You wouldn’t think that the Jewish tradition was big on transmigration of souls \u2014 but it is. \u00a0I’m not even sure this concept is taught much anymore in more mainstream non-Orthodox and Hassidic circles. \u00a0But what do I know? \u00a0 I’ve not set foot in a shul for a very \u00a0long time. \u00a0And even then, it was to study Zohar in a study group run by Danny Matt, not for services. \u00a0I have no idea if rabbis give sermons on the transmigration of souls, or if Hebrew Schools teach it \u2014<\/p>\n
But I was raised on the transmigration of souls. \u00a0I am the tzaddik’s daughter.<\/p>\n
And it’s not like he sat me down and taught me. \u00a0No. \u00a0He took me on adventures. \u00a0We’d head up to the Gold Country. \u00a0The Motherlode. \u00a0In the lower and middle Sierra range. \u00a0We’d be looking for Jewish cemeteries of the early settlers from during the Gold Rush. \u00a0He’d teach me to read graves. \u00a0And to clean the stones. \u00a0We’d weed. \u00a0The cemeteries had been abandoned long before we found them.<\/p>\n
What I didn’t know at the time, being a kid and all, was that he was slowly finding donors to purchase all the cemeteries. \u00a0He started a Jewish Cemeteries commission to oversee them and take care of them. \u00a0And when a new Jewish community grew up in the Motherlode and wanted the cemetery for their own, he’d relinquish it and the local community would take it on again. \u00a0A living cemetery again.<\/p>\n
What a tzaddik he was.<\/p>\n
No. \u00a0It wasn’t book learning. \u00a0It was the long drives heading from the bay through the delta and up into the mountains. \u00a0He’d tell me stories.<\/p>\n
The essence, really, was about the five souls. \u00a0And their travels.<\/p>\n
He’d start with Chayah \u2014 \u05d7\u05d9\u05d9\u05d4<\/p>\n
Chayah was what he called me half the time. \u00a0Wild animal. \u00a0Wild animal soul. \u00a0A soul with a beating heart, free to run,free to just be. \u00a0The Chayah soul is our animal nature. \u00a0Maybe what Freud would call our id impulses. \u00a0But the tzaddik never made it sound quite as dreadful as Freud did. \u00a0Nevertheless, it was clear that he was invoking actions on the part of his daughter that might not have been in her own best interest. \u00a0She was a bit of a wild child. \u00a0I think the tzaddik liked that. \u00a0It was a bit of a thrill to be called a Chayah, at least the way he said.<\/p>\n
Then he’d go to \u00a0Yechidah \u2014\u05d9\u05d7\u05d9\u05d3\u05d4<\/p>\n
The Yechidah soul makes us individuals, he would say. \u00a0 But it also bound us to others. \u00a0We have distinct personalities and characteristics. \u00a0Unique qualities. \u00a0Okay, fine. \u00a0He didn’t dwell on this one, and neither will I. \u00a0So much for psychiatry. \u00a0I guess he and I were never terribly impressed by the uniqueness of personality. \u00a0He was a very unassuming tzaddik, after all. Modest and soft spoken. A collectivist at heart.<\/p>\n
Ah, but then there was Nefesh \u2014 \u05e0\u05e4\u05e9<\/p>\n
The tzaddik was all about Nefesh \u2014 as in \u00a0\u05e0\u05e4\u05e9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d9 \u05e7\u05d3\u05d9\u05de\u05d4 \u2014 which is hard to say even for me, without breaking into song. \u00a0Nefesh yehudi, kadimah. \u00a0The Nefesh of the Jewish People marches forward, might be a loose translation. \u00a0It’s a phrase inside the Hatikvah \u2014 the Israeli song of Independence. \u00a0So, Nefesh is the soul that we have that we share with all of our People. \u00a0Capital letters are important when it comes to Nefesh. \u00a0This is our bond, our identity \u2014 all the way back through time. \u00a0to Abraham. \u00a0To Creation. \u00a0It’s the Wise Son at the Seder who speaks up and asks “why do we<\/em> do this” \u2014 what makes him wise (at least in the Haggadah) is that he identifies with his People. \u00a0Nefesh is a very big deal. \u00a0But Nefesh consciousness dawns slowly inside the individual. \u00a0It takes, as far as I can see, a certain amount of indoctrination and collectivity and exposure to ‘our ways’ as opposed to theirs. \u00a0Nefesh is a thoroughly ethnocentric notion, when viewed this way. \u00a0There are other ways of construing Nefesh, but for brevity’s sake, I’m not going there.<\/p>\n Ah! \u00a0My favorite soul remains Ru’ach \u2014 \u05e8\u05d5\u05d7<\/p>\n I love the way it rolls off the tongue and dances in the back of my throat. \u00a0I could say it forever. \u00a0It’s particulary good during allergy season, to soothe the back of your very itchy throat. \u00a0Roooooooooo<\/em> (breathe out) \/ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaach<\/em> (breathe in). And the ‘ch’ of it is very very light. \u00a0So don’t do the heavy stuff. \u00a0Ru’ach is the first of the souls that we encounter in the bible. \u05d5\u05e8\u05d5\u05d7 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d5\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u05de\u05e8\u05d7\u05e4\u05ea \u05e2\u05dc \u05e4\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d4\u05de\u05d9\u05dd \u00a0 which could be translated as ‘and the spirit of God blew over the water’s surface.’ Can’t you just feel it blowing, and see the beautiful ripples in the sea? \u00a0Ru’ach is all about breath. \u00a0When you hear the term ‘Holy Spirit’ this is the one they’re talking about. \u00a0Though Jews are a little (aka a lot) nervous about saying ‘Holy Spirit” in mixed (ie in \u00a0goyische) company, for fear the goyim might think they’re talking about their<\/em> Holy Spirit concept, rather than ours<\/em>. Paranoid, yah, I know. \u00a0But really, there’s nothing to worry about. \u00a0Ru’ach is at heart a dynamistic notion. \u00a0This breath \/ wind \/ spirit \/ soul is shared between us all plant \/ animal \/ human \/ god \u2014 all inhaling and exhaling life force in tandem. \u00a0The reason I love Ru’ach so much is that you can’t hold on to it all by yourself. \u00a0 All you can do is share it. \u00a0Try to hoard it by holding your breath \u2014 and you die. \u00a0Try to get rid of it all \u2014 same thing. \u00a0Share, children. \u00a0What’s wrong with that?<\/p>\n And those are the basic four. \u00a0And you’ve got them all coming and going, breathing and getting excited, and being unique and all that. \u00a0Acting in concert. \u00a0Or being obnoxiously idiosyncratic. \u00a0 But wait, there’s one more. \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0If you are very very good.<\/p>\n I wanted to be very very good. \u00a0But I didn’t think I could manage it. \u00a0Chayah, remember?<\/p>\n The last soul is Neshamah, beautiful Neshamah \u2014 \u05e0\u05e9\u05de\u05d4<\/p>\n And, according to the tzaddik not everyone has a Neshamah, or at least not all the time. The Neshamah is a gift of the Shekhinah \u2014 the bride of God, the Queen of Heaven. \u00a0A holdover from ancient Ugarit and Cana’an, really, but she’s our own feminine divine. And we love her. \u00a0A bit prickly, she is however. \u00a0A depressive over how badly we’ve mucked the planet up. \u00a0It is our task to join together. \u00a0Quell the discord, merge ourselves and harmonize. \u00a0Celebrate the Sabbath, and have great sex that creates one being from the merging of two (okay\u2014 the tzaddik didn’t tell me that part. \u00a0I was too young). \u00a0(And to be truthful, not everything above was said by him, certainly not all in one long car \u2014 so of course I’ve come to use other sources…. \u00a0Talmud’s good. \u00a0Try that. \u00a0Neshamah comes when we bring holiness into the world. \u00a0Joy, and the bringing together of the fragments of the world. \u00a0This is our primary task: \u00a0Tikkun olam \u2014 the knitting back together of the universe. Healing all that pain by joining hands …<\/p>\n So. \u00a0The souls come in one at a time into our bodies. \u00a0A deli sandwich of souls, hold the pickles. \u00a0We each have our own combination. \u00a0And the souls, they leave at will, or slowly when we die. \u00a0And the souls get pissed if we abuse them. \u00a0The Bahir has some wonderful parables on such abuse and desecration! \u00a0Reb Zalman, co-founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement, \u00a0had a lot to say on the comings and goings of our souls. \u00a0Go to him. \u00a0And study. \u00a0He’s very very very good. You’ll be transformed.<\/p>\n There are only so many souls that were made in the universe. Treat yours with great care and deep respect. And so, when a person dies and the souls head off into wherever they go. \u00a0Excuse me, transmigrate<\/em> \u2014 \u00a0they recombine in new individuals, in new combinations. \u00a0And this is where it gets really really interesting.<\/p>\n For these souls begin to recognize each other.<\/p>\n They’ve been embodied together before.<\/p>\n And you meet someone. \u00a0And he or she feel so familiar. And you can’t put your finger on why or how powerful it is. And you’d swear that you must have met the person before. \u00a0You just must have. \u00a0But no \u2014 it’s not possible. \u00a0That doesn’t work. So you come up with that default line we-must-have-known-each-other-in-a-past-life. And it feels slimy, but it’s still a good line. You’re trying to acknowledge the co-residence inside that shared body. \u00a0Jewish theory teaches that there are only so many souls in the universe. \u00a0So, of course they’ve met before.<\/p>\n And these souls are yearning for each other. \u00a0Yearning to remember. \u00a0Yearning to rejoin each other and feel again that bond. \u00a0The thought hits you both so hard you can hardly breathe. \u00a0You-must-be-meant-for-each-other, you surmise. \u00a0It’s too uncanny. \u00a0The resonance is so powerful and familiar.<\/p>\n And this is not just about humans, or people. \u00a0We feel these feelings for our metier as well. \u00a0A horn, for example \u2014 or the collection of the shards of history. \u00a0Being drawn, heart and soul to what one does.<\/p>\n We have a word for this inside the Jewish tradition. \u00a0Beshert<\/em> it’s called, and it cannot be denied. \u00a0It’s not that you’re meant for each other, no that’s too small. \u00a0And that’s not it. Nor is it a website for hooking up young desperate Jewish would-be couples. \u00a0It’s not a ‘perfect match,’ a husband-and-a-wife. \u00a0No, no.<\/p>\n It’s the transmigration of two souls already<\/em> connected. \u00a0It’s an instrument that’s yearning for your playing. \u00a0A manuscript whose characters seem already fully alive.<\/p>\n And the joy is not just union but reunion<\/em>.<\/p>\n A thousand years. Two thousand years \u2014 there is no difference. \u00a0A thousand miles. Across a bridge \u2014 there is no distance. Those souls, we don’t believe or give them credence. \u00a0But when their fingers touch we feel their substance.<\/p>\n I don’t believe any of this, of course. \u00a0But the tzaddik wasn’t a tzaddik for no reason. \u00a0His meeting my mother feels the most beshert moment imaginable. \u00a0Without that union, no museum, no cemeteries commission, no \u2014 all the other treasures that unfolded thereafter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You wouldn’t think that the Jewish tradition was big on transmigration of souls \u2014 but it is. \u00a0I’m not even sure this concept is taught much anymore in more mainstream non-Orthodox and Hassidic circles. \u00a0But what do I know? \u00a0 I’ve not set foot in a shul for a very \u00a0long time. \u00a0And even then,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,216,269,222],"tags":[494,492,226,495,192,493,491,1020],"class_list":["post-3071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony","category-seymour-fromer-zl","category-tzaddik-stories","tag-beshert","tag-cemeteries","tag-dads","tag-reb-zalman-schachter-shalomi","tag-seymour-fromer","tag-sierra-mountains","tag-transmigration-of-souls","tag-tzaddik-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3071"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3073,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071\/revisions\/3073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}