Alma 5 Palabras en La Biblia

7/25/2019 Alma 5 Palabras en La Biblia

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http://rooster613.blogspot.pe/2011/03/do-animals-have-souls-

part-i.htmlDo animals have souls? (Part !

Do "e#s believe that animals have souls? I getthis question a lot lately. People want a quick yes-or-no answer, but the problem is, the Hebrewlanguage has five different words that get translated

as "soul"(nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayahandyechidah and they mean different things in !ewish

mysticism kabbalah. #o before I can answer thequestion, I need to define the five levels of the

soul. #orting this out is not always easy, becausedifferent commentators have interpreted these

terms in different ways throughout the centuries,and they don$t always agree. Here are the basic

definitions as I understand them%

1. Nefesh&'H-fesh the physical life force of thebody. (ll animals certainly have this, or they wouldnot be alive. )or that matter, so do plants havenefesh. *his is also the word used by +ing avid in

Psalm %/% "0 guard my soul and rescue me."#ome modern versions of the 1ible translate this as

"guard my life." In !ewish thought, to "guard your

soul" means to take care of your health and safety.


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2e are also commanded to take care of our animalsin the same way, giving them proper food, water

and shelter% "( good man takes care of his animals,but wicked men are cruel to theirs." Proverbs

3%3/ #o before we go any further, let$s be veryclear that whether or not animals have souls in the

theological sense is irrelevant in terms of ourresponsibility to care for them. 0ne cannot argue

that animals are "things" and then go abuse them,heaven forbid. In fact, even "things" have anetzotz-- a divine spark of holiness - within them,

but that$s a whole other blog.

2. Ruach400-akh literally means "wind" or

"spirit" and is the emotional level of the soul. InHebrew56iddish idiom, to do something "with ruach"

means to do it with feeling -- such as singing a songor playing an instrument with "soul." 1iologically, I

would associate ruachwith the limbic system, the

"mammalian" part of the brain that controlsemotions. 7aimonides, an important 3th-century!ewish philosopher, clearly states in his Guide for

the Perplexedthat when it comes to the lovebetween a mother animal and a mother human,there is no difference, because love comes from the

emotional level. *his is the reason the *orah forbids

slaughtering a baby animal on the same day as itsmother 8eviticus %9 because the mother might

see this and feel emotional pain. 1y e:tension,!ewish law forbids slaughtering any animal in front

of another. #hulchan (rukh 6oreh eah ;


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mother bird. I have chickens and believe me, theydo indeed get upset if they see you taking their

eggs. #o clearly, from a !ewish perspective, birdsand mammals have ruach. 2hether or not insects,

fish, reptiles, etc. have this level is up for debate.?ertainly they e:perience fear@ otherwise, they

would not run or swim away. 1ut does a snake feelloveA

4abbi #chneur Balman of 8iady the first8ubavitcher 4ebbe, 39th century wrote in the

Tanyathat humans actually have two souls% an"animal" soul that they are naturally born withwhich seems to correspond to the nefesh-ruach

levels described above and a "divine soul" which is"a part of Cod above" and must be developed and

consciously focused on spiritual things. *hese twosouls have been compared to a rider and a horse@

when they work together, all is well, but if the horse

throws the rider, the lower body desires take overand a person acts only on animal instincts. )rom4abbi #chneur Balman$s perspective, only humans

have the higher soul level, although his is &0* thelast word in the subDect. *his brings us to%

3. $eshamahneh-#H(H-mah is the word most

commonly used in colloquial speech for "soul" in theusual sense, that is, an immortal soul that survives

death. 1ut it is also the word used in Psalm 3/for "let everything that has a soul praise Cod."

#ome translations render this as "everything thathas breath," because neshamahis etymologically

related to the word neshimah,meaning "breath."&ow, if everything that has breath is to praise Cod,

wouldn$t that suggest that animals, too, have aneshamah? In Psalm 3


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universe is praising Cod, even inanimate obDectssuch as the sun, moon and stars. #o "praising Cod"

can$t really be used as a criteria for whether or notsomething has an immortal soul.

However, we should note that there are many

anecdotal stories of people encountering "ghosts" orspirits of animals. #o it does appear quite possible

that something in an animal survives death.

In kabbalah,neshamahis associated with the

higher levels of the mind and, interestingly, some!ewish philosophers felt that we are notautomatically born with a neshamah,that we must

develop it. *his is supported by modern brainresearch. *he more we use our brains, the more

synapses we develop among the neurons, and themore intelligent we can become. ?onversely, a

brain that is not stimulated will lose synapses and,

in some cases, fail to learn even basic language andreasoning skills. "Ese it or lose it" apparentlyapplies in both biology and theology.

!ewish philosophy has long regarded knowledge asthe only thing we take with us to the &e:t 2orld,

which may be why developing the intellectual

neshamahis associated with immortality. 1ut doesthis mean we are developing a "soul," or simply

improving the physical brainA Hard to say. *he factis, we can$t really prove there is an immortal human

soul, anymore than we can prove -- or disprove --the e:istence of an immortal soul in animals. 2hat

we can say is that humans do possess a level ofintelligence that is greater than even the higher

primates, and that we humans can develop aconscious sense of right and wrong that animals


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lack. ( lion may kill prey, but he does notmurder. 7ost !ewish thinkers also maintain that

humans are the only beings with free will, who canconsciously choose to know their ?reator.

is generally connected not only with intellectual

pursuits, but also with moral responsibility. In6iddish, to have a "!ewish soul" (yiddische

neshamah)means to have a sense of properhumanity and compassion. In other words, to be amensch-- an upright person of true integrity and

honor -- the highest compliment one can give in the6iddish language.

4. Chayah+H(I-yah literally means "living." It isused in the *orah in Cenesis %> , where Cod

breathed the breath of life into (dam and then(dam "became a living soul (nefesh chayah)." &ote

that this term combines nefesh,the life force of the

body, with chayah,"living." 1ut isn$t a body withnefeshalready livingA In the biological sense, yes.#o chayahmust add another dimension to human

e:istence.

In kabbalah, chayahrefers to a higher spiritual

level, something like a collective consciousness,

where all members of humanity are connectedtogether. *he word adamliterally means "human

being" -- homo sapiens-- in Hebrew, and only laterin the story does it become the name of a specific

man. (dam +admon -- the Primal (dam -- is oftenpictured as a hermaphrodite cosmic being who

contains all the souls of all the humans who everwere or will be born. He5she is the chayahlevel of

the human species. In !ungian terms, the speciesarchetype.


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*his section was updated on 35;353,

incorporating some feedback from readers. oother species also have a chayahlevelA &ot in the

human sense. 1ut if we regard chayah as thespecies archetype, then each pair of animals in 'den

would be the species$ chayah. Nefesh chayah isused in one other place, namely Cenesis 3%/,

which seems to support this. *he full phrase is is"yishrtzu hamayim sheretz nefesh chayah"which istranslated variously as "let the waters swarm

teem with swarms of living creatures," or with"moving creatures that have life," etc. #o the focusis on them being alive, which is what I said the

nefeshlevel was, i.e., the life force of the body.*hey are all created by direct command, not by

having the "breath of life" breathed in separately.

*hDis is a main difference between animals and

humans. 'verything else in the 'den story iscreated by Cod simply speaking it into e:istence%"8et there be light -- and there was light." 0nly in

the case of humans does Cod "breath the breath oflife" into them directly. (gain I stress% This doesnot mean that other creatures dont ha!e life. (nd

we have already demonstrated that many creatures

have feelings. 1ut !udaism does take the direct"breathing in" of (dam$s nefesh chayah to mean

that there is something different about humans ascompared to the rest of creation. 4abbi &atan

#lifkin, known as the "Foo rabbi" and author of anand #east,clearly states that humans are the only

beings that have a "divine soul" in this sense. 1uton the other hand, he also devotes many pages to

our responsibility toward animals as stewards of theearth. #o do numerous other !ewish


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commentators.

5. Yechidahyeh-+H''-dah means "unity" andcomes from the same Hebrew root as echad,"one"

as in "Cod is 0ne." $echidahdoes not appear in the1ible as such, but is a kabbalistic term developed

in later !ewish mysticism. $echidahis the level ofthe soul where we can "touch Cod."

!udaism does not teach that we can become Cod ormerge entirely with Cod as some mystical systems

do although some Hasidic thinkers came prettyclose to that. 2e !ews are not pantheists. 1utthere is a level where we can e:perience oneness

with Cod$s ?reation and, through this e:perience,get a "taste" of the oneness of Cod. Humans all

over the world have reported this type ofe:perience.

o animals also e:perience oneness with CodA It isimpossible to say, because they cannot tell us.#ome !ewish thinkers as well as others maintain

that animals -- and, in fact, all created beingse:cept humans -- automatically do the will of Codbecause they were created that way, with no free

will to do otherwise. In that sense, they may be

more in tune with Cod than we are. (t the sametime, they do not seem to have the same level of

creativity that comes with our free will.

In conclusion: *here is no clear yes-or-no answerto this question. 2hether or not you believe

animals have souls depends on how you define"soul," and !udaism does not speak with one voice

on the subDect. 0ne thing !udaism does clearly say,however, is that animals are living beings with


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feelings, that they were created by Cod, and thatwe are commanded to care for them properly.

*hat$s threethings, actually, but you know what Imean.

*his being the case, why is it that

2estern civiliFation -- much of which is based onthe 1ible -- has become so callous toward animals

and the environmentA *he fault lies not with!udaism, but with a non-!ewish philosopher named4ene escartes -- "the father of modern philosophy"

-- who lived in the 3=//s and believed that animalsare nothing but automatons, unfeeling machinesthat cannot feel pain. *his is not in accord with

!ewish thought but, unfortunately, a lot of !ews, aswell as many ?hristians and others, have adopted

?artesian attitudes over the centuries -- a topic wee:plore in Part of this series.

Posted by 6onassan Cershom at 9%G (7

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Alma 5 Palabras en La Biblia