The Soul

In Scripture, the human soul is called variously by five different names: Nefesh, Ru’ach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. However, the last two of these are beyond our perception, and the Zohar concerns itself only with three parts of the soul: Nefesh, Ru’ach, and Neshama.

The lowest component of the soul, Nefesh, emanates from Malkhut, the lowest of the sefirot, and is bound up in ’Asiya, the lowest of the worlds. Nefesh arises from the confluence of desire of male and female. It is the life force that all animals possess and is the component of the soul that is most intimately connected to the body and most dominated by a person’s biological needs.

Ru’ach, or Spirit, emanates from the sefira of Tif’eret and serves to connect Nefesh to Neshama, just as Tif’eret itself is the central link connecting the higher sefira of Bina to Malkhut. (See the diagrammatic representation of the sefirot – posted on 5 August 2009.)

Neshama, the highest and most ethereal component of the human soul, is the part of the soul that God breathed into Adam: vayipach be’apav nishmat chayim – “and he blew in his nostrils the breath (Neshama) of life” (Genesis 2:7). Neshama arises from Bina and migrates down through the lower sefirot, to reach our world and enter a human body.

Imagine a great inverted tree, its roots planted in the higher world of Chokhma and Bina, from which it derives its sustenance. The mighty trunk – Tif’eret (incorporating the “six points,” i.e. the six sefirot from Chesed to Yesod) – terminates in leafy branches bearing fruit, representing the end result of the influence of the sefirot on our world. Just as water and nutrients travel through the transport system of a physical tree, the emanations of the spiritual world travel through the channels that link the ten sefirot into a living unit. And it is through this sefirotic tree that the Neshama descends in its journey to our world to enter the body of a newly-created infant. As the baby develops and grows into a youth, it is the task of the Neshama to animate the child with the spirit of the higher world and gradually to make him sensitive to the inner voice that calls to him. And it is the task of the Neshama to protect him throughout his life against the ever-present temptation of the Evil Impulse.

Even when it is in the lower world, the Neshama maintains its connection to the world above. Even while inhabiting a human body, the Neshama remains rooted in the upper world. Thus, it is by means of the Neshama that a person can aspire to holiness, and it is only by means of the Neshama that a person can attain some measure of perception of the upper world, a world that otherwise would be completely outside the realm of our experience.


© Copyright 2009 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.