497. Rabbi Chizkiyah opened the discussion saying, "Your eyes did see my unshaped flesh; for in Your book all things are written" (Tehilim 139:16). This verse has been expounded in several places. Yet come and see, All the souls which have existed since the Creation of the world, all stand before the Holy One, blessed be He, before descending into the world, assuming the very shape in which they are seen in the world. In that same appearance of the person's body that lives in this world, so does it remain above.
498. When the soul is ready to descend into the world with the very shape it is about to have in this world, it stands before the Holy One, blessed be He, who adjures it to observe the precepts of the Torah and never transgress them.
499. Whence do we know that THE SOULS stand before Him? From the verse, "As Hashem, the Elohim of Yisrael lives, before whom I stood" (I Melachim 17:1), stood assuredly BEFORE BEING CREATED, as has been explained. Therefore, "Your eyes did see my unshaped flesh" before it was seen in the world; "for in Your book all things are written" as all the souls in their very shapes are recorded in a book. "The days also in which they are to be fashioned" (Tehilim 139:16), indeed they are fashioned, as explained, MEANING, THEY ARE MADE A GARMENT TO WEAR; "there was not one of them" (Ibid.), AS NOT ONE DAY in this world could stand properly before its Master.