Congregation Beth Shalom
Kol Nidrei 5768
Eternal Soul
Rabbi Nancy Wechsler-Azen
“Master of the Universe, I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonized me, or who sinned against me whether through speech, deed, thought or notion, whether in this incarnation or another incarnation-- “b’gilgul ha-zeh, uvein gilgul acher.”
This statement is the traditional preamble to the night time Sh’ma.
Letting go of resentment through forgiveness makes perfect sense so that we should enter sleep with peace.
What may be a surprise to our ears, is the word ‘gil-gul’ – incarnation. Gilgul refers to the concept of gilgul neshamot, the transfer of the soul from one body to another over the course of lifetimes, one of the fundamental Jewish doctrines of afterlife. For most people reincarnation or transmigration of soul happens two or three times to achieve purification.
For the very wicked, it takes perhaps a thousand periods of physical life on earth to clean up their act.
On Rosh Hashanah, we hear about Isaac’s brush with death.
On Yom Kippur, we simulate our own brush with death.
Rabbi Larry Kushner reminds us that Yom Kippur is about not eating, not sleeping very much, not dressing in fine clothes, actually the tradition is to where a white kittel, that which a man is married in and one day will be buried in, and refraining from intimacy. We say vidui, confession just like a person who is in the final stages of life, in Hebrew the stage of transition called goses.
Throughout the day, we become more quiet, more reflective; a little light headed. We feel our breathing and through the day it becomes more labored and hollow without food in our stomachs. The most joyful noise a Jew can hear is the sound of the Shofar with the Tikiah Gedolah, announcing the end of Yom Kippur, because it means that you have lived through a day of death and not died.
And so it is, that on this holy night of Kol Nidrei, anticipating that in 24 hours we will have our own feeling of renewed life after death, I want to speak with you about the survival of the soul and why I accept the Jewish belief in an afterlife. By looking at the very distinct possibility that we live not just for this time and place, we may come to believe that there is more, much more at stake in our atonement, our doing T’shuva, than just this moment.
This is difficult material. Let’s wrestle with it. Some might be inclined to dismiss transmigration of soul as New Age nonsense; yet consider the discovery of the quantum nature of the subatomic world that reveals the limits of our knowledge. Einstein wasn’t sure what happened to the soul; no one can say for sure. But it is possible that our souls could be encoded packets of energy that can travel without a body. The second law of thermodynamics shows us that the energy currently constituting what we refer to as “ourselves” has been here since the beginning of time and space and will persists, perhaps, forever.
I don’t know how many of us have bought lottery tickets, or visited Cache Creek or Vegas, but human beings since forever have had to take educated guesses and calculated risks because we are not omnipotent.
We take risks all the time. We travel the world despite international threat; we eat raw fish, betting that it is safe; some people marry; some have children; pretty darn risky.
The topic of our Eternal Soul is the ultimate roll of the dice. Do we place our bet on this being the one and only lifetime and that what’s done in this life stays in this life?
Or instead, do we accept the chance that our actions have consequences beyond this mortal coil and therefore, we are, in poker parlance “all in?” Meaning that we are “all in” for many lifetimes, dare we say, for all time?
The story is told of a tourist who traveled from America to Eastern Europe to visit the scholar and teacher, the Chofetz Chayim. The tourist came into the rabbi’s home and saw simplicity: a bed, chair, table, cupboard, closet and bookcase.
“Where are your possessions?” he asked.
“Where are yours?” countered the Chofetz Chayim.
“What kind of question is that? I am a visitor here.”
“I am too.” answered the Chofetz Chayim
In a second century text, Pirke Avot, The Sayings of the Fathers, Rabbi Yaacov said, “This world is like a passage way before the world to come. Prepare yourself so that you might enter the banquet room.”
Considering the Eternality of our Soul can motivate us to pay closer attention to places in our lives where we fall, time after time; places where we freeze, places where we slip up and with greater effort do t’shuva, make changes.
Rabbi Isaac Luria, mystical teacher, wrote that the work we do in this lifetime prepares us for the next one and that our place in this lifetime may have been achieved by overcoming errors in previous lifetimes.
Indeed Jewish mysticism holds that through t’shuva, through making changes in our lives, our soul can mend from the wrongdoings of previous lives and attain shlaymute, wholeness. The Sefer ha-Bahir, a mystical Jewish 12th century text reminds us that the sins of the past keep coming up until fixed.
Growing up as a Reform Jew I learned little of afterlife that suggested that paying attention to weak areas of personal character would help in lifetimes to come. We gently said, “May they rest in peace. Amen” and left it at that.
While I do find those words tremendously comforting, I believe that there is more to be said. As a Reform Jew today, I am not alone.
In a few months, may it be sooner, we will have our new prayer book Mishkan T’fillah. We will see a phrase in the Amida, the standing prayer that has been absent for hundreds of years from Reform Siddurim, Reform prayerbooks. The phrase “M’chayei ha-mayteem” will be back, included as a choice along side of our now familiar, “M’chayei ha-kol.” The phrase ‘m’chayei ha-mayteem” means God who gives life to the dead. Reform Jewish leaders found this statement awkward, irrational and spiritually cumbersome so they changed the liturgy to say “God who gives life to all” leaving it up to the reader. But if the reader did not know about the original version, there would be nothing to catch the eye.
I still believe that people live on in our memory and that memories are a blessing. We Jews put our emphasis on living our lives ethically and lovingly and courageously in the here and now. Fire, brimstone and hell never felt part of Jewish lore.
And yet, I have discovered that Judaism does have teachings about Gehinnom, a place where souls go for purification; not depicted as a very pleasant landing. Gehinnom is Hell in Rabbinic Literature. The good news is that for most, a stop over in Gehinnom last only up to 11 months.
The Torah speaks of Sheol, a place where souls, both righteous and less than righteous travel upon leaving the body and exist in a land of shadows. In the Torah, it also speaks of those who die as being gathered “back to their kin”. “Gathered back to our kin” suggests the comforting vision of being greeted and escorted on the other side by our dearest ones who have already died.
Some Jews believe in physical resurrection back to a human form; even entire generations returning. There are Jews who choose internment on the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem for that reason once the Messiah arrives. Historically Jews are firmly opposed to cremation not only to honor the body that housed their soul, because it is so important that all parts of their being are present for resurrection.
Another Jewish teaching about the eternal nature of soul is Olam Ha-bah, the world to come.
How we exist there is based on how we lived our lives here.
Stories in mystical Judaism revel in who might be the great rabbi’s neighbor in the world to come, only to discover it will be a simple tailor who secretly saves extra unused cloth from wealthy clients and makes beautiful wedding dresses to give away to impoverished brides.
In Judaism, there is a concept called Tzror ha-Chayim, a storehouse of life, where souls return to receive their message for the next incarnation.
Of course, if a soul has purified itself completely, it will achieve residence in Upper Gan Eden, where they have no need for anything physical and bask in the light of learning Torah close to the Holy One.
The Baal Shem Tov said that a wise person does not have to wait for his or her next incarnation to make important changes in character. A person can start necessary repairs in this life time. Soul repair is called tikkun. If we consider that our efforts to heal parts of our selves really matter for all time, then our eagerness and willingness to be proactive in the world now would undoubtedly change.
Rabbi Isaac Luria also taught that each person’s efforts of tikkun, of personal repair have a tremendously positive affect on others. He wrote that “Every soul is given unlimited opportunities to work through their own individual tikkun. At the same time, the tikkun of each soul contributes to the broader process of cosmic restoration.”
Betting on the fact that we are souls and our souls survive our physical finitude, then how we are matters and that which is not attended to will show up again and again. In other words, by not changing ourselves, things could get worse. On the other hand, by changing ourselves, by healing the personal stains of indifference, despair and arrogance, things could get much better.
When we place our chips on the possibility that the soul is eternal and we find we are tired of being angry at those closest to us, tired of failing in key relationships, tired of blaming the same old, same old, tired of hitting the same wall time and again, tired of the same rationalizations for why we stay the way we are, then noticing where we fall, and fail, apologizing and vowing to act differently when put in the similar situation will take on greater urgency this year.
The story is told by Rabbi Levi Isaac Herowitz called today the Bostoner rebbe: Once there was a king who wanted to reward all of the workers in his diamond mind. So he told them that they could collect all the diamonds they wanted for a specific three hours. Some found one or two larger diamonds; polished them and day-dreamed how much they would be worth at a later time.
Still others collected as many as they could of all sizes and colors.
At the end of the three hours, the ones who collected lots of the diamonds were the happiest. Why? They used the time for what it was meant to be.
So too with us, Kol Nidrei this dress rehearsal for our final day is here to teach us to really value each day of life; a diamond to be treasured, and to collect as many as we can grasp. Belief in the Eternal Soul roots us even more deeply into living each day with greater awareness and motivates us to humbly see where we need to grow.
For the here and now,
and for the there and later.