[Avodah] RSRH on Embalming and Transmigration

[Prof. Levine]

On page 891 of the new translation of the Hirsch Chumash on 50:2 RSRH writes:

Here we have an interesting contrast between the 
Egyptian view - as expressed in embalmment — and 
the Jewish view. Such contrasts, whenever they 
occur, should be analyzed, and should be stressed 
especially in our confrontation with those who 
deny the Divine source of the Torah, who regard 
"the work of Moses" as merely the product of "his 
genius," which "drew upon the wisdom of the priests of Egypt."

How striking is the contrast that is revealed 
here! The Egyptian would embalm the body, so that 
its individuality should endure. However, the 
soul, he thought, did not remain in its personal 
individuality, but wandered from body to body — 
even to animal bodies — in manifold 
metamorphoses. The Jew believes that the soul 
endures forever, whereas the body wanders. Once 
the soul has been gathered unto the souls of its 
people, the body has nothing more to do with the 
individual. Rather, it is a mitzvah to bring the 
body as soon as possible into close contact with 
the decomposing earth (see Sanhedrin 46b). The 
body returns to dust, and goes through all the 
transformations of earthly matter. The Egyptian 
believed in the transmigration of the soul, and 
tried to protect the body from any possibility of 
change. The Jew believes in the soul's eternal 
personal existence, and surrenders the body to earthly change.

May one infer from here that RSRH did not subscribe to the concept of gilgul?

Yitzchok Levine