Some Jews believe in reincarnation. They are also supposed to accept the Resurrection of the Dead, where actual bodies are resurrected. In that case, for each soul, which body is resurrected?
2 Answers
From To Live and Live Again (see there for sources):
The AriZal explains that each time a soul descends to this world, one of its components is rectified; through successive descents, the soul as an entirety is rectified. Ultimately, each component of the soul will be resurrected in the body which served as its host.
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1So at techiyat hameisim, most people are going to be walking around with half-souls? What does that mean? Are the multiple bodies going to be able to think and act in coordination with each other?– Double AA ♦Mar 7, 2013 at 16:20
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1@DoubleAA: The same thing that happens now when a soul is resurrected as a new gilgul. The part of the soul that was already rectified does not come back down into the world, what is left becomes a complete new soul. See this lecture for a discussion on gilgulim, especially R' Sadia Gaon's opinion on gilgulim: insidechassidus.org/winter/28-winter-parshas/…– MenachemMar 7, 2013 at 17:27
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Don't have time to listen right now, but it sounds like it's like soul-mitosis.– Double AA ♦Mar 7, 2013 at 17:29
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@DoubleAA: It is similar to the idea that there can be a soul that comes from chessed and a soul that comes from gevura, yet each of the souls both have chessed and gevura.– MenachemMar 7, 2013 at 17:36
Abarbanel, in his defense of the concept of reincarnation, believes that only the first body that the soul inhabited will be resurrected during the Resurrection of the Dead. That is, although (in Abarbanel's opinion) only select people will be resurrected during תחיית המתים, each soul that is resurrected will be in its "first" body.