THE HASIDIC BELIEF in gilgul neshamot (transmigration of souls) had its origins in kabbalah. According to this notion a person's soul could return to the earthly world once or a number of times, manifesting itself not only in human but also in animal, vegetable, or even inanimate forms.

Shortly before he died, the Ba'al Shem Tov prophesied that he would return to this world within sixty years if the messiah had not come in the meantime. R. Israel of Ruzhin sat at the third sabbath meal and told of several tsadikim of his generation who were the reincarnations of souls from times past; he attested that he himself was the reincarnation of King Solomon. It was reported that the Ba'al Shem Tov was the reincarnation of R. Sa'adiah Gaon, or of Enoch, while Mordecai Banet was said to have ‘received a note from heaven’ informing him that he was the reincarnation of the biblical Mordecai, and that he must convene one hundred rabbis to do battle with heretics. The Maharal of Prague was said to have transmigrated into his grandson, the Grandfather of Shpola, and R. Yudel, a close follower of R. Nahman of Kosov, was supposed to be the reincarnation of the prophet Samuel. R. Tsevi of Zhidachov told his brother, R. Moses of Sambor, that in one of his transmigrations he had been the High Priest Ishmael ben Elisha. R. Shalom of Belz knew who his son had been in former lives. In his old age R. Naphtali Katz, the head of the rabbinical courts in Ostrog, Posen, and Frankfurt, arrived in Constantinople on his way to the Land of Israel. There, on his deathbed, he revealed to every individual present ‘from what gilgul neshamah he had come’. Of himself he attested that he was the reincarnation of King Hezekiah of Judah, and requested to be buried next to the monarch in Hebron.

According to the hasidic tale, then, the tsadik—like R. Isaac Luria, the father of kabbalism—knows the history of every individual's reincarnations. The Ba'al Shem Tov would reveal this knowledge to people if the information helped him explain their situation to them.