Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: January 04, 2021 05:26PM
spiritist Wrote:
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> I have strong impressions and recollection of a
> couple past lives and it does impact the way I
> feel and my 'interest' about certain 'groups of
> people'.
Yup.
> However, I do not think they would accept that I
> was 'one of them' in a past life so I have not
> approached them as hey Bro's I was one of you. I
> have heard of 'others' that have approached some
> groups with their past lives and they were totally
> 'unimpressed' and many outright upset!
I don't want to inadvertently leave a false impression. The "official" end of the Holocaust is May 8, 1945, which is (this year) 76 years ago.
Within Judaism, it took at least three decades (certainly all of the the time before the 1980s) for there to be at least a fledgling realization that those scattered individuals--who eventually made their way into shuls or Jewish institutions of higher learning, extremely hesitantly saying they had memories of the Holocaust--to be taken seriously.
Part of this was that, from the post-WWII years forward, there began a hesitating trickle, of what would eventually become a strong and widespread interest in, and an acceptance of, the more advanced teachings of the "historical bundle" we now refer to, in shorthand terms, as Kabbalah (studies which began during the Middle Ages).
Beginning in the Middle Ages, there had been internal Jewish prohibitions against Jews studying Kabbalah unless:
1) they were male....plus:
2) they were married (this was a necessity)....plus:
3) they had children (another near necessity unless there was some kind of apparent physiological/anatomical reason why children were impossible).
Some very intelligent women did study Kabbalah on the down low, but technically this was prohibited.
The reason for these prohibitions was that, starting from at least the Middle Ages, Jews feared studying Kabbalah would be so spiritually/intellectually intoxicating that such students would inadvertently go insane.
If a potential male student of Kabbalah was married (which meant he had sexual obligations towards his wife that she could legally assert in a Jewish court if necessary), and had children running around their typically one- or two-room houses, a student HAD to stay firmly anchored in three-dimensional reality just in order to live daily life.
After the end of WWII gigantic change began to occur within American culture, and in many other global areas (Europe, the Middle East, etc.), and these overarching, more global, cultural changes affected Judaism in many different ways. (The growing "push" for the accepted institution of female rabbis, and for females to have access to the same level of education as males took for granted, as examples.)
As what we now term "New Age" began to affect American life (in particular), it turned out that a critical mass of the total content of Kabbalah was also included in non-Jewish "New Age" teachings....which led to general (non-Jewish AND Jewish) acceptance of ideas and principles and theories and studies which would have been (and, in fact, HAD been) considered ridiculous/nutso when they had first generally appeared in the period leading up to the "Roaring Twenties." (The introduction of, and the general cultural acceptance of, seances would be a pretty good marker, I think, of when the study of Kabbalah began growing outside of Judaism as well as inside it.)
I know there were at least some people who had Holocaust memories who went to talk to rabbis in the 1950s, and I think it is probably fair to postulate that they were courteously received by the rabbis, at the same moment as they were--in effect--as gently as possible ushered out of the door.
By the 1980s, those same people were being treated as if, just possibly, those memories MIGHT be more accurate than not. Informal studies were being done to try to "test" the accuracy of some of the memories. (One of my colleagues--also a convert to Judaism--in our local Jewish Speakers Bureau had vivid, very detailed, memories of the inside of the gassing van she was in as she, and her family and her community, were in the active process of being killed, as the van drove from their town to the designated burial place for their bodies.)
As the twenty-first century appeared on the horizon, a fairly general acceptance has evolved among a large sector of Judaism that "Holocaust memories" (which are generally extremely detailed, as well as emotional) are possibly, maybe probably, more true than not.
Right now, "today," if a rabbi feels him/herself inadequate to address Holocaust memory issues, they generally know (or know "of") another rabbi who has acquired expertise in the Holocaust field, and is familiar with the personal accounts, who can help.
And it took only seventy-six years to get here!!
Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2021 06:38PM by Tevai.