Musar sobre Génesis 38:8

We find that such is the case even when the souls in question had not been separated from their bodies through murder. A soul which is "exiled" may be released from such exile as a result of the death of a great person, i.e. a prominent צדיק. The Zohar Mekor Chokhmah finds an allusion to the statement of our sages that "the righteous may be granted children when they have died, though they had no children during their lifetime," in the words כי בעיר מקלטו ישב עד מות … "he has to remain in his city of refuge until the death." [This means that as long as the soul of the righteous was held captive by its body it could not become a parent. Ed.] This demonstrates retroactively that all G–d's actions are based on truth, and that He shows His mercy to all. A soul that is separated from its body and does not have any "clothing" to accompany it to the higher world (since it did not leave children behind in this world), and therefore lacks a גואל needs to remain for a while in the "city of refuge," i.e. a place where souls hover until the death of the High Priest who is the Torah scholar. He does not require a גואל. If the High Priest leaves a widow and no children, the levirate marriage rules do not apply to such widow (in the sense that she need not enter into a marriage with a brother of her late husband in order to perpetuate his name on this earth). If she does so nonetheless, it is for the benefit of other souls who are homeless in a region between this world and the world to come. These souls await the time when they can be suitably "dressed," in order to proceed to their ultimate destination. The High Priest widow's late husband's "continuity," שם, has been maintained even though he did not leave behind physical issue. So far the commentary of the Zohar Mekor Chokhmah. [The source in the Zohar for this seems to be in Parshat Vayeshev on 38,8, where Yehudah instructs Onan his son to marry Tamar the widow of his brother Er. Ed.]

The true reason is that the Talmud, when giving the views of the two Rabbis Yossi, stated: "One said this and the other said that." The fact that the Talmud did not identify who said what means that the two Rabbis did not disagree. Each only cited one possible reason for the different opinions. The lights allude to the souls, as we know from Proverbs 20,27: נר ה' נשמת אדם, "The soul of man is the light of the Lord." We know that nowadays most of the souls inhabiting bodies are re-incarnations of people who have lived in earlier times. The best of such kind of re-incarnation one can experience is if the soul is allotted to someone who is related to the former incarnation, as has been explained by the Rekanati in connection with the legislation of the levirate marriage. When Yehudah said to his son Onan that he should marry the widow of his brother Er (38,8), he meant that the first child to be produced from such union would become the re-incarnation of Er. Later on his intention of having Er re-incarnated became fulfilled through his own union with Tamar. When Peretz and Zerach were born by Tamar, they were the respective reincarnations of both Er and Onan (Onan also having died in the meantime). The Rekanati explains this at length. When the Talmud said that the essence of the Chanukah light is that a person should light one light for his house- read: "family"- this is an allusion to the duty of ensuring re-incarnation by means of the levirate marriage.