Kabbalah Library

24. What is the reason that he should go into the dead brother’s wife in order to sustain the name of the deceased, and not in another woman?

25. It is written, “A wild donkey, accustomed to the desert, inhales wind in her desire.” The wild donkey, who is the brother’s wife, who sat with a man who has no sons, who is like a desert, when she marries [the brother],” inhales wind in her desire,” meaning that the spirit of the dead man without sons incarnates in the abdomen of the woman.

26. This is as it is written, “And I saw the wicked buried, who had come,” who had actually come, incarnated a second time into the world. The matter is explained by what is written, “in her desire,” meaning that whether she is engaged or has already had a man, they come in the benefit of this matter—that the spirit of the dead man will incarnate in her.

27. “The firstborn that she will bear will rise with the name of his dead brother.” Why the first born and not the second or the third one? The firstborn, the elder, is nevertheless, the dead man’s, and the mind of both of them during the first coupling was on the dead man.