Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
contribution to the Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute (he wrote only a few
poems), his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The
works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing. Every custom of the Ari was
scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice. Hence these traditions
should be taken with a pinch of salt. Ari HaKadosh, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria
The belief is universal in Hasidic Judaism, which regards the Kabbalah as sacred and
authoritative.
It is concerned with the process of individual Tikkun (Rectification) of the soul. In Kabbalistic
interpretation, each Jewish soul is reincarnated enough times only in order to fulfil each of
the 613 Mitzvot.
According the historian Josephus in The Antiquities of the Jews we read that, among the
Jews, there were three different opinions: (1) Essens, (2) Pharisees, (3) Sadducees.
The Antiquities of the Jews. Book 18, Chapter 1
2. "The Jews had for a great while had three sects of philosophy peculiar to themselves; the
sect of the Essens, and the sect of the Sadducees, and the third sort of opinions was that of
those called Pharisees; (Pharisees) also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them,
and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived
virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but
that the former shall have power to revive and live again;..
4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies;
5. The doctrine of the Essens is this: That all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the
immortality of souls, and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven
for; and when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple,"
116