The Five Named soul

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been starting to study Hayim Vital's Shaar HaGilgulim, Gates of Reincarnation. The book explains Isaac Luria's understanding of reincarnation. This is the first in a series of posts outlining the basic concepts of reincarnation as found in this text, and I hope that it will help us to understand the spiritual growth that takes lifetimes to develop.

Vital writes that there are the five names for the soul: Nefesh, Ruah, Nishama, Haya, and Yechida. He introduces them as five aspects of a person's soul, though his language quickly shifts to discuss them as five separate souls. This reflects the paradox within much Kabbalistic thought: God is one yet we discuss the ten sephirot. The soul is one, but it can be talked about as five. My understanding is that God is so indescribably large that the sephirot represent different places where God interfaces with the world. It's like describing the ocean differently as different ports around the world. The clarity of the Mediterranean is the same ocean as the murky depths of Boston harbor, yet swimming in each is a very different experience. In the case of souls, I think it is easier to talk about them as separate souls, but with the understanding that they are really one. 


We receive them as we grow older. The first soul received is the Nefesh, which is given when we take our first breath. The second is the Ruah which enters the body at age 13. The third, the Nefesh, enters the body at around age 20. He does not specify when the last two enter the body (at least not yet). 

In order for the Ruah and Nishama to enter the body, the person needs to be worthy of them by means of good deeds and following commandments. If a person is not worthy of his next soul when the time comes, he does not receive it in this lifetime. So a person may go though this incarnation with just a Nefesh, or just a nefesh and Ruah but no Nishama. 

Each soul has a ladder of spiritual growth which allows him to receive the next soul. If a person completes, or repairs, his nefesh at a point in his lifetime at some point after his 13th year, he must wait until his next incarnation to receive his ruah. Spiritual growth, by design, takes place lifetimes. The same is true of all levels. If a person completes his ruah he needs to be reincarnated again to receive his Nishama. A person is able to climb up within his soul during his lifetime, but not into the next soul. Reincarnation is a necessary part of spiritual growth.

Each of the five names of the soul represents a different soul level that can be reached by completing and repairing each step of each soul. But to merit the next soul, a person must be reincarnated.

The Long View

I've been starting to study Shaar HaGilgulim (The gates of reincarnation) by Hayyim Vital. I'll write more later on what I'm learning from the text itself but it's made me realize that I've started to take the long view in my life. I don't know if it's related to getting older, but things don't feel as rushed as they used to. I know that I have the rest of my life to work on my spiritual development. I can have רחמים compassion with myself if it takes awhile to happen. I know that growth takes place over many lifetimes, and all that I can see now is a small piece of a much, much larger picture. I can't stop working. I have to put as much effort into my growth as possible, but it's ok if things don't always go as planned.

One of my Hevrutas overslept a few days ago and we missed our study time. At first I was a little upset and annoyed, but then I realized that we've been studying together for two years and b"t we will be studying for another many years. If we miss this week, in the scope of things, it's not such a big deal. But only as long as we're made plans for next week and the week after.

There are so many stumbling blocks that lie in the path of our growth. It's important to know when we've hit them and how to move through them. But it's important not to let the yetzer harah, the impulse to self-destruction, use those stumbling blocks as an opportunity to beat us up and stop the growth.

The long view is a great motivator. It tells us that the problems we have in this life will be repeated in the next until we've worked them through. Or, more colloquially, same shit, different lifetime. I have no desire to go through these challenges again, so I know I have to work as hard as I can to grow so I don't subject myself to them again. At the same time, there will always be another chance to face these issues again. If I don't get it right the first time, there will be infinite second chances, which is both good and bad.

There is a Talmudic story about Honi the Circler who came upon a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked the man how long the tree would take to bear fruit? The man replied 70 years. Honi asked the man, Why do you plant a tree whose fruit you will never eat? The man said that he was planting it for the next generation, just as his father and grandfather had done for him. Honi walked away, suddenly felt very tired and lay down to sleep. He awoke to see the tree was now a giant and the same man picking the fruit. He asked the man if he was the one who had planted it? The man shook his head and replied that it was planted by his grandfather. Honi realized he had slept for 70 years.

Honi saw for himself that growth takes generations and lifetimes. Small seeds we plant now may grow into giant trees later on, though we won't, in our current incarnation, see them. We have to do the work so that we continue to grow. But we have to be patient to let things grow no matter how long they take.

Photo courtesy of Macropoulus

Intention counts too

Malachi 3:16

אז נדברו יראי יהוה איש את־רעהו ויקשב יהוה וישמע ויכתב ספר זכרון לפניו ליראי יהוה ולחשבי שמו׃

It was spoken between those who feared God, each man to his friend, and God paid attention and heard and it was written in the book of remembrance before him about those who feared God and those who thought of him.

In Masechet Berachot 6a in the Talmud we find a discussion of this biblical passage. The first part of the discussion uses this passage to demonstrate that each time two people meet to study Torah, the shechina is present. My experience is that the shechina is present whenever two souls truly connect, though studying the torah definitely makes it easier. This is a topic I wrote about earlier.

What follows is a wonderful lesson. Rav Ashi teaches that the last phrase "and those who thought of him" refers to those who thought about doing a mitzvah, but "were coerced and failed to do so". He continues that we learn from Malachi that God writes their deeds in the book of remembrance as if they had done the mitzvah. Later commentators teach that the coercion comes from the Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination, which always tells us to not do mitzvot. So even when we think of doing a mitzvah, we have to push through the additional layer of the yetzer harah in order to do it. If we don't always make it, we still get credit for trying.

What I love about this is the inherent forgiveness it implies. It's easy to beat oneself up for not doing things on a regular basis. I constantly hear people disparaging themselves for not meditating or praying or studying or working out or eating right, and sometimes using that as an way to keep themselves from doing it. Rav Ashi gives us another way a looking at it. We get credit for truly intending to do something that we just didn't manage to get done. Since the need for spiritual practice is the same everyday, we always get another chance to do it. We get credit for our intention, so we don't have to feel bad about not getting to it, and we get to try again tomorrow. It is our responsibility to try to be better, and if there are things that prevent us, even our own inclinations, we just have to try again with no punishment because we missed the time before. What a wonderful way of looking at things!

Contraction of self to make room for God

Lurianic Kabbalism states that God created the world by contracting himself to create a space without God which allowed the world to be created.

In making room for God within ourselves, do we need to go through a similar process of self contraction to allow God to enter? What would that look like?

Missing the Angels

While packing to leave Israel, I made the decision to ship my stuff via the post office rather than doing a lift. It was much cheaper than hiring a shipping company, but my problem was getting the boxes to the post office. I had no car and even though the post office was only a ten minute walk, I had too many boxes. For the first four boxes I packed, I managed to walk it, but for the second shipment of 11 boxes, of which four were books, I realized that there was no way I could carry them to the post office. A friend offered to drive me to the post office, but the scheduling was really problematic. We finally found a time.

He came over, we packed up his car, and drove up to the post office. He waited at the gate at the end of the driveway while I went to ask the guard to open it so we could unload. The guard looked at me and said that I didn't have time. In typical Israeli fashion, the post office is open until 4 pm everyday except the day we came (a Wednesday I think) when it closed at 2 pm. It was 1:56 pm and the guard told me I didn't have enough time to unload the boxes before he locked the door at exactly 2 pm.

After getting over my stunned disbelief, I argued with him and got him to open the gate. We managed to unload the boxes though he he did lock my friend out without opening the gate for him to leave. I was astonished that he couldn't wait the extra minute for me to unload in a country where nothing ever runs on time.

Two months later, in America, the boxes started to arrive. The first shipment of four arrived intact, but the second shipment of 11 didn't. The boxes were beat up. The boxes containing the books were the worst. One arrived empty, the side split open and then pushed back in place. Of the four boxes of books, one came complete (though repacked by the US post office), and of the other three I received only 10 books. The worst part of it was that these were many of my sifrei Kodesh, my religious texts.

When I went to talk to someone at our local post office, he told me he'd gotten complaints that day from two other people who'd received boxes from Israel. Apparently, the container containing my boxes had gotten thrown around and there was a lot of damage to everything in it. I had mailed another 10 boxes a few weeks later and they all arrived without a problem. It was only those 11 that were damaged.

The guard at the door was my angel and I'd missed it. If I'd listened to him and not shipped the boxes that day, they probably would have arrived without a problem.

It's so difficult to realize when the roadblock in your path needs to be climbed over and pushed through or if it's there to turn you to another path. Even more so during stressful and difficult times in life.

Photo courtesy of Sal de Mar

Demons among the ruins

In Masechet Berachot 3a-3b, there is a story of R. Yossi entering a ruin in Jerusalem to pray. Eliyahu comes and guards the door while he prays, and then chastises him for praying there when he is done. R Jose states that, among other things, he learned that one should never pray in a ruin. Eliyahu then asks him what he heard while praying. R Jose replies that he heard a divine voice (בת קול) that was lamenting over the destruction of the temple. The Gemera continues with a discussion of why one should not pray in a ruin. The main reason given is to avoid demons (מזיקין). But if there are two righteous people then the demons will not manifest unless it is a place that is known to be haunted.

The word for Demon is מזיק which derives from the root נזק and means something that causes damage. This offers a relatively simple definition of a demon or bad spirit. It is one who causes us damage. The passage also supplies a relatively simple method for avoiding demons - keep good company when doing spiritual practices. But it is not enough to be with others when opening to the shamanic realm, the others must be כשרים or Kosher! Literally it means that they are proper or fit. To prevent spirits from damaging one needs to be surrounded by people who are upstanding and nourishing.

Places absorb energy from the people who lived there. Depending on the energy, different types of souls will be attracted to that place. In the ruins of Jerusalem not long after the destruction of the Temple, there would be a lot of dark energy surrounding those ruins. The last people who lived there likely died by either starvation or murder or worse. The first thing that he would have felt there would have been that pain. R. Yossi entered those ruins, opened himself to the spiritual world and heard a divine voice mourning the destruction. R. Yossi felt but was not overwhelmed by the sadness and pain. For another person, that pain might evoke fear or pain which makes a person in the spiritual realm more open to negative influences.

R. Yossi's initial prayers had called an exceptionally strong spiritual presence to him in Eliyahu hanavi. The text reads: בא אליהו זכור לטוב ושמר לי על הפתח Eliyahu, of blessed memory, came and guarded me on the opening. The traditional way of reading it is that Eliyahu guarded the door, but one could also read it that Eliyahu guarded the spiritual opening so that R. Yossi could hear the divine voice without being overwhelmed by the pain and sadness of the place or becoming susceptible to the spirits that are attracted to a place like that.

One can contrast this to the demons who do damage. The angels guard and nourish us. When we are with people who we trust and love, then the energy we create draws good spirits to us. When we are with people who's actions and intentions are questionable, the distrust and fear draws bad spirits to us. This is especially true if we are in a place that is full of dark energy. The gemera refers to places that are known to be haunted by demons. These are the dark places of power. Even when we are with trusted companions, we have to be careful in these places before we enter into the spiritual world there.

By and large, who we are determines the spirits that we encounter when we enter the shamanic realm. That's why it's very important to continually work on oneself as one walks this path. R. Yossi teaches us to be careful with our company and where we pray so that each opening into the shamanic realm is not filled with pain but instead we encounter those who guard and guide us even through difficult situations.

Photo courtesy of Callmetim

Truth within the system

I recently had a fascinating reading from a medium named Kurt Leland. He channels a spirit named "Charles" who mainly focuses on people's greater purpose in life. During the reading, I could feel a tremendous amount of power, which is one of my litmus tests. The focus of this post is not on what he said, but how he said it.

The reading was presented in the format of a very advanced version of the Michael Teachings. The basic idea is that the soul develops over lifetimes and goes through seven soul "ages" each with seven levels. Each soul has a primary archetype which remains constant throughout lifetimes. Each incarnation has various overlays which define the personality of that incarnation, and a "chief feature" which is either the greatest blockage or the source of the greatest power in that particular lifetime.

During the course of the reading, he also lead me through a powerful visualization/journey based on the fours worlds as interpreted in the lens of theosophy (of which I will write about in another post).

What he told me was accurate and true, which, according to the Ba'al Shem Tov, is the test of any medium or seer. The format he used was the method in which he conveyed the truth. It's important not to mix up the two.

There are two steps to receiving information from the spirit world. One is receiving it and the other is being able to convey it to the person receiving the healing. Kurt/Charles was exceptional at using the format to convey the reading in terms the I could easily understand and make sense of. My wife also received a reading a few months ago, and I was struck by the differences in wording between the two readings.

Is his system true? Are there seven soul ages and seven levels in each? I can't really say.

Chaim Vital writes about ten soul levels with ten stages in each. They are based on the ten sephirot. Each lifetime we can move up or down levels, but the general progression is upward. He writes about soul roots. That each of our souls grows out of similar roots. So that some people can have a soul root of Cain or Hevel, and others could be King David. The soul roots don't change over lifetimes even as we climb up the sephirot.

What is clear across systems is that souls contain certain elements which remain the same throughout lifetimes, and there is growth across lifetimes. In both Vital's system and the Michael Teachings, the end goal is union with the divine.

It's important to understand the lens of the system to clearly understand the message that's being presented. It's also important that the system is just that: a way of conveying a message so it can be clearly understood. One of the reasons I spend so much time studying Judaism is that it's the system that makes the most sense to me, and most fully explains my experiences. So the better I understand Judaism, the better I understand my relationship with God.

It's also important to realize that the power is in the message, not in the system. The system is worth studying and thinking about so you understand the message, but the power lies in the truth hidden within.

As a fellow healer, I also wanted to give a recommendation to Kurt/Charles. He does readings via Skype, so is available to anyone.  If it sounds like something that might be helpful to you, drop him a line.