The wisdom of Kabbalah maintains that the descent of the souls to our bodies continues for 6,000 years, meaning that it began some 5768 years ago, and will continue for 232 years. In the remaining years the souls must attain the whole system of creation, that sublime form of existence, where man will identify himself with his soul and not with his body.
All the Kabbalists wrote in their books about the uniqueness of the time we live in. They talked about how gradually, over thousands of years, souls descend and dress in the bodies of our world, accumulate a certain amount of experience and climb back up to the upper world. Afterwards they come back down to this world in order to dress in new bodies, and so on.
Courtesy of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onOTaGayhU4