Eight out of ten Americans will tell you that they have a soul and that this soul will last forever. But how do I know I have a soul? How do I know that I am not simply a highly complex biochemical machine?
Quite simply, because there is nothing that does not have a soul, including biochemicals—and even atoms. And that is something on which we really all agree.
The Soul of a Rock
Apples fall to the ground, the planets stay in their orbits, and hot air rises. In all of these, we say gravity is at work. What do we really mean?
What do we mean when we invoke electromagnetism to explain light, radio waves, magnets, sparks, the solidity of the walls surrounding you, and the fluidity of the drink in your cup? Or when we explain the structure of the atom by describing a weak and a strong nuclear force?
In all of these instances, we are acknowledging that there is a more fundamental explanation to reality than anything the eye can see.
Nobody would say that gravity is the apple falling or the motion of the planets. Or that electromagnetism is a hard piece of metal. We intuitively understand that these phenomena point to something that cannot be directly observed or measured.The perceived reality is an artifact of a deeper truth. We call these “forces,” and give them names, and then continue to ask what on earth they really are.
Intuitively, we reason that a glob of matter doesn't conjure up a force just by being a glob of matter. To do that, each particle would have to store information about every other particle in the universe in order to ensure it obeys the rules that keep the universe in such elegant harmony.
Quite the opposite, it makes more sense to us to say that out of the interactions and fluctuations of these fundamental forces emerge points in time and space that we call particles of matter. They are like glimmers of light in perpetual dance upon the waves of an endless and unknowable ocean. The perceived reality is an artifact of a deeper truth.
The wondrous harmony of the physical forces—of gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces—these are the modalities of the soul of the earth beneath The notion of a soul is fundamental to how we view all of reality.your feet, of the water you drink, of the wind blowing upon your cheek, the light and warmth shining down upon you from the sun.
Indeed, the notion of a soul is fundamental to how we view all of reality.
Souls of Things That Grow
The soul of matter that generates earth, water, wind, and fire, determines the structures of the atoms, molecules, crystals, stars, and galaxies, and then wipes them away—it presents no heart, no meaning, purpose, desire, or agency. The classical Jewish texts describe this realm as mute, unable to speak of what it holds inside.
Yet, as the structures of nature approach complexities that boggle human comprehension—a quarter-teaspoon of bacteria is estimated to contain as much memory storage as the entire internet—those essential qualities of the universe begin to discover a mode of expression. Whereas the phenomena of inorganic matter are predictable to a certain degree, limited within mathematically describable bounds, the soul of life transcends that predictability. With complexity, agency begins to appear.
First, in the form of things that grow, propagate, and protect their own survival. None of this can be reduced to the laws of physics, and there is no mathematics to predict the growth of a seed into a tree in any given terrain. A single strand of DNA, detached from its origin, directs an operation from beneath leaves, debris, and if fortunate, animal feces, to collect carbon from the thin air, tap the streams of water beneath solid rock, and create a massive self-reproductive factory we know as a tree. Tell me it has no urge, no drive, no soul.
And yet more so, those creatures that proactively run about seeking their prey, laying their traps, building their nests, dancing their courtship dances, and migrating great distances. In them, we see far more openly not just purpose, but something we would call intent—doing something now for what will be in the future.
In them, we see far more openly not just purpose, but something we would call intent—doing something now for what will be in the future.Souls of Living Beings
This is the meaning of the word for soul in Hebrew: Nefesh. It is a word that carries a sense of agency and desire. A dead leaf is driven in maddening circles by the wind. But a being that wants something, and everything it does is directed towards fulfilling that want, this, we say, has a nefesh. It is its own living being.
The bee flies all the daylight hours of its life from flower to flower, not because its internal circuits contain such a program, but because it wants to. It enjoys pollen. Perhaps it enjoys the flower as well. It is a creature driven by its own desires. The same with a bird, a fox, a crocodile, or for that matter, a human being. They are creatures of desire, driven by their own experience of pleasure and pain.
This is the most profound marvel of life and the soul: that a living thing is not a droid. It does not operate as though following some signal from a spaceship up yonder. Nor does it neatly follow any program. Every attempt to reduce even the neurology of the simplest, microscopic worm to some formal procedure has failed. The wonder of life is that this creature takes ownership of its soul just as much as the soul takes ownership of this creature, so that body and soul are one indivisible singularity.
Every attempt to reduce even the neurology of the simplest, microscopic worm to some formal procedure has failed.Within a living body, every organ, every cell, and every organelle behaves as nefesh, as a willful, living being that no algorithm or symmetry can satisfactorily describe. And yet, all together, they behave as one single nefesh, with one will to live and to regenerate.
Here is the distinction between the soul of flora and that of fauna: A blade of grass, a vegetable, or a tree is a thing with life. An animal is a living thing. Hold a live animal in your hands and you hold life itself. You hold intent. You hold meaning.
The Soul of Human Beings
Life, then, is matter transcending itself. At each stage of increasing neuro-complexity, the word transcendence gains new meaning.
Within the human being, nature itself transcends itself. We structure complex societies and their institutions out of the tools and constructs of language. Then we live within them, only to discover that the only way we can sustain these structures and survive within society is by stepping out of our own nature, and even out of our own selves.
An animal survives by following its instincts. Human beings succeed by restraining theirs.An animal survives by following its instincts. Human beings succeed by restraining theirs. Animals establish boundaries and defend them. Human beings, with language and arts, transcend even the boundaries of self and other.
Indeed, this is the meaning of the notion of a soul: That there is no matter. That everything is spirit.
And more: For soul and body to be one, it must be that there is a force that transcends both, a force that is neither heaven nor earth, but commands spirit to express itself within the tight, observable boundaries of a material world and lifts up the physical to resonate with the spiritual.
As the narrative of Genesis begins, “In the beginning, G‑d created the heavens and the earth.” He is neither, but He is discovered in both as they form a perfect unity.
So that in truth, everything is divine.
The Four Domains of Life According to R. Chaim Vital, Etz Chaim
| | | |
דומם | Mute | Non-organic matter | Predictable |
צומח | Growing | Plants, trees, fungi, etc. | Works to increase itself. |
חי | Alive | Insects, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc. | Displays intent. Unfixed. |
מדבר | Speaking | Human beings | Transcends instinct and boundaries of self. |
Your Ego Is Not Your Soul
So we are back to our original question: What, really, is this thing called “soul” in which we all in some way believe?
We cannot know, because our mind is not capable of thinking in purely non-physical terms. But we can certainly say what it is not.
Your soul certainly isn’t your mind, your emotions, or your character. Those change from youth to maturity, through the events and traumas you encounter over a lifetime, as well as through your own hard work to create new habits and attitudes. If the soul is forever, it could not be so malleable to change.
All the more so your soul is not your ego, or your personality, or whatever it is that you call “yourself.” Those are but superficial artifacts of life on earth, like the streams that appear after a heavy rain, taking whatever path the terrain will provide on their return to the high seas.
“Me,” the song goes, is “a name I call myself.” And not much more. You need such a name, a sense of self and ego, in order to navigate life in human society. How could you understand “you” or “they” if there were no “I?” But it is a serious error to believe these flimsy pronouns represent anything more than a fleeting relationship to whatever the world is throwing at you in the current moment.
The notion of a soul pulls us inward toward a far less audible and yet very resonant sense of who we truly are and what it means to be alive.Rather, the notion of a soul pulls us inward toward a far less audible and yet very resonant sense of who we truly are and what it means to be alive. It is a vital notion, because it provides a context of preciousness to life, much as a frame for a valued portrait.
Your Soul Transcends Your Lifetime
Life, for the soul, is an event with a before and an after. As a day is an event for a body, a lifetime for the soul is a day to achieve that which it could not accomplish on any other day.
After all, if your soul is forever, you must ask, “What could be beyond forever that enticed me to abandon that bliss, if just for a day, to descend within the temporal, to suffer the pains and sorrows of the body? What treasure did I hope to find here that I will hold tight to my bosom on my journey home?”
That’s the big picture. But the notion of a soul is more importantly a commentary on the moment now.
When you say you have a soul, you are recognizing that beneath your persona, your ego, your reactions to people and your attitudes towards them, your joy and your pain, the places you go, the things you end up doing, beneath all your desires, needs, and goals, as well as your most basic physiological functions of eating, breathing, and pumping blood through your veins—the fundamental explanation of all this is a single entity that drives it all, and yet transcends it all, as a limitless aquifer would remain unaffected by a bucket of water drawn from its well.
You are not the bucket, not the water, but the endlessly abundant well. And the bottom of that well is a subterranean ocean of all the souls. And at the origin of the ocean of souls is the origin of the universe, so that all is connected as a single organic whole.
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