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." _Yalkut Chadash_, fol. 20, col. 4, no. 9. The soul of a slanderer is transmigrated into a silent stone. _Emeh Hamelech_, fol. 153, col. 2. Rabbi Isaac Luria was once passing the great academy of Rabbi Yochanan in Tiberias, where he showed his disciples a stone in the wall, remarking, "In this stone there is a transmigrated soul, and it cries that I should pray on its behalf. And this is the mystic meaning of (Hab. ii. 11), 'The stone shall cry out of the wall.'" Ibid., fol. 11, col. 2. The murderer is transmigrated into water. The mystical sign of this is indicated in (Deut. xii. 16), "Ye shall pour it upon the earth as water;" and the meaning is, he is continually rolling on and on without any rest. Therefore let no man drink (direct) from a running tap or spout, but from the hollow of his hands, lest a soul pass into him, and that the soul of a wicked sinner. Ibid., fol. 153, cols. 1, 2. One who sins with a married woman is, after undergoing the penalty of wandering about as a fugitive and vagabond, transmigrated, together with his accomplice, into the millstone of a water-mill, according to the mystery of (Job xxxi. 10), "Let my wife grind unto another." _Emeh Hamelech_, fol. 153, cols. 1, 2. A butcher who kills an animal with a defective knife will die of the plague, and his soul will pass into a dog, whom he thus deprives of what belongs to him; for it is said (Exod. xxii. 31), "Ye shall cast it to the dogs." _Kitzur Sh'lh_, fol. 17, col. 2. An animal slaughtered with an improper knife is considered as if it had been "torn of beasts in the field," and the flesh of it, according to the law, belongs to the dogs. A careless butcher, selling the meat as food for man, deprives the dog of his due. The sages of truth have written, "He who does not wash his hands before eating, as the Rabbis of blessed memory have ordained, will be transmigrated into a cataract, where he will have no rest, even as a murderer, who is also transmigrated into water." Ibid., fol. 21, col. 2.