiastes and used it to answer old questions: why the innocent suffer, why a child dies, why two strangers feel bound. Among Hasidim and in communities shaped by Kabbalah it is widely held. Other Jewish thinkers have denied it outright.
On the tree of the hidden arts: The Tree of Life.
What sets Gilgul apart
Gilgul differs from the Indian teachings in its mechanics and its mood. A soul in the Lurianic account is not a single unit: it has levels and sparks, and different parts may be sent back separately or lodged with other souls, so one person can carry sparks of several earlier lives. Return is limited and purposeful, tied to specific commandments left undone, and it is bound into the history of a people. The kabbalists read the Bible as a record of it, with Abel's soul returning in Seth and later in Moses.
- Hebrew: gilgul neshamot: the rolling or revolving of souls
- Earliest text: the Bahir, late twelfth century
- Chief source: Gate of Reincarnations, by Hayyim Vital, from Luria's teaching
- Early opponent: Saadia Gaon, in a work completed in 933
- Verse often cited: Job 33:29, on God acting twice or three times with a man
- Standing: held in kabbalistic and Hasidic circles; never a required belief
Often mistaken for something else: Samsara in the Indian traditions is a round with no assigned purpose, to be escaped; gilgul is a return granted so that a particular task can be finished and the world repaired.
The story behind Gilgul
Saadia Gaon, writing in 933, dismissed belief in transmigration as foreign nonsense, which shows that some Jews of his day held it. It first appears as a teaching in the Bahir in the late twelfth century and is developed in the Zohar. The fullest treatment is the Gate of Reincarnations, set down by Hayyim Vital from the teaching of Isaac Luria in Safed, which also traces the earlier lives of biblical figures and of Vital's own circle.
Why Gilgul matters
Gilgul shows that a doctrine of rebirth exists inside a Western monotheist religion, with a purpose, repair, quite unlike the Indian aim of release.
How to read Gilgul
The word is used both for the process and for a single lifetime in the series, and it is the frame for the related ideas of the ibbur and the dybbuk.
Gilgul in practice: an example
A Hasidic tale may explain a stranger's sudden kindness by saying that the two souls had a debt outstanding from another gilgul.
Where readings of Gilgul go wrong
Gilgul is a teaching of one stream within Judaism. Naming anyone's former lives was treated even by kabbalists as the gift of rare masters.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- gilgul neshamot, gilgul meaning, reincarnation in judaism, jewish reincarnation kabbalah, transmigration of souls kabbalah
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Does Judaism believe in reincarnation?
Some of it does. Kabbalistic and Hasidic tradition teaches gilgul, the return of souls. The Bible and Talmud do not state it, medieval philosophers such as Saadia Gaon rejected it, and it is not a required belief.
What does gilgul mean?
Literally a rolling or revolving. Gilgul neshamot, the revolving of souls, is the Hebrew term for the passing of a soul into a new body after death.
What is the purpose of gilgul?
In Lurianic teaching a soul comes back to keep commandments it missed or to mend harm it did, as part of the wider repair called tikkun. It is seen as a mercy that allows unfinished work to be completed.
