Your Soul Ain't What It Used To Be
The search for consensus in defining Jewish approaches to "nefesh" and "neshama"
For many years I would think of the human soul as one’s consciousness and personality independent of the physical body. And, for just as long, I've been aware of innovative, modern alternative interpretations. But I'm no longer sure that even my comfortable understanding has a clear source in traditional Torah thought. So I'd say that it's definitely time for some research into the traditional, early-modern, and contemporary approaches to understanding the nature and scope of the human soul. This post is meant to be my first effort in meeting that challenge.
The first thing to acknowledge is that the words "neshama" and "nefesh" are plastic. That is, they're used for very different purposes and carry many different meanings throughout Tanach and Chazal. Rambam himself in Moreh Nevuchim (1:41) makes this point, observing how the word "nefesh" is a homonym used variously to describe "vitality", "blood", "cognitive reason", "a person's afterlife existence", and "individual will".
Similarly, the midrash (Beraishis Rabba 14:9) associates five names with “nefesh”:
חמשה שמות נקראו לה נפש רוח נשמה יחידה חיה נפש זה הדם
Neshama and nefesh are also often used interchangeably by Chazal. Note, for example, how this passage in Shabbos 152b quotes a usage of the word nefesh to prove a point concerning neshamos:
ועל נשמתן הוא אומר והיתה נפש אדוני צרורה בצרור החיים
And on their souls [i.e., neshamos] is says (I Samuel 25:29): And the life [i.e., nefesh] of my master will be bundled with the bundle of the living
For a second example, see the way "neshama" and "nefesh" are used together in 1 Kings 17:17 and 17:21.
The gemara (Berachos 10a) goes some distance to define the human soul:
... נשמה מלאה את כל הגוף...רואה ואינה נראית...זנה את כל הגוף...טהורה...יושבת בחדרי חדרים
“The neshama fills the entire body…sees and isn’t seen…sustains the entire body…is pure…dwells in rooms within rooms”
But what exactly is the soul? Well as you might expect, there’s more than one approach within Torah literature. Rambam’s position (Teshuva 8:3) is that the neshama requires a physical body to host it, while the intellect (nefesh) is independent of a body. Further, the “human form” (צורה or צלם) described by the Torah in the context of creation is not related to our physical appearance, but to the intellect (Yesodai HaTorah 4:8). Finally, the human nefesh is the result of a three-stage “evolution” (if you’ll excuse the expression) ending in an intellectually aware soul (נפש” המשכלת” - see שמונה פרקים).
Ramban (Beraishis 2:7) taught that three distinct elements (vegetable, animal, and - coming directly from God - intellect) exist within us in parallel, with each playing critical ongoing roles.
As is their general preference, the Tzfas-influenced kabbalists described schematic layers and complexity of the soul’s parts far beyond earlier, mainstream approaches. The new vision included these five components: נפש רוח נשמה חיה ויחידה.
Beyond that, the kabbalistic innovations manifested themselves in some startling - and in some cases subversive - thinking. Let’s explore just a few of those.
Nefesh Hachaim
As I’ve written elsewhere, Nefesh Hachaim (1:15) threw this bombshell into the discussion of the human soul:
…That the Essence of (G-d’s) Existence does not enter at all into the body of a human. But Adam before the sin merited the Essence and, due to the sin, it was removed from his midst and remained only hovering above him. (All this is) besides for Moshe who merited to have the Essence (of G-d) inside his body. For this reason, he is called “man of G-d.”
I can’t think of any way to read those words that won’t do violence to the second of Rambam’s 13 principles (that the unity of G-d is infinitely simple and that He has no internal divisions). And I’m just at a loss as to how the physical bodies of at least two human beings (Adam and Moshe) could have encompassed the “Essence of G-d.” What am I missing?
But I’m also unsure what to do with Rabbi Chaim’s proof text: “ולכן נקרא איש האלקים” Is there really no other credible interpretation of those words than that Moshe’s body encompassed G-d? Is it not far more likely that it means Moshe, through his behavior and life’s works, exhibited all the values and principles taught by G-d and His Torah? How do those words prove Rabbi Chaim’s idea? I understand that חז”ל sometimes took verses out of context by way of אסמכתא, but those sources weren’t being used for proof (as evidenced by frequent use of “וקרא אסמכתא בעלמא”).
Tanya
In the system of the author of Tanya (see ליקוטי תורה פרשת נצבים), the souls of certain “tzadikim” are qualitatively different from all other human souls. It would seem that only someone possessed of such a soul (“מבחינת אצילות”) from birth can access its qualities.
(Unknown Origin)
Perhaps the most shocking of all the recent innovations in this area is the reimagining of Job 31:2. Here’s the verse in context:
א בְּרִית כָּרַתִּי לְעֵינָי וּמָה אֶתְבּוֹנֵן עַל בְּתוּלָה
ב וּמֶה חֵלֶק אֱלוֹק מִמָּעַל וְנַחֲלַת שַׁקי מִמְּרֹמִים
A covenant I made for my eyes; have I lusted for (even an) unmarried woman?
What (then) is my portion from God from on high; and an inheritance of the Sufficient One from the heights?
It doesn’t require great Torah scholarship to see that Job is here protesting his innocence of serious sin and suggesting that the horrors he’s experienced were undeserved. There’s no reference to the human soul, either in whole or in part.
And yet, some time in the past four or five centuries, without the support of any traditional Jewish source, an entirely different “interpretation” began to spread. This new approach isolates just three words (חֵלֶק אֱלוֹק מִמָּעַל) from their context, reads “חלק” as though it really said “נשמתי היא חלק מאלוק”, and claims that all souls contain a part of God Himself.
Now it should immediately be pointed out that this belief can’t be squared with the second of Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith (i.e., that God is infinitely simple can’t be divided into parts). It would also lead to the (incorrect) conclusion that at least “parts” of God are incarnate (i.e., that they have bodies). But those are complaints that may possibly be specific to Rambam and his followers. There might well be Jews who disagree.
However, even such a heavy kabbalist as the Chafetz Chaim wrote (Mishna Berura 46:3) that we should be careful to pause between the words “אלוקי” and “נשמה” in the morning berachos to avoid leaving even the inadvertent impression that we think of our souls as in any way synonymous with God.
Nevertheless, so successful was this innovation that even serious Torah scholars - albeit scholars unfamiliar with the Book of Job - freely assume it to be a universally accepted belief that our souls are somehow Divine.