נטע בגנו כרםThe Replanted Vineyard

nata be-gano keremIn Gamatria ↗

Uprooted, cleaned, planted again, for a thousand generations.

Why does a righteous person suffer? The answer given is that this righteous one was once wicked, not earlier in this life but before it. Asked to speak plainly, the teacher gives a parable. A man planted a vineyard hoping for grapes and got sour ones. He cut it back, cleaned the vines and planted again, and again, as far as a thousand generations (Psalm 105:8). Earlier, in §122, a king washes the fine garments of servants who failed him and dresses new servants in them. The book never uses the word gilgul, but it is read as the first Kabbalistic text to teach that souls return.

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