[Avodah] RSRH on Embalming and Transmigration

[Zev Sero]

Prof. Levine wrote:

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

Perhaps.  It wouldn't particularly surprise me.  But he seems to be
talking about some Egyptian doctrine whereby a soul loses all trace
of its original identity when it moves to another body.  I don't know
whether that's an accurate representation of what the Egyptians
believed, but if so it's certainly not what we mean by gilgulim.

It's also possible that RSRH was simply going with the flow of his
rhetoric and "lo dak".  As we saw in the last such quote you posted,
on chayei sarah, where in his attack on German burial customs he
made a claim about Jewish ones which he could not have meant literally
because it was contradicted by the existence of the very mearah on
which he was commenting.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas