Beyond the Ashes: Cases of Reincarnation from the Holocaust

The book begins when Gershom describes a chilling, but ultimately positive encounter with a Norwegian woman who had come to him for a discussion, but the discussion slipped into talk of the Holocaust, which had always fascinated her. While this was going on the rabbi slipped into an altered state of consciousness and saw,almost superimposed upon the woman's body, the figure of a Holocaust victim. To avoid being uncritical, he tested her by asking her to repeat the words of a Jewish prayer, which she could recite by heart, even though she herself was not Jewish and had never learned it. She spoke of vague memories of being a Holocaust victim. This experience triggered Gershom's quest. 

From then on he began to realize that this was not a freak, one-off event. Slowly, steadily a significant number of individuals approached him to discuss their nightmares about being taken away and murdered. A short article cannot do justice to the wide range of harrowing accounts, so to get the real flavour of them you must read the book. They detail a phenomenon so challenging to conventional science and psychology that it was suppressed by a conspiracy of silence until Gershom broke the chains. 

Gershom is a serious scholar, you would expect nothing less from a rabbi, a wonderfully well-educated group of people from a community that prizes scholarship. He takes an open minded and critical approach to these claims. Of vital importance is that he shows where he is coming from, which many scholars do not, laying out the specific branch of Judaism into which he was ordained as rabbi. This is the hasidic [chasidic] branch. This enables him to state that he comes from a theological tradition that accepts reincarnation.

The strength of the book is that the author is open to a methodology wider than the exclusively psychological. His psychological method is primarily a response to the serendipitous discovery that befell him that winter's night. But rather than experiment he follows the path of gathering personal testimonies. This is a psychologically valid technique, but as he is a healer/therapist rather than a researcher he did not do follow up studies as Ian Stevenson, who also researched reincarnation, did. This is a methodological limitation to his work, but as he makes no absolute claims to proof or authority, and merely makes an inference as to the probable truth of reincarnation, there is no loss of credibility therefrom. 

He draws widely and deeply from the well of rabbinical scholarship and integrates the scholarship into his book. He is open to the paranormal. A great quality of genuine scholars like Gershom is that they confront issues face-on without the intellectually disreputable malpractice of explaining away experiences that do not fit their preconceptions. That he was prepared to confront a new experience rather than merely brushing it off as an anomaly is to his credit, and without this openness the book would not have been written.

I have never met a book on reincarnation that did not challenge a variety of world-views, and no theological or philosophical system sits comfortably with it. This book is no exception.Secularists, for whom there is no soul or afterlife, will struggle, dismiss and probably belittle. But theological systems that reject reincarnation will be badly challenged. Catholicism can handle this challenge, as it has room for intermediate states betwixt heaven and hell,and early Christians accepted the doctrine of reincarnation until Justinian kidnapped the pope and rigged the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but Protestantism cannot and would have to radically rethink its theology. The issue of memory is raised, for if memories are coded in the brain how can any survive death. The supposedly scientific response of claiming that such memories must be coded in DNA is unsupported by evidence and does not work, smacking of the desperation of adherents of a failing world-view, metaphorical flat earthers clinging to a materialist raft in a growing storm while refusing the life-boat that will lead them from their error. Yet Christian clerics who routinely brand all such experiences as coming from the Devil, are just as guilty of close-mindedness. There is no evidence that Satanic activity is present in their lives any more than it is present in the lives of the rest of us. 

It is riveting, but not comfortable reading, for no book on the Holocaust can be comfortable or fun. The book is packed with narratives of persons who claim to have memories. Gershom looks for clues as to their validity at all times and finds cases when they display knowledge of the Holocaust that was not common among most people in their lives. Many display a compulsive interest in Judaism, and some seem to have an unlearned grasp of Hebrew. This Xenoglossy, inexplicable knowledge of foreign languages sometimes found in reincarnation cases, cannot be explained away by talk of subliminal learning, as secularists are wont, as language-learning takes practice, which these people have not had. 

Discussions the problem of evil, which we might call the problem of undeserved suffering, are in the West stuck in a conceptual straitjacket between conventional non-believers who ask why an all-powerful God allows unjust suffering, and conventional Christians who say that evil is due to free will and redress is in the afterlife. Neither side gives ground or progresses. Other views are sidelined, even when they would aid the discussion. Neither side considers reincarnation as part of a discussion of the problem, although Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, Jains and Sikhs have all believed in it. Thus the debate remains stymied and stale, pleading for new thinking. This book brings new thinking to the table. 

As a Christian, nothing authentically Jewish is alien to me. So the works, thoughts and discussions of rabbis are a part of the Judaeo-Christian heritage that I believe should be treasured. I have long held the belief that a great loss to early Christianity is that it had too few rabbis, there being only Jesus and Paul. Christians and Jews should learn from each other, and books like Beyond the Ashes help the process of reconciliation that was so eagerly sought by the part-Jewish Pope John Paul the Second, Benedict the Sixteenth and the present pope.  Rabbi Gershom aids the learning process by his open-minded and tolerant approach to other faiths, and in this way he reflects the highest  traditions of Judaism.

I recommend this book to everyone.