Dogs are reincarnated slanderers, apparently

Those of you who are regular followers of the doings and writings of Rabbi Lazer Brody will no doubt wonder, as I often do, “What insane belief will this man come up with next to top his last insane nonsense?” Whether it’s curing cancer with mushrooms or advising homosexual women that the way to rid their impure selves of this abomination is to wash their hands in the morning, Lazer’s always ready with some narishkeit to nourish your soul.

But today’s may be the best one yet. According to Lazer, not only do Jews believe in reincarnation, but dogs are the reincarnated spirits of slanderers:

Jews firmly believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is designed to attain a correction of the soul and mend sins of former lives. For example, those who slander others and who speak idle gossip are usually reincarnated as dogs. We should try our best to fulfill G-d’s commandments and to avoid the need for further reincarnations at all costs.

There’s so much going on here I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I’ll start with the “content” of this blog post. Yes, many Jews have historically believed in reincarnation. The Talmud speaks of gilgul neshamot, or “transmigrations of the soul”, and it is posited that souls migrate to new bodies after death to atone for sins committed in their former lives. Kabbalistic tradition makes much of this, especially in the Zohar, the writings of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), and Hasidic folk stories and traditions. Some people even believe it today, as we can see in the crazy ravings of a certain Internet nutjob who believes that trees contain souls in need of “correction”. Even an otherwise reasonable rabbi I know in California believes in reincarnation.

Apparently, Jews also believe that the souls of those who speak lashon ha-ra—gossip and slander—are reincarnated in canine form. Who knew?

Jewish belief in reincarnation (inasmuch as it can be called “Jewish”) has its traditional, pre-rabbinic origins in the nebulous concept of tehiyat ha-meitim, the resurrection of the dead that will be one of the defining features of the Messianic Age. But Jewish notions of post-death reward and punishment have always been very poorly defined: “heaven” and “hell” are not native Jewish concepts and do not translate very well into Jewish eschatology. This is why the traditional answer to the questions “What age will I be when I’m resurrected in the Messianic Age?” and “If I were to die by having my head chopped off, would I be resurrected without a head?” is “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Judaism is focussed on this world and what we do with our lives in it. In the age-old “works versus faith” debate, Judaism falls squarely on the side of works. A human being who does good deeds and does not believe in God is worth many times more than one who pays lip service to God and does not try to live up to his or her God’s ideas about human honour and dignity. God demands that we give charity to the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, strive to rid the world of anguish and strife. A Jew who does not do these things is not practicing Judaism.

If you speak slander or gossip—and who hasn’t?—the penalty is not reincarnation into another form (how you’re supposed to perform penance as a dog is beyond me, anyway). If you sin, you won’t be punished with eternal hellfire or damnation or anything like that. The penalty for those who create a worse world with their wrongdoing is to live in a worse world.