The next level of understanding concerns the ‘soul’. Yes, like it or not, you have one.
The deeper purpose of the system is that our response to Life’s tribulations has a direct effect on a passive, silent ‘spiritual guest’ we each have planted within us at birth – the soul.
We shall discuss the relation and boundaries between the person and the soul below. For now, let us simplify this and state that each soul is placed into the forge of our temporal and temporary human body/psyche/mind/personality – let’s call it the ‘person’.
That person is tested by the fires of the physical world and the soul is a beneficiary or victim of his reactions. For truly ‘free’ Freewill, that person must have no means of sensing or communicating with the soul which it hosts and the soul must suffer or be enhanced passively by that person’s response.
The Gilgul – Revisiting Soul
Further to explain this, we must mention here, in the simplest terms, the Kabbalistic concept of Gilgul.
All the Jews stood around Sinai. Their souls constitute the Jewish people, with the important exception of the very rare cases of converts to Judaism dealt with below.
Gigul (rotating, revolving) is the repeated ‘re-visiting’ of those souls to a new host after the death of a previous one. This means that we all inhabit a conceptual dimension in which each of those souls, or splinters thereof, returns and inhabits each of us.
Thus the original souls that witnessed Sinai are always present – split or combined – repeatedly over the ages. This concept is ancient – first explained in the Book of Job.
Job rejects all other ‘comforters’ – but accepts in silence this explanation of his innocent suffering. It is most fully discussed in the Kabbalah, but it is nonetheless an everyday metaphysical ‘answer’ often used to explain tragedy and comfort the bereaved. It also implies that two or several people can share a soul simultaneously or divided by centuries or millennia.
Kabbalah and The Soul: Explaining Converts to Judaism
Here we must mention the convert to Judaism. These very rare individuals are never encouraged.
Rather we must discourage them by explaining the hardships, strictures and repeated holocausts. Let them be a friend of the Jews, rather than convert.
However, if a person perseveres and converts then this is absolute proof that his soul actually also was at Sinai. It wanted to accept the Torah then but, for a very special purpose, it was not placed in a Jewish host.
It had to wander homeless over the ages until the time was right. From then he is highly revered by his fellow Jews.
Since all the Jews inherit their souls from the initial pool, the body of that convert needs to be converted into a Jewish one especially for that soul.
The convert is highly-respected and admired in Real Judaism but it is a harsh and gruelling journey which, for some, grows only worse after conversion. All the normal vicissitudes of life can seem doubly crushing. They seem the opposite of any Heavenly reward for conversion.
Kabbalah and The Soul: The Purpose of Gilgul
To return to gilgul: its purpose is to heal a soul trapped in a ‘bad’ – (not merely ignorant) – Jew.
That wounded, polluted and damaged soul will need healing. That back-sliding host may be the most ‘successful’ human in this temporal world, acclaimed by all – the ultimate baseball player, president, property mogul, academic, artist, cele-brat.
Yet the poor soul in this spiritual failure must suffer degradation for however long its host ‘enjoys’ his sins in this world. The soul needs a later temporal host who can heal it.
This is done in one of two ways: either that later host’s exemplary behavior cleanses the soul or, in the absence of this, that later host must earn a reprieve for the soul through suffering in the temporal world.
The soul who inhabits a truly valuable person is, on his death, healed and at a higher spiritual level. But if the host does not strenuously work to be ‘saintly’, he must suffer, physically or mentally, in order that the soul is healed.
So we do not inevitably need to suffer. We always have the choice rather to work ruthlessly on ourselves to be perfect.
The Challenge of Perfection
Immediately we cry, ‘What is the point of being ‘perfect’? We see the saintly also suffer horribly?’ And indeed what of this problem of the perfect, innocent, repentant and saintly people who suffer ‘unjustly’.
What went wrong? Who can be saintly enough!? This is predestined failure. Catch 22.
Calm down – we discuss this a little later.
Awesome Responsibility of Gilgul
Gilgul thus places on each of us a truly awesome responsibility. It emphatically forces the issue of the effects of choosing good or evil.
Even if being ‘good’ seems to have no temporal reward, nonetheless we know it can uplift and heal your ‘soul’ and achieve the highest good. Further, simply not bothering to be good must mean that we must suffer more intensely for our soul’s repair.
But, of course, perhaps only a later host will have that suffering and we shall get away with it scot free. Well, no. We do have the concept of Gehennom – Hell.
Here, the ‘person’ can be separately punished in the form of his previous ‘personality and awareness’. So ‘he’ will get his just rewards. This is not something which Judaism dwells on. We rather emphasis the constant chance to change our ways for the better.
Predestination and Gilgul
And there are other consequences of gilgul. It also can suggest predestination. The over-emphasis on gilgul was therefore originally strongly opposed by many of our greatest leaders, including even Kabbalists.
If your soul indeed needs repair and this can be achieved only either by choosing to try to be a saint or by suffering, then that is your predestined lot.
Even if prayer and good deeds can change your future, there is no way of knowing or evaluating this, so subjectively we seem thrown up against predestination. Again we discuss this below.
All these conundrums – which the Sages of course argue out – centre on the balancing of each soul’s fate. Each person is here to fulfil his particular part in the journey of one soul.
You are here, in a sense, just to be one more host!
The Link Between Person and Soul
But there is more. In truth, there is not such a clear-cut distinction between the person’s present psyche and his soul. Most hold that the individual personality and his soul are also somehow wedded forever.
Thus, it was ‘you’, 2000 years ago, that stole that last slice of Babylonian date cake. You, today, do not remember that and are not ‘guilty’ in a simple way.
However we are dealing with cleansing and healing ourselves in a spiritual manner. ‘You’ are sullied by that ancient crime as well as your soul. Both need therapy and curing.
An Ancient Sin Is My Responsibility?
So I must suffer for ‘someone else’s sin’ in this world!? How can ‘I’ be punished in my lifetime for the sin of an earlier gilgul for whom I cannot in any way be deemed responsible? I did not eat that Babylonian date cake!
This is utterly, utterly unfair and merely an egregious piece of semantics, surely? Is that really the system?
No, and Yes.
[Well, you wanted a Jewish answer.]
Answer – No. The ideal is that you strive to be as ‘perfect’ as you, with your abilities and education, can be. Full repentance and the ‘your’ perfect lifestyle will redeem any ancient sin – without suffering.
Answer – Yes. That is part of your purpose. It seems almost impossible apparently but, remember, we are recounting the incomprehensible Almighty’s incomprehensible plan and our perception of pain.
Link to Previous Incarnations
Here the link between you and your previous incarnations – gilgulim – needs examination. In Kabbalistic terms, the soul is everlasting and each ‘personality’ it occupies becomes part of it – yes, permanently – even after that person’s death.
Thus ‘you’ – your physical and conscious being – are not an entirely temporary, separate entity as a simple explanation may suggest.
Nonetheless, surely you are still completely innocent of unknown ‘sins’ committed perhaps millennia ago?
It is actually quite straight-forward. A man spends his life delighting in the most indescribable ghastly, evil crimes. He is sentenced to a proportionately severe punishment – death.
Then, walking out of court, he falls and hits his head and suffers total, permanent amnesia. He can remember nothing about his utterly horrific life. He is utterly disgusted at his former life as described to him.
Should he still be punished? Is he now a different person? He is being punished for being that former person. How can we ignore his guilt? His current state of mind must be ignored for society’s sake even if we are convinced that ‘he’ is no longer here – and the new man has truly and utterly repented and lives in accordance with this.
Mass murders often claim insanity. What of the thousands he tortured to death? You have your finger on the electric chair button.
This is precisely what we have basically suggested above. The earlier gilgul is the former mass murderer.
A Valuable Life Is Indeed Tough
Further, the suffering is actually a painful but essential part of our role – just like that of our mountaineer. For he chose his ‘impossible’ peak and willingly goes through agony and even death, and we, in parallel it turns out, also volunteered to be the Almighty’s crack storm troopers.
We volunteered for the toughest training imaginable. We volunteered to be tested in this world – the ultimate training camp.
Crème-de-la-crème volunteer AA1 troops do not moan and whine at their trainers and plead for a softer regime. They are proud to prove that they can put up with anything thrown at them.
Wait a minute! Volunteered? Who volunteered?!
Ah, you claim that you did not volunteer?
Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you – you and your soul volunteered before birth. Can’t remember? Well, that is what the Talmud (Tractate Niddah 30b) says. You signed up – then you forgot.
What the Talmud Teaches
The Talmud discusses the state of the embryo in both actual and metaphysical terms. We learn that an angel teaches it all knowledge – the whole Torah – whilst in the womb but it forgets this at birth.
This includes the role and relationship of the soul and the body. Thus whilst aware of its task, the embryo is told to swear that ‘you shall be a saint and not evil – and yet even if the entire world says that you are a saint, you should view yourself as inadequate. Know that ………. the soul which He is giving you is pure. Guard it in purity and all will be well. But if not, then it will be taken from you…’.
Elsewhere, we also learn that all things ‘are created with their own agreement’ – nivru b’datem. One modern Kabbalistic Sage, the Ben Ish Chai (1835 – 1909) from Baghdad, explains that this means that we each agreed to enter this world with a full awareness and knowledge of life and its tribulations.
Again, perhaps you have forgotten signing up for this. Well, now it is far too late, you are here. Also your mother, Eve, signed up for mankind long ago in choosing knowledge and our worthwhile Freewill battle rather than perpetual, unchallenging paradise.
So you are a proud, crack AA1 trooper who volunteered – stop whinging!
The Body as Royal Clothing
In a seminal passage, the Talmud states that our bodies and minds are like the magnificent livery a monarch has given to his servants. They are only lent to us to clothe the soul.
‘The wise fold [control] them and protect them in a [spiritual] wardrobe; the fools wear them for their lowest work [earthly enjoyment]. When the king recalls the clothes, the wise return them carefully pressed; the fools return them filthy.’
The Talmud explains:- ‘The saintly return their bodies perfect, having thus protected their souls. …Such bodies lie in peace.
Thus, our present personality does bear the task of suffering for the curing and rehabilitation caused by our previous existences.
The answers are unacceptable if you do not appreciate the Sinai imperative. This obstacle race is meant to be full of – obstacles.
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