Hasidic Book 08 Five Parts of the Soul

Home Page -Foreword - Introduction - One The Commitment at Birth - Two The Role of Shabbos - Three The Tzadik - Four Humanity’s Five Categories - Five Body Versus Soul - Six The Body Can Complement The Soul - Seven The Soul and Body of a Tzadik Eight The Five Parts of the Soul - Nine The Image of God Ten to Twenty Six – NOT ON THE WEB YET.

Lesson Eight

The Five Parts of the Soul

The human soul was created in a unique manner. All other creations were formed through command, God declared and the item appeared. For example, of the sky Scripture states, “Bidvar Hashem shamayim naasu” “With the word(s) of God Heavens were created”.[1] The soul was not commanded to emerge rather God blew man’s soul into him.[2]

God does not recite words. What is meant by the image of God declaring the existence of a physical dimension? Breath is the life of a person. Human speech limits breath, modulating it with the mouth and limiting it to particular sounds. Speech is a process in which the essence of man is clothed and limited. God’s creation resembles human speech, the created world is a cover for God, His Essence was limited many myriad of times until He was clothed within the world. The image for the creation of the soul is one of direct breath, for the soul contrasted to the created world is like blowing versus speaking. The human soul, when compared to the rest of the created world, is “pure”, essential, and unclothed Divinity.[3] An even deeper truth reveals that the image of a soul emerging out of blowing is a lesson about the parts of the soul, they resemble the different stages of breath a glassblower employs when blowing glass.[4] With glass once the vessel is shaped the other steps in the process are lost but in the Heavenly realm every stage of the formation leaves eternal results.[5]

Firstly, the glassblower wishes to create a vessel. Then he decides what the vessel will look like and prepares for the process by filling his lungs with sufficient air. The glassblower then pushes the air through his lungs to his mouth and releases the breath out of his lips. The breath turns into a mini wind. It enters the heated glass and changes its form. As the wind settles the glass’s shape is solidified.

God is the glassblower, my soul is His breath and my body and personality comprise the glass vessel.

There are five parts to the soul and they resemble the five stages of glass production.

The first part or the lowest level is Nefesh corresponding to the craftsman’s breath that settled within and fully shaped the vessel. Nefesh is a derivative of the term nafash meaning to rest.[6] Nefesh is the “resting soul.” This is God’s “breath” once it has reached its destination within man. Nefesh can be felt when a person is fully a vessel. It can be felt through the quietistic experience. Silence the external static that we are constantly processing; relax, and humble yourself. Open your heart as an empty vessel to be animated with God’s light and you might feel a bit of Nefesh… Nefesh is the part of the soul that is most directly connected with the body and physical existence.[7] One merits receiving the holy form of Nefesh soon after birth. A Jewish boy will receive his Nefesh with his circumcision and a girl when her father names her in the synagogue. The next stage of the soul, Ruach, is received with adulthood. When a boy or girl, who are righteous, celebrate their bar or bat Mitzvah they receive their Ruach.

The Hebrew word ruach conjures a picture of a forceful wind. In the glass making analogy, before the breath settled in the vessel, it was a powerful force that gave form to molten glass. Forceful and emotionally stirring spirituality is God’s “wind”, the Ruach part of the soul.

Imagine a room filled with dancing Chassidim. They are singing and when they reach the climax of the song, all are screaming, “Ki ata hu melech malchey hamlakhim malkhuskha netzach” “That you God are the King above all kings; Your rule is eternal.” Their eyes are closed and their bodies bob up and down throbbing with devotion. They pull you into their circle and you join their dance. You lose yourself in a passionate swirl. You feel that God is everything and your deepest desire is to be loyal and close to Him. Those feelings are an expression of Ruach.

A level higher than the wind is the breath at the lips of the glassblower. God’s breath at His Lips is the Neshama. This level of soul is felt in the experience of pure thought. Most of our thoughts are tainted, they are the result of physical biases and emotional inclinations; pure, abstract, moral thought is an experience of Godly intimacy. The pleasure of comprehending and fully grasping the pure truth of Torah is a bit of Neshama. Neshama is the highest part of the soul most of us will ever fully internalize, as a result the soul as a whole is called Neshama . It enters a righteous, scholarly, married person at age twenty. If one is not righteous enough to internalize the holiness of the Neshama, it will hover above man, serving as a Makif- an encompassing light, not a pnimi – an inner light.

Above Neshama are two levels of soul that are rarely fully internalized by humans, Chaya and Yechida. Chaya is the breath of the glassblower before it reaches the mouth, it is the stage when he has first determined the mental picture of the vessel he will create and has filled his lungs with sufficient breath for the creation of the vessel. Yechida is the first possible stage of glass making, the will and desire to produce a vessel, it is the level of soul that parallels God’s decision to create a being. Yechida is God’s will before He has even conceived of the form of man, it represents God’s desire.

The Body and the Parts of the Soul

The different parts of the soul are concentrated in distinct body organs. Nefesh is in the blood. The Torah characterizes blood as Nefesh when it prohibits the ingestion of blood, “Ki hadam hu hanefesh”, “for the blood is the Nefesh.”[8] The blood of a person is his source of organic life. If blood stops flowing to a limb in the body, the limb will atrophy and waste away. The body part that has the most blood is the liver and Nefesh is primarily concentrated in the liver[9] and the left ventricle of the heart. The limbs of the body are the tools for all human action, thus bodily action, Maaseh, of Mitzvos, such as stretching your hand to give charity, or walking to hear a Torah lecture, is an expression of Nefesh.

According to the Midrash,[10] Ruach is the part of the soul that “rises and descends.” This soul part rises to the mind and then descends to the body, connecting our thought with our deeds. What is the intermediary between the mind and the limbs? Feelings. All emotions stem from Ruach. It is also related to dibbur, speech,[11] a wind that connects the mind’s thoughts to the physical mouth.[12] Speech also connects people to each other.[13] Speech primarily strengthens the emotions that you are feeling. Why do words have such an impact on the heart? Because emotions and speech are expressions of Ruach while an act is a manifestation of Nefesh.[14] Our emotions usually dictate how we act, thus, Ruach is usually the deciding part of the human personality. It is concentrated in the heart - the source of all emotions.[15] Feelings of purity, such as fear of violating Divine mandates, or love for fellow Jews, are expressions of Ruach.

Neshama is located primarily in the mind.[16] The Neshama is the most Godly of the soul parts. It is pure intellect. One feels God’s “breath”, with Machshava, pure thoughts, such as when you fully understand an abstract, correct, and moral principle.

Chaya and Yechida are called Makifin, enveloping lights. These are levels of holiness that are hardly attainable for most mortals. That is why they surround man and do not enter man. They form a protecting shield and occasionally send to the individual flashes of inspiration. Since these levels of soul are outside man’s essential personality they are not internalized within a physical body part.[17]

The most perfect hierarchy within man is one in which the Neshama rules the Ruach and Nefesh. Obey the clear voice of pure thought, then allow clear logic to inspire emotions and finally let pure emotions control the body and guide its lusts. In symbolic terms the ideal arrangement is mind then heart and then liver. God teaches this lesson by the very makeup of a human being. God placed mind (which holds the Neshama) in the skull, the highest point of the body, the heart (the place of Ruach) and liver (the seat of the Nefesh) are beneath the head, thus indicating that the head should rule the others.

The Hebrew terms for mind, heart, and liver are moach (mind), lev (heart) and kaved (liver). An acronym of the terms is Melech – literally king.[18] When man lives a life of mind first and then heart and liver, he is king over his lower self.[19] Frequently, we reverse the order. Our lusts lead. For example, we desire someone else’s money, or we are lazy and seek to avoid performing a moral duty, we then arouse our heart to love that path and we employ our mind to rationalize and justify misbehavior, saying, “He did not need that money anyway, I will use it for better purposes than he,” or “The duty will be performed by someone else, I can safely ignore it.” In these instances our livers were really first, followed by the heart and then the mind. The first letters of Kaved, Lev, Moach,(the reversed order) spell Kalem, which means embarrassment, shame, and death. A life in which lusts rule inevitably ends with the unholy trinity of embarrassment, shame, and death.[20]

Man does not deserve a life of embarrassment. Man deserves great honor. Man carries the image of God and as a result deserves regard. Lesson nine demonstrates how the five parts of the soul are the image of God that man contains.

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[1] (Psalms 33:6)

The Hebrew language and the letters of the alphabet have a unique holiness since the world was created through God’s speaking Hebrew. For instance, God said “shamayim” and out of the letters “shin, mem, yud, mem” the heavens eventually emerged. The Hebrew letters are the spiritual root of the world. A great Tzadik only sees these letters. When he sees the skies he sees the Hebrew word shamayim since it is the spiritual source of the physical heavens. Perhaps King David referred to this perception when he said in Psalm 29 “Kol hashem Bakoach, Kol Hashem Behadar etc.” “The sound of the Almighty is within strength, the sound of the Divine is within glory etc.” David was a Tzadik and he was describing his perception of reality. All strength comes from the Almighty, God gives energy to the powerful, in truth they are impotent and only God’s force is significant. David also wrote “Shivisi Hashem Linegdi tamid” “I have placed the Almighty before me always”. David only saw the Divine essence, this Divine essence is letter combinations of the holy language. The combinations spell out Divine names, that is why he proclaimed that he constantly had the Divine before his eyes, for he constantly perceived the Divine source. C.f. the Commentary of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch to Chapter 29 of the Psalms, Breishis Rabbah (18:4) and R. Tzadok Hacohen in Sichas Malachey Hashareis pg. 44.

[2] From scripture’s account it is clear that man’s body was formed from the earth in a way that resembled the rest of creation, apparently it was formed through a command.

[3] I heard it from the Stutchiner Rebbe on tape 1 of his classes on Tanya. This principle should lead us to an enormous respect for every soul, for the soul is pure Godliness. Furthermore, it should teach us that our souls seek absolute and total attachment to the Divine, for each soul is a piece of absolute infinity.

[4] Innerspace pages 17-20

[5] Rabbi Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin Chapter Three of Sichas Malachey Hashareis.

[6] Innerspace pg. 16

[7] Innerspace pg.18, Daas Tefilla pg. 271, Nefesh Hachayim 1:14. The GR”A in his commentary on Proverbs 22:5 writes that the Nefesh is the lowest level of Godliness within man and is the “partner of the body.”

[8] Deuteronomy 12:23

[9] Daas Tefilla ibid in the name of the Nefesh Hachayim.

[10] Breishis Rabbah 14:9 states “She (the soul) has five names; Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, Yechida. Nefesh is the blood as is written “For the blood is the Nefesh.” Ruach for it rises and descends as is written “Who knows the Ruach of men that rises on high.” (Kohelet 3) Neshama is the intellect and in the Baraita it is taught the intellect is good. Chaya for all the limbs die and she lives on in the body. Yechida for all the limbs have doubles while she is uniquely singular.”

[11] Targum Onkelos, one of the oldest commentaries to the Torah, translates Nefesh Chaya, living soul, as Ruach Mimalalah, a Ruach that speaks, for Ruach is manifest in speech.

[12] Daas Tefillah 273 - 278, Nefesh Hachayim Shaar 1 chapter 15, Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz expressed this thought in the following paragraph:

“Speech is the world of connection. Understood simply, speech connects the speaker and the listener. A relationship can develop, can flourish, because deep communication is possible by means of speech. In Torah “speaking” is a euphemism for intimacy (“They saw her speaking with one…”) this is not usage borrowed from a distance; the parallel is intrinsic.

At a deeper level, speech represents the connection between higher and lower worlds. Speech is the mechanism by which an abstract idea which exists only in the higher dimension of thought can be brought down into the material world: when I speak, I transform ideas into the physical medium of sound, which is tangible enough for you to hear with the physical tools of hearing.” Worldmask page 128-129.

[13] C.f. Derech Hamelech on Parshas Vayetze 5690. The Piasetzne Rebbe (1889- 1943, authored Derech Hamelech, Chovas Hatalmidim, Aish Kodesh and other classics, and led his Chassidim valiantly through the difficult years of World War 2 in the Warsaw ghetto) points out that the Talmudic term for a form of marriage, the ultimate connection between two individuals, is Maamar. Maamar also means a statement. The Rabbis chose this term for marriage to teach that heartfelt talking connects people.

[14] Heard from the Stutchiner Rebbe.

[15] Daas Tefilla pg. 273

[16] Daas Tefilla pg. 272

[17] They are symbolized by body parts and not internalized within body parts. The skull, which stands above the mind, symbolizes these soul parts, for these soul parts are above logic and rational intelligence.

[18] Words in the Hebrew language have many layers of meaning. In addition to the literal meaning of the words, the letters of a word might refer to a complete sentence. This occurs when each letter in the word represents the opening letter of a word in a phrase thus a three letter word is in truth an acronym for a three word phrase. This process is called Roshey Teivos- beginning of words.

[19] A king can rule others if he first asserts total dominion over his lower self. This unity between king over others and self control was clearly expressed by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in his Kuzari, which is a record of a discussion between a gentile king and a Jewish scholar.

“Al Khazari: Give me a description of the doings of one of your pious men at the present time.

The Rabbi: A pious man is, so to speak, the ruler of his country, who gives to its inhabitants provisions and all they need. He is so just that he wrongs no one, nor does he grant anyone more than his due. Then, when he requires them, he finds them obedient to His call. He orders they execute; He forbids, they abstain.

Al Khazari: I asked you about a pious man, not a prince.

The Rabbi: The pious man is nothing but a prince who is obeyed by his senses, and by his mental as well as his physical faculties, which he governs corporeally, as it is written: “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city (Proverbs 16:32) (Kuzari part 3)”

[20] Daas Tefilla pg. 273