Q&A: The Soul of Gentiles
The Soul of Gentiles
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I happened to come across a statement of yours in this post:
http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=11&topic_id=3041481&forum_id=1364
There you wrote that a gentile has no soul, only a life-force.
I also happened to come across a Tosafot that seems to imply that gentiles also have a soul:
Tosafot, tractate Avodah Zarah 5a
“The son of David will not come until the souls in the body are exhausted” — and if you say that in any case they would be exhausted through idol worshipers, who would give birth, Rabbi Elchanan says that the souls of Israel and of idol worshipers are not in the same body. And regarding what it says (Sabbath 30b), ‘In the future a woman will give birth every day in the days of the Messiah,’ perhaps one may say that there will be a new body and new souls.
I thought maybe this could reinforce your statements that give legitimacy to gentiles nowadays.
By the way, I got this idea from Rabbi Ovadia’s approbation to a kabbalistic book that my great-grandfather wrote. In the course of the book, my great-grandfather mentions the matter of the souls of gentiles as well, and Rabbi Ovadia wrote there that indeed gentiles truly do have souls, just on a lower level, and the Tosafot above is proof of that.
Answer
You surprised me. I don’t remember thinking that way even in the ancient era of 2014. And indeed, when I checked the link you sent, it turned out that’s not what I wrote there (see p. 9 in the thread). What I wrote was that there is such a claim, and that it is not racist. And I explicitly wrote there that I find it hard to accept this distinction, and that it is vague and unclear whether it says anything at all — but not because it is racist (because it isn’t), rather because the concepts are not well defined.
From this you can also understand that the Tosafot in Avodah Zarah that you cited is not proof of anything. Tosafot speaks about the soul of a gentile, but it could very well mean the life-force of a gentile. Tosafot were not kabbalists and did not use the kabbalistic terminology that distinguishes between soul and life-force. From the perspective of the non-mystical scholars, every person has a soul, and only the kabbalists get into a higher-resolution distinction. When Tosafot speaks of a soul, it is coming to exclude the body or mere biology such as that of animals.
My statements that see the gentile as a full human being are not based on kabbalistic terminology (which seems vague and dubious to me, as I also wrote there), but simply on what I see. He is a person just like me and you, and there is no reason to let vague terms (even if they are correct in some sense) change anything about that. One should not deny what is plainly evident. This is a person in every respect, even if he lacks some spiritual dimension (which I tend not to think he does. I find it hard to accept that at conversion something is added to his metaphysics).
Discussion on Answer
There is a simpler terminology, which is the lowest level of meaning of these terms (the terminology of the kabbalists is a higher level), and it defines them well:
Life-force — that which distinguishes the living from the inanimate (it would need discussion whether single-celled organisms have it), and one must distinguish between the life-force of a living creature and that of an inanimate thing. In English: mind
Spirit — that which distinguishes animals from man. Only humans have it. It is connected to the capacity for thought, speech, and free choice (none of which animals have). In English: spirit
Soul — the essence of human personality. The encounter with the simple personality, without attributes. What we give a proper name to. According to this, animals should really also have it, but according to the hierarchy (soul above spirit), it should belong only to humans. In English: soul
But Judah Halevi said that the people of Israel differ essentially (or at least in their potential; they have the potential for prophecy — “the faculty of the divine matter”) from gentiles, just as human beings differ from animals. So perhaps one could say that Israel has a soul and gentiles only spirit. On the other hand, in several places it seems that spirit is not a thing in itself, not an intermediate thing between soul and life-force, but something created by the entry of soul into life-force (that is, like a linear boundary separating two regions in a plane — the soul and the life-force — whose area is of zero measure relative to the area of the two regions). According to that, all human beings have a soul, and therefore they also have spirit.
Perhaps this duality can explain the exposition in tractate Avodah Zarah that Israel are called “adam” and the gentiles are not called “adam,” while on the other hand wherever the Hebrew Bible says “the man,” it includes gentiles as well. That is, gentiles are human beings, just less human than Israel.
By the way, according to this theory (and Judah Halevi seems to imply this too), Moses our Teacher is himself separate and distinct from the rest of Israel, just as they are distinct from the other gentiles, and just as human beings are distinct from animals. He also has “chayah” (his prophecy is through a “clear lens”). And Adam before the sin, and also the Messiah, who is an aspect of the supernal radiance of Adam, are also distinct even from Moses in the same way: they have “yechidah.” Their level of apprehension of the Holy One, blessed be He, is above every level of prophecy (it is what is called “the supernal radiance,” I think).
As you can see, racism has no relevance here at all, if Moses and Adam are also distinguished in this way. It is simply reality
A small correction: “Life-force — that which distinguishes the living from the inanimate (it would need discussion whether single-celled organisms and the like have it), and one must distinguish between the life-force of an animal and that of a plant. In English: mind”
With all due respect,
I am studying the scriptures in connection with the subject of death and life, and I find in the Hebrew Bible a completely different picture from what emerges from your words. Am I misunderstanding the text? Please read what I found written in the Torah and the Writings, and I would be happy to hear your opinion on this matter. I apologize if the passage is too long 🙂 I tried to shorten it as much as I could, because there is much more material on the subject that supports what I found. Thanks in advance.
“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7). According to what is said in this verse, a person does not have a life-force; the person is a living being composed of dust and the breath of life. That’s it. God created man complete, with everything in him, and breathed into him the breath of life. The same breath of life that He put into all the animals in the world. “And God said: Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that creeps, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kinds…” (Genesis 1:20–21). The difference is that man is the only creature created in the image of God. His material composition is entirely different. But man has the same spirit of life as all the animals in the world. Between gentiles and Jews there is no difference whatsoever in the breath of life within them. All human beings were created in the image of God and became living beings at the moment God breathed the breath of life into their nostrils. The moment of their death is the moment when the living being ceases to exist. The dust returns to the earth and the spirit of life returns to God who gave it. What returns to God is the spirit of life, not a personality in the form of a soul or a disembodied spirit. There is not even one mention in the Hebrew Bible of a soul that ascends to heaven separated from the body. “The dead do not praise the Lord” — if the dead are not praising God in heaven, then what are they doing there? “I will praise the Lord while I live.” In the resurrection of the dead, God will awaken the dead and they will come forth from their graves newly created. There is no sense in the resurrection of the dead if they continue living after their death. This is the lie that was told to Adam and Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “You shall not surely die.” That is the lie that continues to this day. People believe that after death they go up to heaven. But nowhere in the scriptures are people mentioned as spirits ascending to heaven. Elijah the prophet went up bodily to heaven. “For the fate of man and the fate of beast is the same: as one dies, so dies the other; they all have one spirit, and man has no advantage over beast, for all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 3:19). “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). “For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?” (Psalms 6:6). “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might; for there is no deed or calculation or knowledge or wisdom in the grave, where you are going.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for their memory is forgotten. Their love, their hatred, and their envy have already perished, and they have no more share forever in anything done under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5–6). “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the children of man. The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence.” (Psalms 115:16–17).
With blessings and appreciation