Sam. i. 15), for there still lingered in her soul a sorrowful sense of inherited defilement....  Eli possessed the soul of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite....  Sometimes the souls of pious Jews pass by metempsychosis into Gentiles, in order that they may plead on behalf of Israel and treat them kindly.  For this reason have our Rabbis of blessed memory said, “The pious of the nations of the world have a portion in the world to come.”

Yalkut Reubeni, Nos. 1, 8, 61, 63.

We have it by tradition that when Moses our Rabbi—­peace be unto him!—­said in the law, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num. xvi. 22), he meant mystically to intimate that metempsychosis takes place in all flesh, in beasts, reptiles, and fowls.  “Of all flesh” is, as it were, “in all flesh.”

Avodath Hakodesh, fol. 49, col. 3.

It is also needful that thou shouldst know that the Kabbalists believe in metempsychosis from the body of one species into the body of another species.  Thou hast already been informed of the mystery of clean and unclean animals; and some of the later sages of the Kabbalah say that the soul of an unclean person will transmigrate into an unclean animal, or into abominable creeping things or reptiles.  For one form of uncleanness the soul will be invested with the body of a Gentile, who will (eventually) become a proselyte; for another, the soul will pass into the body of a mule; for others, it transmigrates into an ass, a woman of Ashdod, a bat, a rabbit or a hare, a she-mule or a camel.  Ishmael transmigrated first into the she-ass of Balaam, and subsequently into the ass of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair.

Nishmath Chaim, chap. 13, no. 14.

The last paragraph may be illustrated by the well-known story of the ass of R. Pinchas, which persistently objected to feed on untithed provender.  This is also said of the ass of Rabbi Chanina ben Dossa.  See Avoth d’Rab.  Nathan, chap. 8.

Sometimes the soul of a righteous man may be found in the body of a clean animal or fowl.

Caphtor Upherach, fol. 51, col. 2.

It sometimes happens that one sacrifices an animal with a human soul in it.  And this is the mystic meaning of (Ps. xxxvi. 6), “O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.”  It is for this reason that we are commanded to have our slaughtering-knife without defect, for who knows if there be not a transmigrated soul in the animal? ...  Therefore the slaughter must needs be delicately done and the mode critically examined, on account of that which is written (Lev. xix. 18), “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Nishmath Chaim, chap. 13, no. 4.

At each of the three meals of the Sabbath one should eat fish, for into them the souls of the righteous are transmigrated.  And in relation to them it is written (Num. xi. 22), “All the fish of the sea shall be gathered together for them.”