Can a fish survive out of water? Can a doctor survive without her medical devices? Can a carpenter survive without his hammer? Can a person survive without food?
It depends, you might say, on what survive means. A fish needs water. Without food humans will die.
But without a hammer, a carpenter might lose some of his identity but he won’t disappear.
If a person needs – among other things – food and oxygen to survive, what does a soul needs in order to live?
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In the opening parsha of the Torah, Bereishit, we are taught about the wonderful universe we live in. G-d created everything. By the Torah’s description of creation, G-d employed speech to bring about physical existence. From the stars to the grasshoppers, G-d spoke and it came to be. He said, “Let there be light.”
Of course, it’s a metaphor. G-d is not physical and no amount of decibels can describe the sound G-d made. Rather, speech is a metaphor for communication, or revelation. By revealing Himself, G-d creates. We are, after all, an extension of His oneness. He took that which was within and expressed it outwardly.
Yet, there is one part of creation that differs. “G-d formed man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul.” This is the way the Torah describes the creation of mankind. In addition to being created via speech, we humans were also created by G-d’s breath. G-d put the soul into the body by blowing.
We all breathe constantly and can talk for hours on end, but after blowing for just a short time we become exhausted. This is because the breath we use when blowing comes from deeper in the lungs than the breath we use when simply breathing or talking. Thus, the idiom of G-d "blowing" the soul into the body indicates that our soul originates deeper "within" G-d than does the rest of creation.
G-d’s close embrace of humanity indicates that we are the primary purpose of creation. Everything else is sacred as G-d’s creation, but subordinate to us, the primary agents for G-d’s mission of creation.
This soul can never lose its intrinsic connection with G-d. It is a spark—i.e., a part—of G-d, inseparable from its Source.
Our challenge, however, is to ensure that this connection remain manifested within our physical being. The soul may remain holy. But how do we ensure that it shares that sanctity with the its host – the body – and the world around it?
Just as when one blows, the air only reaches its destination if there are no obstructions, so can the G-dly soul shine only if there are no obstacles that obscure it. Will it continue to exist no matter what? Absolutely. It is spiritual and can never die. But, in order for its energy to shine, it must be connected to its Source.
Our souls are all holy – no matter what. But we control the viability of our soul’s expression. We determine how the vitality of the soul in the body. Let’s not get in the way of our soul’s connection to G-d.
So, what does a soul need in order to survive?