A Soulful Journey

 Rava said, If a righteous man deserves it, he can be a creator of a world as it is written, "But your iniquities have distinguished..." (Isaiah 59:2) Rabbah created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zeira.  Rabbi Zeira spoke to him but he did not answer.  He said to him, "You are a creature of the magicians.  Return to your dust."  -Sanhedrin 65b Only a human, a person of flesh and blood, has a soul.  What each of us possesses is more than a talent for speech but something infinitely deeper and more powerful as we are made by God and as such house something of the Ineffable in us.

In Midrash Yalkut Shimoni we read, "A person died after sneezing a terminal sneeze.  What this means is their nishmat hayim , their living soul, which God breathed into primordial man [and every person at birth], departed." - Lech Lecha 77 Each of us possesses a sacred animating spirit given by God.  It lives within us for a finite period and returns to its Maker when He calls.

The unborn child is told, “You must realize that God is pure, His servants are pure, and the soul that He gave you is pure. If you keep it pure, all is good and well but if you defile your soul, it will be taken from you.  Three partners partook in your creation, God, your father and your mother. Your father and your mother provided you with a body. But it was still dead, it could neither speak, walk, nor hear. Then God provided it with a divine soul, giving your face expression, and providing you with the power to see, hear, speak and move. He also gave you wisdom and understanding." -Me’am Loez    

In legend and mysticism there is the belief that the soul is transcendent, immortal.     “…and from this we learn that ‘all Israel has a share in the World to Come,’ that is the innermost, untouched core of the soul which is forever pure, that enters the World to Come.”     - Rabbi R. J. Soloveitchik

  “They give testimony about the identity of a corpse during the first three days after death.”     - Mishna Yevamot 16   It is vital for the community as well as the family that the identity of the deceased be established so that mourning can commence, no matter the circumstances.   Rabbi Bereh, Rabbi Pappi, Rabbi, Joshua of Sikhnin in the name of Rabbi Levy said, ”Three days after death, the soul floats above the body, thinking that will return. When the soul sees the body, that the appearance of the face has changed, it leaves and goes its way.”   - Yerushalmi Yevamot 16   This passage informs us that the wellbeing of the soul of the person is also considered when death occurs.  We take into account the family, the community and the soul.   

  “Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before.”  - Joseph Campbell

The Vilna Gaon explained that the Hebrew word Shachar, morning light, is derived from another Hebrew word, Shachore, or darkness.  If there is a morning for the soul, it is rooted in the night of the body.  Indeed,  the Talmud teaches, "It is only from darkness that can perceive light.  For a candle that burns at noon is worthless."

“I used to see a little grave Upon a tiny knoll, And all the weary way I knew I visited my soul.” -Sada Applebaum   Death should bring an awareness of life; not just the life that we live but the life that springs out of the soul and lives forever.

On April 10, 1971, The New York Times reported about two academics at Princeton: Prof. John M. Darley, who teaches psychology at the university, and C. Daniel Batson, a Doctor of Theology doing graduate work in psychology there while teaching at the Princeton Theological Seminary, ...recruited 40 volunteers from the seminary. Explaining that they were studying the vocational placement of seminarians, Dr. Batson and Professor Darley asked each to record a brief talk on a given text. To half the volunteers they presented a text on job opportunities; the other half got a text of the Good Samaritan parable. (Which talks about people refusing to help an injured man on the side of the road - C.S.)......One by one the volunteers were then told to proceed from Green Hall to record their talk in the Annex....The volunteers were dispatched at 15-minute intervals....and there - lying in a doorway in the alley - was a young man coughing and groaning and possibly in pain. The “victim” had been put ...

"Know yourself that each and every thing in the world has a heart, and also the world in its entirety has a heart. And the toe nail on the foot of the heart of the world is more heartful than the heart of any other heart."  ~ Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Tale of the Seven Beggar s

"There are moments that conceal eternities.”   - Ehrenpreis, Soul of the East Be awake.  Be aware.  Be alive.  No w.

"He who wants to enter the holiness of the [Sabbath] day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else…. The seventh day is the exodus from tension, the liberation of man from his own muddiness, the installation of man as a sovereign in the world of time…. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn…"   -Abraham Joshua Heschel,  The Sabbath: Its Meaning ...

"The Vilna Gaon says (in a commentary on Proverbs) that one of the functions of a Jewish prophet was to tell an individual the particular path his soul had to follow."  - Rabbi Michael Rosen We all have a given path, one which is delineated only for us.  No one else can execute this God-given task for no one else has our unique skill.  Our life's mission is to find it and do it.

A Dutch missionary came back to Holland as the Second World War was beginning.  His friends said to him: "Tell us that we should do about Jews.  Should we help and harbor them?  Should new turn them in?  Should we do nothing?"  He said to them:  "I cannot tell you what to do.  I can only tell you who you are.  Once you know who you are, you will know what to do." It is always the same.  We know who we are and therefore know what is expected of us.  The only remaining question is, will we listen?

  When God was creating the world God shared a secret with the angels, human beings will be created in the image of God. The angels were jealous and outraged. Why should humans be entrusted with such a precious gift when they are flawed mortals? Surely if humans find out their true power they will abuse it. If humans discover they are created in God’s image, they will learn to surpass us! So the angels decided to steal God’s image. Now that the divine image wsa in the angel’s hands, they needed to pick a place to hide it so that man would never find it. They held a meeting and brainstormed. They angel Gabriel suggested they hid God’s image at the top of the highest mountain peak. The other angels, objected, “one day humans will learn to climb and they will find it there.”  The angel Michael said, let’s hid it at the bottom of the sea.” No the other angels chimed in ‘humans will find a way to dive to the bottom of the sea and they’ll find it there.” One by ...

“The tongue is the pen of the heart, the interpreter of the soul, the ambassador of the mind.” Bachya ibn Pakuda, Chovot Halevavot, Shaar haBechina Ch. 5

The great Rabbi Hiyya’s sons became farmers.   In time they forgot everything that their father had taught them.   One day, one of the brothers asked, “Do you think that our father knows [that we have abandoned what he taught us about Torah]?” The answer came, “Just as a man’s flesh will cause him agony, will his soul not mourn too?” -berachot 18 b That which generations survived to teach us remains as a value to be cherished.   They still watch and care.

One day the holy Rabbi Chaim of Sanz asked one of his disciples who was sitting at his table whether the waiter did not forget to give him his share of food.  “Rabbi,” replied the disciple very earnestly, “not for the purpose of food did I come here, but for the soul.”  The rabbi smilingly replied, “You did not come to this world to eat, but if you try to withhold the food and drink that a person needs, the soul will fly away very soon.” 

I looked for my soul But my soul I could not see I looked for my God But my God eluded me I looked for a friend And there I found all three. — WILLIAM BLAKE

“The second soul of a Jew is a part of the Lord, God above.” –Tanya, chapter 2