giving nothing of his money to the poor or not imparting of his
knowledge to the ignorant, he shall be punished by transmigration into a
woman.... Know thou that Sarah, Hannah, the Shunammite (2 Kings iv. 8),
and the widow of Zarepta were each in turn possessed by the soul of
Eve.... The soul of Rahab transmigrated into Heber the Kenite, and
afterward into Hannah; and this is the mystery of her words, "I am a
woman of a sorrowful spirit" (1 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