Fishl began to fear that the ram had died in front of his house to remind him of some sin. He scrutinized his deeds and could find nothing in himself except that once he had lent someone money in his hour of need and he had forgotten to remind him that the loan was subject to the permitted form of interest. He began to add up how much interest he had received. His presence of mind returned immediately, and he cleared a way for himself to his house.
13
A Homily on Reincarnation and the Conclusion
Upon entering his house he saw a kind of dirty creature that gave off the smell of a fish lying on the floor, and on it was some object that would not have been recognizable as a tefillah were it not for its straps. Fishl shouted a great shout, “Oy, my fish!” He shouted a second shout, “Oy, my tefillah!”
The fish was squashed and spotted. Fishl’s face, which Bezalel Moshe had drawn with chalk on the fish’s skin, had already been effaced by the damp skin and nothing remained of it but the dirtiest dirt. Stranger than that was the tefillah. Until it landed on the fish’s head, it had been yellow. Once it had sat on the fish’s head, the color of the chalk with which Bezalel Moshe had drawn Fishl’s face had clung to it and blackened it.
Before Fishl was freed of one fear, he saw that his head tefillah had been thrown down on the ground. Grief seized him, and he feared that the fish, in revenge, had thrown his head tefillah on the ground to force him to fast until after evening prayers to delay his enjoyment. He grew furious at that ingrate: had he not bought the fish from the fisherman, it would have descended into the priest’s belly without a benediction. In his great anger a fit of apoplexy gripped him.
After stripping off his clothes and letting his blood, they found the arm tefillah on his upper arm and stood in astonishment. Could it be that a man with a brain in his skull would put on the arm tefillah but not the head tefillah? Before they could resolve the matter of Fishl, they were perplexed by the matter of the fish. For never in their lives had they heard that you could catch tefillin-laying fish in the Strypa, and even the most absolute of fish eaters in Buczacz said, “Never in our lives have we seen a fish crowned with tefillin.”
There was in our city a research society called The Sons of Chance, because they used to say that everything happened by chance. For example, if Reuben ate bread, it was by chance that Reuben had found bread to eat — otherwise why is it that others seek bread but do not find it? Thus it was by chance that the fish found a tefillah. How? For example, a Jew had fallen into the river, and his tefillin tumbled out of his baggage, and the head tefillah caught on the fish’s head. No chance event transcends its simple meaning; it is a happenstance like any other.
However, you would do well to know that opposing them there was an elite circle in our city concerned with the wisdom of truth; some of its members met during the ten fateful days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and others regularly after midnight penitential prayers, both in deepest seclusion. They heard the story of the fish and said what they said, but they, too — that is, the sages of truth — failed to discover the truth. However, from their words we have learned some of the secrets of Creation, including information about the reincarnation of souls. Some of what the mind can grasp, I shall reveal to you.
We have learned in mystical works that there are seventy souls, which are reincarnated in several animals, and they are called the Sign of the Lion, the Sign of the Ox, the Sign of the Eagle, the Sign of the Virgin, the Sign of the Scorpion, the Sign of the Ram. For we have found that the Twelve Tribes are compared to animals: Judah to the Lion—“A lion’s cub is Judah”; Joseph to the firstborn ox; Issachar to a strong ass; “Dan shall be a serpent”; “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf.” Clearly the whole secret of reincarnation is that the evil impulse alters everyone according to his deeds, and some are like a lion, a serpent, a donkey.
If so, why are saintly people reincarnated as fish? Because a fish’s entire life is in water, and water is a place of purification. When they are removed from the water, their life ceases. Similarly, the righteous live all their lives in purity. Furthermore, the eyes of the saintly are open to their deeds just like fish, who have no lids on their eyes, which are always open; and through the merit of the righteous the Eye on high is ever open upon us for good. Also, the righteous are scrupulous not to be gripped by sins, but we are like fish caught in a net. Another thing: the righteous always pour out their hearts in repentance like water before the Lord, which is how the Targum translated the verse “And they drew water and poured it out.”
We have also learned which are the fish in which the souls of the righteous are reincarnated; and what is the fate of those who make a show of righteousness but are not righteous — whether they are also reincarnated as fish; and what is the fate of those whom the world sees as righteous but are neither righteous nor evil.
Know that there are three classes: one consists of utter saints; one of those who pretend to be righteous and are neither righteous nor wicked; and one of the utterly wicked who pretend to be saintly. Absolute saints are reincarnated as kosher fish. The righteous who are neither saintly nor wicked are reincarnated as fish whose kashrut is debatable, for in some places they are permitted and in some places they are absolutely forbidden. And those who pretend to be righteous and are utterly wicked are reincarnated as non-kosher fish, since they are many and multiply and are fruitful like the fish, and they send forth progeny who are similar to them. Therefore the non-kosher fish are more plentiful than the kosher ones. They — that is, those evildoers whose countenance is saintly — are acolytes of Dagon, the Philistine god, who from his waist down was in the form of a fish and from his waist up was in the form of a man. Job prayed concerning them: “Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse the Leviathan,” which Rashi of blessed memory interpreted to mean: “To be childless in their joining together, to isolate their company from the society of man and wife, with no children.”
We have other dread and marvelous secrets such as the reason why a fish has the merit of being eaten on the Sabbath and festivals. Moreover, there is a fish that has the merit of being eaten on the eve of Yom Kippur and a fish that is eaten at the Purim banquet, and there is a fish that is placed on the table of absolute saints, and there is a fish that descends into the belly of the utterly wicked. That is why some are cooked in vinegar and, in contrast, some are cooked in sugar. And also why it is that there is a fish we eat on the first day of the festival and one that we eat on the second day. Most profound are these matters, and I shall reveal only the tiniest bit here: a righteous man who possesses the sanctity of the Land of Israel has the merit of being reincarnated as a fish that we eat on the first day of the festival, and the soul of a righteous man who does not possess the sanctity of the Land of Israel is reincarnated in a fish that we eat on the second day. This is the secret of the saying of the rabbis of blessed memory: the second day compared to the first day is like an ordinary day.