Sara Yoheved Rigler - Ive Been Here Before: When Souls of the Holocaust Return

This book is really unique on several counts. First, it deals with an esoteric concept deeply rooted in Kabbalah that is not well understood by the average or even educated Jew, i.e., gilgul or the reincarnation of souls. Second, it links this topic to a dark, tragic episode in Jewish history, the Holocaust, and shows how this tragedy continues to inflict its pain on people who were born decades after its conclusion.

The concept of gilgul has a controversial history in Judaism. Some eminent thinkers, like Rabbi Saadyah Gaon, rejected it out of hand. Others, like Ramban and all the Kabbalists, deeply believed in this idea and used it as a partial explanation for the suffering of the righteous. While not a definite article of faith, gilgul neshamot has become a widely accepted idea within traditional Judaism, and some maintain that it finds some empirical support in the scientific studies of past-life regression.

Sara Rigler, who is both an accomplished writer and a very committed Orthodox Jew (as well as a person of sound mind and judgment!), has written a powerful and gripping narrative detailing the experiences of people who claim to be the reincarnations of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Many of these people have been obsessed with the Holocaust from the time they were children, even though their parents were neither survivors nor even talked about the Nazi atrocities. Even as children, these people had vivid, terrifying dreams or even day visions of torture, persecution, flight, and panic. They often had an unexplained hatred for all things German even when that hatred was not shared by parents, family, friends, or Hebrew school teachers. Aptly described as members of a secret society so secret that even the members didnt know they belong, many of these people felt marginalized, sick, crazy, not normal. They had no idea where these feelings, images, fears, and panics came from until Mrs. Rigler suggested to them that the origin lay in the mystery of gilgul. And with that revelation, many felt liberated and were able to go on despite their memories of extreme suffering.

This is heavy stuff, and obviously every reader will have to judge for themselves, but Mrs. Rigler makes a powerful case for her conclusions, and the stories in any case make for fascinating reading. While I can offer no definitive opinion whether her conclusions are true, I can state that her conclusions are consistent with Jewish tradition. Moreover, I myself have heard gedolim declare that many of the Jews who have recently returned to Judaism (chozrei bteshuvah) might possibly be the reincarnated souls of those murdered in the Shoah, persons who were either too young to keep mitzvot or who were simply unobservant. God gave them a second chance for tikkun (rectification).

Mrs . Rigler has given us much to think about, particularly in seeing the cosmic intergenerational impact of radical evil that transcends all boundaries of time and space. And if evil can have such an effect, it is surely the case that goodness can. Our lives matter and we should make them count!

With admiration and berachah,

Yitzchak A. Breitowitz

Rav, Kehillat Ohr Somayach

This book

is dedicated to the

six million holy Jews

who perished in the Holocaust

and

to the nearly three hundred thousand survivors,

who carried the German Gehinnom with them,

throughout lives that were long or short,

lonely or blessed with descendants,

those many who became great examples for the world,

and those who remained imprisoned in their nightmares.

I have tremendous reverence for them all.

CONTENTS

PART I
THE PAST PERMEATES THE PRESENT

PART II
TIKKUN

I WAS INITIALLY SKEPTICAL about the relevance of a book on reincarnation. I am very comfortable in the familiar tangible present, and had no desire to cross the border from there into unexplored (and what I thought was unexplorable) territory.