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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.
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