Questions of the Soul

Exploring Kabbalah and the Mystery of Being Human

I’ve recently begun a six-week course on Kabbalah, the ancient mystical tradition within Judaism that seeks to understand the relationship between the Creator, the soul, and the nature of existence.

Over the next six weeks, I’d like to share what I’m learning, how it relates to my own spiritual journey, and, perhaps most importantly, the questions these teachings leave me asking.

I’ve spent years exploring the mysteries of consciousness, the afterlife, reincarnation, and what happens to the soul when our physical lives come to an end. Much of that exploration has found its way into my novels and essays.

Along the way, I’ve attended lectures, studied religious and philosophical teachings, and considered the perspectives of people who have devoted their lives to understanding these mysteries.

One thing I’ve noticed is that nearly everyone seems to have answers.

Religions offer answers. Philosophers offer answers. Spiritual teachers offer answers. Even science, when it ventures into the study of consciousness, seeks explanations for experiences we don’t yet fully understand.

And while I’ve found value in many of these perspectives, I’ve come to realize something about myself.

I’m not necessarily looking for answers.

I’m looking for better questions.

Questions that challenge what I think I know. Questions that cause me to reconsider beliefs I’ve grown comfortable with. Questions that may never be answered in this lifetime but are worth considering nonetheless.

That’s the spirit in which I’m approaching this course.

I don’t expect to emerge after six weeks with a definitive understanding of the soul or the Creator. But I hope to emerge with a deeper appreciation for the mysteries themselves.

And I’d like to invite you along.

Week One: We Are Souls

The central teaching of our first class was deceptively simple.

We don’t merely have souls.

We are souls.

Our bodies are the temporary vessels through which our souls experience physical existence.

This understanding is not unfamiliar to me. In my own spiritual journey, I’ve come to consider the possibility that the soul exists before birth and continues after death. That it carries something from one lifetime into the next, even when the person inhabiting the body has no conscious recollection of those earlier experiences.

I’ve also explored the possibility of an infinite Field of Consciousness, which I understand as the Creator.

Within that Field exist individual souls, each a vessel for consciousness, each experiencing existence through its own journey.

I don’t claim to know this is how existence works. It is an understanding I’ve developed through years of reflection, writing, and questioning.

What interested me about our first Kabbalah class was how several seemingly ordinary human experiences were explained through the existence of the soul.

Music. Love. Sleep. Dreams. Even our relationships with animals.

Each offered a different way to consider what it means to be a soul living a human life.

Why Does Music Move Us?

One of the first teachings concerned music.

According to the Kabbalistic explanation presented in class, before birth our souls experience the heavenly music of angels longing for G‑d.

Certain songs move us deeply because they awaken a distant memory of that spiritual existence.

Something within us recognizes a melody that reminds the soul of where it came from.

The lesson offered a simple but intriguing observation: the things that move our bodies often begin with stirrings of the soul.

I found this particularly interesting.

Why does a piece of music sometimes bring us to tears when we cannot explain what makes us emotional?

Why can a melody stir something within us that words cannot reach?

We’ve all experienced moments when music seems to bypass our thoughts entirely. A familiar song can transport us to a particular time in our lives, bringing back memories and emotions we haven’t considered in years.

But occasionally, music moves us without any recognizable memory attached to it.

The Kabbalistic explanation is that our souls recognize something familiar, even when our conscious minds do not.

But I wonder.

If our souls have experienced other lifetimes, might music awaken impressions from those experiences as well?

Could a melody remind us of someone we’ve loved in another life? Or a place we’ve never visited in this one?

Perhaps a particular arrangement of notes resonates with something our souls experienced centuries ago, something our present minds have no way of remembering.

Or is music simply capable of reaching parts of our emotional consciousness that ordinary thought cannot access?

And perhaps the most interesting question is whether the longing we sometimes experience through music is for something we’ve lost, something we’ve forgotten, or something we have yet to discover.

I don’t know.

But I suspect the next time a piece of music unexpectedly moves me, I’ll listen a little differently.

Are We Searching for Our Other Half?

Another teaching concerned love and marriage.

The Zohar, the foundational texts of Kabbalah, describes male and female souls as originally joined together before being separated and entering physical existence.

According to this teaching, a husband and wife may begin their earthly lives apart, each carrying a longing for the soul from which they were separated.

That longing, the Kabbalists suggest, is one reason human beings seek romantic love.

We are searching for someone we have lost.

Marriage, in this understanding, is not merely the beginning of a relationship. It can be the reunion of two souls who belonged together before they were born, a reunion arranged by G‑d.

It’s a beautiful idea.

But the teaching also acknowledges that finding one’s soulmate is not guaranteed.

The Zohar suggests that those who merit such a reunion through their actions may be brought together with their intended partner.

Our class also addressed the question of second marriages and whether everyone necessarily marries their soulmate.

The explanation was that we cannot know with certainty whether the person we’ve married is our destined spiritual partner. Yet a healthy, loving, and stable marriage may give us good reason to believe we’ve found the person intended for us.

The practical lesson was equally meaningful.

Our spouse’s needs, desires, aspirations, and even imperfections should not be regarded merely as outside demands that we must negotiate. Marriage asks us to recognize that we share a life, and that the concerns of one person become the concerns of the other.

That struck me as a practical expression of a much larger spiritual idea.

Perhaps love is not simply about finding someone who completes us.

Perhaps love teaches us to extend our sense of self beyond the boundaries of our own existence.

But the teaching also raises questions for me.

I’ve spent considerable time thinking about what I call soul-lines, the possibility that certain souls remain connected across multiple lifetimes.

Perhaps two souls who are husband and wife in one lifetime return as siblings in another. Or as parent and child. Or as close friends whose affection seems to transcend the circumstances of their meeting.

If that’s possible, does each soul have only one destined partner?

Might the deepest relationships in our lives serve different purposes during different incarnations?

And what about people who experience more than one profound love during their lifetime?

If someone loses a spouse and later discovers another deeply meaningful relationship, are they reconnecting with a different soul they’ve known before? Or does the idea of a soulmate exist beyond the limitations of our understanding of romantic love?

Are we reconnecting with souls we’ve known before, or are we creating new spiritual bonds through the experience of loving another person?

And what about the people who never marry, yet live extraordinarily loving and meaningful lives?

Does the soul’s purpose necessarily depend upon finding another soul?

I find myself returning to a question that challenges the very premise of the teaching.

If we are already complete souls, originating from an infinite Creator, why would we need another soul to make us whole?

Perhaps the purpose of love is not to complete us, but to teach us something that cannot be learned alone.

Where Does the Soul Go When We Sleep?

Another teaching concerned something we experience every night without giving it much thought.

Sleep.

According to Kabbalah, the soul descends into the physical body at birth, but its connection to the spiritual realm is never entirely severed.

Each night, while our bodies sleep, the soul returns to its spiritual source to be refreshed.

Our morning prayers acknowledge this renewal. Among the blessings we recite is one praising G‑d,

“Who gives strength to the weary.”

The idea is that we entrust our exhausted souls to the Creator each night, and they are returned to us renewed in the morning.

I find this a particularly meaningful way of looking at sleep.

We generally think of sleep as a biological necessity. Our bodies need rest, and our brains require time to recover and process the experiences of the day.

But what if something more is taking place?

Rabbi Isaac Luria, one of the great Kabbalists, taught that while the soul is in Heaven at night, it studies Torah as a means of connecting with G‑d.

According to this understanding, the Torah we study and the prayers we recite during the day can become part of the soul’s spiritual activity during sleep.

Sometimes, this may result in insights that emerge through our dreams.

I find myself wondering about the relationship between these teachings and the nature of consciousness.

If the soul can experience something while the body is asleep, what exactly is the relationship between the soul and the brain?

Does the brain produce consciousness, or does it serve as an instrument through which consciousness experiences the physical world?

I’ve often considered the possibility that the soul is a vessel for consciousness, carrying the Creator’s gift of awareness through our human existence.

If that is so, could sleep represent a temporary loosening of the connection between consciousness and its physical surroundings?

And if the soul returns to its spiritual source each night, why do we remember so little of that experience?

Perhaps the waking mind is simply unable to comprehend what the soul experiences beyond the limitations of the body.

Or perhaps the entire process is a spiritual interpretation of the extraordinary biological mystery of sleep.

Either possibility leaves me with questions.

We spend approximately a third of our lives sleeping.

What if those hours represent more than an interruption of our waking existence?

What if they are an essential part of the soul’s journey?

What Are Our Dreams Trying to Tell Us?

Our class also explored dreams, which the Kabbalistic teachings distinguish from the soul’s nightly spiritual renewal.

One explanation is that every thought, word, and action throughout the day leaves an impression upon the soul.

By the time we fall asleep, we have accumulated an enormous amount of mental and emotional material.

Some of those impressions may interfere with the soul’s ability to reconnect with its spiritual source.

According to this teaching, dreams help release the accumulated distractions and confusion of daily life.

In other words, most dreams are not necessarily profound spiritual messages.

Many are simply nonsense.

I found that distinction interesting because it suggests that not every dream deserves a mystical interpretation.

Sometimes the mind, or perhaps the soul, is simply sorting through the clutter of daily existence.

The lesson also offered a practical suggestion.

What we expose ourselves to before falling asleep may influence the condition in which we enter sleep.

Rather than filling our minds with disturbing images, arguments, or endless distractions, we might spend those final moments in quiet reflection.

The traditional Jewish practice of reciting the Shema before sleep offers a way of preparing the soul for its nightly journey.

I appreciate that idea, even apart from its spiritual interpretation.

What we choose to think about before closing our eyes may influence what we carry into sleep.

But then what about the dreams that stay with us?

The ones we remember decades later?

The dreams in which we encounter someone who has died, experience a place we’ve never seen, or awaken with an understanding we didn’t possess before falling asleep?

And what about lucid dreaming?

There are times when we become aware that we are dreaming while the dream is still unfolding.

We recognize that our physical body is asleep, yet we remain conscious within the dream itself.

Sometimes we can even influence what happens next.

I find this particularly fascinating because it raises another question about the nature of consciousness.

If we can become consciously aware within a dream, while our physical senses are largely disconnected from the world around us, what does that suggest about the relationship between consciousness and the brain?

Is lucid dreaming simply another remarkable ability of the human mind? Or might it offer a glimpse into forms of awareness we have yet to fully understand?

And could the experience of being conscious within a dream help us better understand what it means to exist as a spiritual being within a physical body?

I’ve also wondered whether certain dreams might contain impressions from experiences that our waking consciousness cannot access.

If the soul has lived before, could some dreams reflect memories from other lifetimes?

Could a person or place that feels strangely familiar in a dream belong to an experience that occurred long before our present existence?

Or are these sensations entirely explainable through the imagination and memory processes of the sleeping brain?

And then there is another possibility, one that I think we must take seriously.

Perhaps we assign spiritual meaning to certain dreams simply because we want them to mean something.

A dream about someone we’ve lost can offer tremendous comfort. We may want to believe that we have encountered that person’s soul again.

But how would we distinguish an actual spiritual encounter from a dream created by our longing to see that person?

I think that question is especially important.

When we explore spiritual mysteries, we must be willing to question not only the explanations offered by others but also the interpretations we find most comforting.

Otherwise, are we searching for understanding or simply searching for confirmation of what we already believe?

Do Animals Have Souls?

The final subject was the Kabbalistic understanding of animal souls.

We began with the prophet Ezekiel’s extraordinary vision of heavenly beings associated with the Divine throne.

Among the faces he described were those of a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

Kabbalah interprets these images as representations of the spiritual sources from which animal souls originate.

The implication is that animals, like human beings, possess a spiritual dimension beyond their physical existence.

Our class also considered a fascinating account from the Talmud concerning the donkey belonging to

Rabbi Pinchas ben Ya’ir.

According to the story, the donkey refused to eat barley that had not been properly tithed.

The Chabad Rebbe interpreted this account as evidence that animals possess souls capable of recognizing the Divine will, even if that spiritual awareness ordinarily remains dormant.

I found this teaching particularly interesting because it challenges the assumption that spiritual existence is exclusively human.

If animals possess souls, what distinguishes their souls from ours?

Is it intelligence? Self-awareness? Moral responsibility?

Or is the distinction related to the different experiences that each form of life is capable of having?

Anyone who has lived with an animal has probably witnessed affection, fear, loyalty, grief, and what appears to be an unmistakable sense of individual personality.

Animals form relationships. They recognize familiar individuals. Some appear to mourn the loss of companions.

Does that constitute evidence of a soul?

Perhaps not.

But what would constitute such evidence?

And why do we assume that spiritual awareness, if it exists, must resemble our own?

If the Creator is the infinite source of consciousness, why would consciousness be limited to human beings?

Perhaps different forms of life are capable of experiencing different expressions of that consciousness.

A human being experiences the world through language, reflection, and an awareness of mortality.

A bird experiences flight, migration, and an orientation to the natural world that we can scarcely imagine.

An animal may experience existence without contemplating its purpose, yet still possess an awareness that is meaningful in ways we do not understand.

And what about the life of a tree?

Or the intricate relationships within a forest, where trees exchange resources and respond to their environment through biological systems that we are only beginning to understand?

I’m not suggesting that trees possess consciousness in the way human beings do.

But I wonder whether our understanding of consciousness might be limited by our experience of being human.

I’ve often considered the possibility that souls carry the experiences of their physical lives back into an infinite Field of Consciousness.

If that possibility has merit, why would the experiences of other living creatures be any less significant?

Could the Creator experience existence through countless forms of life, each offering a perspective unavailable to the others?

And if animals possess souls, might their spiritual journeys continue beyond physical death, just as we wonder whether ours do?

Perhaps the more important question is not whether animals possess souls like ours.

Perhaps it is whether we have been too narrow in our understanding of what a soul can be.

The Kabbalistic teaching gives me another way to consider that possibility.

But as with the other subjects we explored in our first class, it leaves me with more questions than answers.

And that is precisely what I had hoped to find.

The Question I Carried Home

As I reflected on our first class, I kept returning to the idea that we are souls temporarily inhabiting physical bodies.

It is a teaching that resonates deeply with my own journey.

But it leaves me with a question that may be more important than any of the others.

Why are we here?

If the soul exists before birth, if it originates from the Creator, and if it eventually returns to its spiritual source, what is the purpose of this earthly experience?

Is the soul here to remember what it has forgotten?

To repair something left unfinished in another lifetime?

To learn compassion, forgiveness, courage, or love?

Or is the purpose something we haven’t considered?

I’ve often wondered whether the soul returns from each lifetime carrying something it did not possess before.

Not material possessions, of course, or the accomplishments by which we measure success.

But experience.

The experience of loving someone. Of losing someone. Of making terrible mistakes. Of choosing kindness when cruelty would have been easier. Of finding meaning in circumstances we never would have chosen.

Perhaps those experiences become part of the soul’s continuing development.

But even that is only a possibility.

And it raises yet another question.

If the soul originates from a Creator who is complete and infinite, why would the soul need to learn anything at all?

Could it be that the purpose of life is not to acquire knowledge, but to experience what knowledge alone cannot provide?

Perhaps knowing what love is and experiencing love are two entirely different things.

The same might be true of compassion, forgiveness, grief, and joy.

I find myself drawn to the possibility that each lifetime contributes something unique to the soul’s journey.

But I’m equally interested in discovering where that idea may be incomplete.

Six Weeks of Questions

This is only the beginning of the course.

Over the next five weeks, I’ll continue sharing what I learn, where it intersects with my understanding of the soul and consciousness, and where it challenges that understanding.

I don’t intend these essays to be explanations of what everyone should believe.

They are reflections from someone who remains deeply curious about existence, who has experienced enough of life to appreciate its fragility, and who continues to wonder what, if anything, lies beyond it.

I respect the wisdom of the Kabbalists and the centuries of thought that shaped their teachings.

But respecting a teaching does not mean we must stop questioning it.

In fact, perhaps the greatest respect we can offer an ancient tradition is to engage with it seriously enough to ask difficult questions.

I began this course hoping to deepen my spiritual understanding.

After the first week, I’ve already discovered something worthwhile.

I have more questions than when I started.

And for now, that’s exactly what I was hoping for.

A question for you:

If we are spiritual beings, how might that understanding change the way we experience being human?

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

This is Part One of a six-part series exploring Kabbalah, consciousness, and the soul. Each week, I’ll share the teachings from my course alongside the questions they raise in my own spiritual journey.