Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe: Principles and Pressures

 

Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe: Principles and Pressures (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2024), by Haym Soloveitchik

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

Rabbi Dr. Haym Soloveitchik's Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe: Principles and Pressures offers a fascinating and top-notch exploration of a critical Halakhic and economic challenge faced by Medieval Ashkenazi Jewry. By Pentateuchal law, wine libated as part of idolatry (yayn nesech) is utterly forbidden. The rabbis further instituted a general prohibition, stam yeinam, forbidding all gentile wine as though it were yayn nesech, driven by concern over habitual pagan libations. As the author makes clear, the rabbis instituted this prohibition because of a concern that gentiles might habitually dabble or flick wine as an idolatrous tribute to their deity. This concern was only in play in a pagan milieu, wherein such habitual libations or libation-like acts of devotion were de regur.

But for the burgeoning Ashkenazi community in Lotharingia (Lotir), the ambient religion was not pagan, but rather Christian, and Christians did not engage in this sort of habitual libation. As Soloveitchik meticulously makes clear, this reality leads to the following puzzle: One might have expected this new reality to lead to a relaxation of the stam yeinam prohibition, especially given the importance and lucrativeness of the wine industry in regions like Germany and France. Instead, the author shows with exceptional clarity that Ashkenazi Jews embraced only minimal leniencies – notably, post facto acceptance of gentile wine as debt payment. Crucially, they refused any leniency allowing a priori engagement in the trade of Christian wine or the employment of gentile workers in Jewish wine production. The big question is why did Ashkenazi Jews in the High Middle Ages not avail themselves of this chance to relax the restrictions of stam yeinam due to the reality that the concerns that led to the original prohibition were no longer in play.

In setting up this question, Soloveitchik demonstrates a clear mastery of Medieval Ashkenazi texts, both printed and manuscript, providing close analysis of Tosafistic and pre-Tosafist sources. This analysis reveals that the early Ashkenazi community consistently adopted the aforementioned stringent position at extreme financial cost, readily sacrificing lucrative economic opportunities.

Dr. Soloveitchik finds their stance perplexing and counterintuitive. This leads to the book's central thesis: the early Ashkenazi Jews’ deep-seated revulsion towards gentile wine can be chalked up to gentile anti-Semitism and the Jews' response to that wretched phenomenon. Drawing on scholar Gavin Langmuir's research tracing the evolution of German anti-Semitism from a "rational" form to an intense, irrational form where Jews themselves were reviled as disgusting, Soloveitchik posits a similar phenomenon occurred in Jewish attitudes. The refusal to relax stam yeinam is understood not as a purely legal position, but as an emotional/social reaction to gentile treatment.

As this book makes clear, the discussion at hand can be viewed as a sort of case study that uses the Soloveitchik's innovative methodology that looks for an "angle of deflection" in the rulings of Jewish jurists before arguing that their conclusions are not purely based on legal reasoning but on other, extralegal factors. In our case, in the author's estimation, the Ashkenazi Jewry's illogical refusal to relax the laws of stam yeinam are understood to not be based on any real legal position but on an emotional/social reaction to how the gentiles treated them. The book is a fascinating case study of this innovative methodology.

In this book, characters like Rashi, Rivan, Rabbeinu Tam, and the Ri of Dampierre come alive as their relevant Talmudic comments and Halakhic responsa are analyzed and broken down. Soloveitchik also discusses the introduction of the idea of stam yeinam as a hedge against intermarriage, how the story of Jewish participation in wine trade directly led to their later roles as moneylenders, and the reception of Geonic rulings in Ashkenaz.

While some parts of this study had been available in English before, this compilation of a lifetime of Soloveitchik's studies is invaluable for the English-reading audience. As can be expected of a scholar of Soloveitchik's renown and lineage, the research is top-notch — thorough and wide-reaching. Some sections are somewhat repetitive, and parts translated from the author's Hebrew originals lack the elegant English prose characteristic of his signature style. Helpful maps illustrate the extent of wine production in the Rhine area and the early cradles of Ashkenaz civilization. Overall, this book is a significant and compelling work illuminating a crucial aspect of Medieval Jewish life and law.

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press, 2025), by Eli Rubin

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

Eli Rubin’s book Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity paints a rich intellectual portrait of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement by intertwining a history of the movement with a theological history of the movement’s core ideas. The historical/biographical element primarily follows the lives of Chabad’s seven rebbes, whose collective lifespans cover two and a half centuries from 1745 to 1994. Rather than adopting a reductionist approach — wherein succession disputes and internal developments are chalked up to economic, social, or personality-driven factors — Rubin foregrounds the subtle theological distinctions that shaped the movement. In this way, the history of people/events converges with the history of ideas. In Rubin’s telling, ideas and individuals evolve in concert, and the tensions between them illuminate deeper spiritual commitments rather than surface-level rivalries.

Rubin shows how each of the various rebbes of Chabad had their own unique area(s) of focus and contribution to Chabad thought, with their writings often in conversation with each other over the generations. These transgenerational theological dialogues span from Chabad’s founding figure Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), known as the Alter Rebbe or Rashaz, all the way to the movement’s seventh and final Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902–1994), known as Ramash. Rubin’s narrative shows how developments in Chabad thought were inextricably shaped by the broader historical contexts in which they developed, especially the various sets of the circumstances in which Chabad Hassidim and their leaders found themselves from Czarist Russia to Communist Russia to wartime Poland to postwar America.

A recuring concept discussed throughout the book is the idea of tzimtzum, the Lurianic doctrine that God "contracted" Himself to create space for the world. Rubin tracks the way this concept was interpreted and reinterpreted by Chabad thinkers over the generations. Already in the early 18^th century, Italian rabbis like Rabbi Immanuel Chai Ricchi (1688–1743) read tzimtzum literally, while Rabbi Yosef Ergas (1685–1730) maintained it must be understood metaphorically. The idea of tzimtzum looms large in the discourses of Rashaz. This is especially true of Rashaz’s work Likkutei Amarim (colloquially known as Tanya), wherein he emphatically taught that tzimtzum must be understood non-literally, and he preached the idea that God’s presence continues to permeate all of creation such that there is no space that is free of Him. This non-literal view of tzimtzum became a hallmark of Chabad theology.

This interpretation was not without controversy. The Misnagdim (opponents of Hasidism, often derisively called “Snags” by those in the Chabad community), led by the Vilna Gaon (1720–1797), championed a literal reading of tzimtzum, viewing the Chabad position as dangerously close to pantheism — or even heresy, in the manner of Baruch Spinoza. Indeed, Rashaz’s view that God did not actually constrict Himself to create the world heavily suggests that the world must then be a part of God. Contemporary scholars like Rachel Elior have interpreted Tanya as promoting a kind of acosmism — the notion that the world does not exist as an ontological reality independent God. [Curiously, the author does not engage with the recent work of contemporary philosopher Sam Lebens, who actually finds the acosmic view that the world only exists as an idea in God’s mind (what he dubs “Extreme Hasidic Idealism”) quite compelling.]

In pushing back against these criticisms of Rashaz, Rubin follows Elliot Wolfson in distinguishing between Spinoza’s pantheism that represents a secularization of the divine, and Chabad’s “divinization of nature.” In this theological framework, God is indeed everywhere, but human beings must find Him and make His presence more palpable through mitzvah observance and Torah study — acts that induce a sort of effacement whereby one re-enters in rapture with the omnipresent deity (whose absence in the material world is only metaphorical, but not ontological/metaphysical). Performing such “good deeds” dissolve the ego and allow one to reunite with the omnipresent divine (the apotheosis of action). According to this reading, the point of tzimtzum is not a rupture by which God intends to separate Himself from His creation, but it is rather an illusion of Divine concealment that invites human agency and longing for the Divine. The author shows how this theology is not only explicit in later expositors of Tanya (most prominently, Rashaz’s descendants and successors), but can be gleaned from close readings of Rashaz’s works themselves.

Besides for delving into the intricacies of the content of Chabad theology, this book also highlights the different modalities that the various rebbes used to relay and broadcast those ideas to a wider audience: verbal discourses (sichos), transcribed talks (maamarim), glosses and reworkings of earlier Chabad works (hagahos), multipartite discourses (hemshech), epistolatory missives (iggros), and institution-building (i.e., founding Yeshivas and dispatching emissaries). Each rebbe had his own distinctive style and approach to spreading Chabad ideology, whether more inwardly focused or outward-looking, ascetic or worldly, conciliatory or polemical.

Among the more intriguing chapters is Rubin’s discussion of the fifth Rebbe, Rashab (Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, 1860–1920), and his reputed encounter with Sigmund Freud in Vienna — a moment that hints at surprising intellectual affinities between Hasidic introspection and psychoanalytic method. Rubin also delves into Kabbalistic ideas such as reshimu (the “trace” of Divine light left behind from before tzimtzum) and the Chabad perspectives on the nature of materialism.

The book culminates with a treatment of Ramash, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late seventh rebbe, who was both a direct descendant of Rashaz and the son-in-law of his predecessor, the sixth rebbe Rayatz (Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, 1880–1950). With university training in science and engineering, Ramash was said to have introduced a scientific-like aspect of synthesis to Chabad theology in his efforts to bridge gaps between disparate views. As Rubin shows, Ramash was the first rebbe in the movement to entertain Rabbi Irgas’ literal reading of tzimtzum — not as a repudiation of the traditional Chabad view, but as a complementary perspective that could, after a fashion, be harmonized with Rashaz’s non-literal understanding. In so doing, the Lubavitcher Rebbe sought to resolve centuries-old disputes between Hasidim and Misnagdim. Rubin further contrasts Ramash’s new look at the future redemption with his direct predecessor’s: Ramash focused his Messianic vision by looking towards an idealistic future, whereas the previous rebbe Rayatz sought out a redemptive model by looking back at an idealized past.

While Rubin’s focus is squarely on Chabad, readers should be aware that this is not a survey of Hasidism in general. Foundational ideas from other Hasidic works — such as Noam Elimelech, Kedushas Levi, and Me’or Einayim — are entirely absent from the discussion, but this is consistent with internal Chabad usage, wherein the term “Chassidus” refers exclusively to Chabad teachings. In fact, this book presents Chabad literature as mostly internal, and only very seldomly looking to the broader works of Jewish literature. For instance, the only reference to Jewish Medieval thought in this book is when the fourth rebbe of Chabad Maharash (Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, 1834–1882) cited from Ibn Gabbai in the name of R. Azriel of Gerona (in addition to Ramash’s special interest in Maimonides, which is a later, 20^th century development in Chabad discourse).

Although Rubin occasionally touches on some of the splinter groups that broke off and rejoined Chabad (like Strashelye and Kopust), he largely sidesteps the more contentious aspects of later Chabad history (such as the anti-Zionist Malachim, the Gur-Aryeh controversy, or the Liozne Rebbe’s claim to succeeding Ramash). Similarly, he refrains from in-depth discussions of external polemics, such as disputes that Ramash had with important non-Hasidic leaders like Rabbi Aharon Kotler or Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach.

In this, the book largely follows the official historiography of institutional Chabad. This should not come as a surprise because the author himself is personally very much a part of the Chabad community as an insider, besides having earned his academic credentials with a PhD from the department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL. As befits a person of such dual personality, his sources (as copiously detailed in the book’s endnotes) include both scholarly works from the halls of academia, as well as close readings of classical Chabad works.

This is a dense and intellectually-demanding volume, laden with technical kabbalistic and academic terminology. It is not a light read, and at times the arguments may elude non-specialists. This reviewer freely admits that he did not quite follow all the deep intricacies and nuances discussed. The addition of in-text cross-references or summaries might have helped the reader keep track of the different ideas swirling around, although the index does a decent job of helping the reader find specific points. Overall, this book is a compelling and interesting read that is sure to be a useful resource on Chabad theology in academic circles for years to come.

The Rogatchover Gaon: A Glimpse into the Rogatchover’s Universe

The Rogatchover Gaon: A Glimpse into the Rogatchover’s Universe (Beck, 2013), by DovBer Schwartz

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

This fascinating book offers an accessible and engaging introduction to one of the most enigmatic and brilliant minds of the modern rabbinic world — Rabbi Yosef Rosen (1858–1936), often known as the Rogatchover Gaon. He was a prolific Talmudist who served as the Hasidic rabbi of Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia), where he famously shared the rabbinate with the non-Hasidic Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (author of Meshech Chochmah and Ohr Somayach). Rabbi Rosen wrote many volumes which were published under the title Tzafnas Paneach, including commentaries on the Pentateuch, the Talmud, Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah, and several collections of responsa. Though personally affiliated with the Kapust and Lubavitch branches of Chabad Hasidism, the Rogatchover's style and reputation transcended sectarian boundaries and Jews from many different streams reached out to him in written correspondence.

The first chapter of Schwartz’s book reads like a conventional biography — bordering at times on hagiography — as it outlines Rabbi Rosen’s life and records a variety of colorful anecdotes that offer glimpses into his unusual personality. The rest of the book shifts into something more akin to an intellectual biography, attempting to unpack the dense and often impenetrable ideas scattered throughout Rabbi Rosen’s voluminous writings.

The heart of the book lies in its attempt to make sense of the Rogatchover’s famously terse and allusive style. As is well-known, Rabbi Rosen’s writings often consist of cryptic chains of citations — frequently without any further explanation — and presuppose the reader’s familiarity not only with the texts referenced, but also with the conceptual threads that link them. To make these discussions more accessible, the author presents the Talmudic conundrums and/or Halachic questions with which Rabbi Rosen grapples and then proceeds to show how Rabbi Rosen used certain conceptual paradigms typified by the texts he referenced to resolve those difficulties. Schwartz succeeds, to some extent, in decoding these references and presenting the core ideas that Rabbi Rosen wrote about in lucid and accessible English. A major strength of the book lies in the author’s ability to render complex lomdus (Talmudic conceptual paradigms) into clear English prose, without slipping into dense legalese. Notably, Schwartz was a law student when he wrote this book, so it is to the reader’s advantage that the author’s academic training in jurisprudence informs his analytical style.

However, while Schwartz does an admirable job in simplifying the difficult material that is Rabbi Rosen’s writing, his interpretations must be approached with caution. The Rogatchover’s thought is notoriously subtle, and many of the summaries presented by Schwartz cannot do justice to the actual topic. They certainly cannot be taken as definitive without checking up the primary sources inside. The book’s final chapter offers several examples of Rabbi Rosen’s style of Biblical interpretation, particularly from his glosses on the opening chapters of Genesis, and highlights the unique, often radical, hermeneutic strategies employed by the Rogatchover.

One especially puzzling section appears at the end of Chapter 2, where Schwartz inserts a bizarre polemic that compares Rabbi Rosen and his contemporary, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk (1853–1918). Both Rabbi Rosen and Rabbi Soloveitchik studied under Rabbi Soloveitchik’s father in their youth, and the two Talmudist were certainly acquainted with each other. While it is true that both figures were innovators in the use of conceptual analysis for Talmud Study, Schwartz devotes space in his book to arguing that Rabbi Rosen’s approach was somehow superior — an argument that ultimately rests on fine distinctions and subjective preferences. The author’s hair-splitting as to the differences between the methodologies of these two towering figures remains unconvincing and his conclusions are far from being as obvious as he presents them. The comparison feels forced, and the attempt to elevate the Rogatchover at Rabbi Soloveitchik’s expense is unconvincing, particularly given that in the Yeshiva World at large, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s influence is more readily acknowledged and his prestige is unparalleled.

The book makes use of a wide range of biographical and anecdotal sources. Included among the secondary sources from which the author draws information are various digests of Rabbi Rosen’s positions, such as Rabbi Menachem Kasher’s Mefane’ach Tzefunos and Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin’s essay on the Rogatchover in Ishim V'Shitos. These works help clarify the Rogatchover’s often opaque methodology and offer essential context. However, Schwartz is not always careful with his citations, and references are inconsistently footnoted. This lack of editorial rigor is one of the book’s main weaknesses.

Indeed, the book is marred by numerous typos, occasional mistranslations, and a lack of thematic organization. Discussions and anecdotes are presented in a somewhat haphazard fashion, with abrupt jumps between topics. Nevertheless, these shortcomings do not detract from the overall value of the work. Despite its flaws, the book remains an original contribution, especially for English-speaking readers with little prior exposure to the Rogatchover’s world. It opens a window into a dazzling and singular intellect. Even if this book does not always succeed in its interpretations, it certainly succeeds in sparking curiosity about this great genius’s life and writings.

In short, DovBer (Berry) Schwartz’s book The Rogatchover Gaon is a flawed but fascinating introduction to one of the most brilliant — and baffling — figures in modern rabbinic history. It should be of interest to students of Talmud, halakhic history, and the evolution of lomdus, and will hopefully serve as a stepping stone to deeper engagement with the primary works of Rabbi Yosef Rosen himself.

The Life of the Soul: Jewish Perspectives on the Reincarnation from the Middles Ages to the Modern Period

 

The Life of the Soul: Jewish Perspectives on the Reincarnation from the Middles Ages to the Modern Period (SUNY Press, 2025), edited by Andrea Gondos & Leore Sachs-Shmueli

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

The Life of the Soul is a rich and meticulously researched volume that explores the development of Jewish conceptions related to reincarnation (gilgul neshamot) from medieval Kabbalah to Hasidic thought. Edited by Andrea Gondos and Leore Sachs-Shmueli, the book brings together contributions from leading scholars — including Moshe Idel, James A. Diamond, Ariel Evan Mayse, and Shaul Magid — as well as emerging researchers, offering a comprehensive examination of how Jewish mystics grappled with the idea of the transmigration of souls.

It’s always difficult to review edited volumes because each contribution has its own voice, its own methodology, and its own point. The different contributions usually focus on a specific kabbalist or kabbalistic text’s view on the topic of reincarnation. Rather than focusing on individual essays, this review highlights the overarching themes that unify the volume. The contributors trace the evolution of reincarnation doctrines across key Kabbalistic texts, from the Bahir and Zohar to the works of Nachmanides and his disciples, later Lurianic Kabbalah, and Hasidic homilies. A recurring methodological strength is the careful mapping of how ideas were transmitted, adapted, and reinterpreted across generations, often with subtle but significant variations in terminology. In doing so, the scholars carefully trace the first instances of each idea discussed and then often mapping out the genealogy of how various kabbalistic sources were influenced by each other’s novelties.

One central discussion revolves around the relationship between gilgul (transmigration) and sod ha’ibbur (the "secret of impregnation"), two concepts frequently conflated in Kabbalistic literature. The book distinguishes between horizontal reincarnation (movement between beings on the same ontological level, such as human to human) and vertical reincarnation (movement up or down the chain of being, from human to animal or even plant). The latter notion, eerily resonant with modern scientific ideas like the conservation of mass, underscores the Kabbalistic view of a dynamic, interconnected cosmos.

Several essays explore the intersection of reincarnation with halakhic (Jewish legal) discourse. One striking example is the link between gilgul and the commandment of procreation: some sources frame reincarnation as a mechanism for allowing the souls of those who died childless to have another opportunity to fulfill this special mitzvah. This is sometimes viewed as a way to “punish” those who failed issue offspring, while others see it in a more positive light as a means of giving a person a second chance to achieve in another lifetime what he failed to achieve in a prior lifetime. Similarly, esoteric interpretations of yibbum (levirate marriage) suggest that the deceased brother’s soul may reincarnate in the child born to his widow. Even the laws of shechitah (ritual slaughter) are imbued with mystical significance, as some Kabbalists viewed the act as a means of elevating the animal’s soul. An idea especially expanded upon in Hasidic treatments of gilgul focuses on how gilgul enables a person to fulfill more commandments than one was able to fulfill in a single lifetime.

The volume also delves into the Zoharic portrayal of reincarnation — particularly in Saba d’Mishpatim — where unfavorable incarnation cycles are likened to enslavement, drawing a provocative parallel to the Torah’s laws concerning Hebrew bondsmen and slavegirl. The cyclic nature of gilgul (literally "wheel") aligns with broader Kabbalistic conceptions of time, including the monthly lunar renewal, seven-year shemittah cycles, and 50,000-year Jubilee cycles (shemitta hagadol). When coupled with the idea of reincarnation, this cyclic view of history can be quite inspiring in times of oppression, as it gives hope to the Jewish People that even if things are not going well right now, there will eventually be a positive upswing in the cycle.

Comparisons with Eastern religions, particularly the concept of karma, are briefly addressed in several essays, though the focus remains on Judaism’s unique theological concerns. Some essays touch on how Biblical and Rabbinic figures were retroactively interpreted as reincarnations, such as Abraham bring linked to Adam; Terach, to Job; Moses, to Abel; and Jethro, to Cain. As part of the genre, there is also a discussion of Nebuchadnezzar’s metamorphosis into an animal as foretold by Daniel.

An adjacent topic treated in this book is known popular parlance as an ibbur or dybbuk. Those terms refer to the phenomenon of a living person’s body being possessed by the soul of the dead. In some ways, this is also a type of reincarnation. One chapter is devoted to discussion of how rabbinic exorcists would help remedy those people whose bodies had been possessed, specifically focusing on episodes from the personal memoirs of two such mystics, Rabbi Hillel Bbaal Shem (17–18^th century) and Rabbi Yehuda Fetayah (19-20^th century). These rabbis are presented as shamans who used their knowledge to not only chase away demonic or dead forces from the bodies of their victims, but even to use those episodes of possession to their advantage to gain more knowledge of the spiritual underpinnings of the soul’s movements.

The kabbalistic sources treated discuss also questions like: How many times can a single soul be reincarnated? Can a soul change species (from person to animal or even mineral, or vice versa) or gender (male to female, or vice versa)? How does the concept of gilgul jibe with earlier Jewish beliefs about resurrection of the dead (techiyat hameitim)? Into which of a given soul’s multiple bodies will a soul be reincarnated in the End of Days? With which spouse will one enter eternal rapture? Can a Jewish be reincarnated as a non-Jew or vice versa? Fascinatingly, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdechiv presents three answers to the first question: either one returns in their first body (Kabbalists), their most recent body (philosophers), or the soul is embodied by the limbs that had been repaired through fulfilling mitzvot whatever incarnation that limb was rectified (his preferred answer) without favoring one entire body over another.

Additionally, this volume does not shy away from the philosophical tensions raised by reincarnation. How does gilgul align with the doctrine of bodily resurrection (techiyat ha-meitim)? Can a soul change gender or species between lifetimes? How does reward and punishment function if deeds from past lives influence one’s current fate?

Some of the difficult questions about gilgul led Jewish philosophers who are less kabbalistically-inclined to outright reject the notion of reincarnation as a non-Jewish belief. Rabbi Saadia Gaon was famously the first Jewish philosopher to do so, as did Rabbi Jedaiah HaPenini Bedersi. Maimonides was reticent on the topic of reincarnation and scholars have speculated that he too rejected the idea. Yet other Jewish philosophers like Rabbi Chisdai Crescas and his student Rabbi Yosef Albo see the doctrine of reincarnation as incompatible with their understanding of Jewish philosophy and how the soul works, but nonetheless ultimately did not reject it simply because it had already become a well-accepted tradition that was understood to have come down through legitimate tradents. The final three chapters focus on how Hassidic masters invoked the concept of gilgulim in their sermons to add an esoteric dimension to offer hope and inspiration to ordinary Jews.

The editors and contributors deserve praise for balancing scholarly rigor with accessibility, making this volume invaluable for academics and interested lay readers alike. The endnotes to each essay are full of references to relevant primary and academic sources on the topics discussed (and sometimes tangential comments as well). Obviously, as with any scholarly work on kabbalah the specter of Gershon Scholem looms large in the endnotes, whether one agrees with him or disagrees with him. With such erudite scholarship, The Life of the Soul is a landmark contribution and resource to the study of Jewish mysticism. It not only charts the historical development of reincarnation theology, but also illuminates its enduring spiritual and existential power.