[sniskelsowwef]

As you can see the idea of rebirth can make things very confusing for beginners like myself

Not only for beginners. There are advanced students that do not consider rebirth for their practice. It is not an issue of being an advanced or being into a higher level of attainment.

Rebirth is a believe as it is Reincarnation and, IMO, speaks more about a desire to endure than a useful and central tool toward awakening which seems not to follow the non self teaching.

It is up to everybody to believe in it, to leave it aside in the realm of "we don't know" or frankly dismiss it.

If we ask: "What is what is rebirth?" No body has a good explanation. It is in the realm of endless speculative mental entanglements.

This was not advised by Buddha in any of his teachings: to speculate about rebirth. IMO, it is not transcendental, at least, for the practice of his teachings, those of the Nikayas, and there, it is not the main aspect of his docrtine.

Later on, with further additional elaborations, most traditions make of rebirth and then reincarnation a kind of central issue.

Then with rebirth/reincarnation ideas, the afterlife possible existence was brought back and this open believes and the foundations for Buddhism as a religion. Religions have in common that aspect: An afterlife clearly spoken or an speculative one.

Again, one can practice the teachings of Buddha leaving the ideas of rebirth focusing in what it is important along his teachings: Dukkha, its origin, its cessation and the path that leads to it's cessation.