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Session Six
God in the Mountains: The Baal Shem Tov
INTERPRETING YOUR LIFE LIKE A DREAM When you look in a mirror you see your own deficiencies. In the
same way, when you see a deficiency in someone else, you know
that there is a trace of it in you. The following teaching mentions three levels of the soul which
are often referred to in Kabbalah and Hasidism: Nefesh, Ruach
and Neshamah. All three words can be translated literally as "breath".
More specifically, Nefesh is the basic life-energy that keeps
you going, Ruach is "spirit" and Neshamah is "soul", more intimate
and inner. -- The teaching also mentions reincarnation. Hasidim
believe in reincarnation (based on Kabbalistic teachings), but
the reincarnation mentioned in this teaching is not the usual
process, after you die, but some kind of spreading around of your
soul in your own life. A person's Nefesh, Ruach and Neshamah are 'reincarnated'... Nefesh
is people who work for you [employees, or people who provide you
with services] and your animals [livestock, or pets]. If you damaged
your Nefesh -- by some action -- that will cause trouble for you,
from people who work for you and from your animals. Ruach is speech.
If you damaged speech -- by bad-mouthing others or something like
that -- then from your speech come people who make you suffer
and talk about you. It is also known [from Kabbalah] that speech
is called "spouse". Neshamah dwells in the brain, which brings
about conception [a reference to the strong link of mind and body
in sexuality] and gives you children. So if you did damage to
your consciousness, which is in the brain, it causes suffering
for you from your children... So people who hate you came into
being by a blemish of your speech. Therefore, you need to raise
them and restore them by speech, in prayer; pray for them that
they may return and be restored... Thus you draw your Ruach out
of them, and what is left of them will leave you alone [i.e. the
part of them that hates you is not intrinsic to them; it comes
from you, and you can neutralize it.] Just like reflecting on a dream, paying attention to what relationships
in your life give you trouble can help you to discover what parts
of your own self and how you live need care and fixing.
The Baal Shem Tov taught that everything that happens to you has
a message or a meaning. He taught us to interpret what happens
in our lives in much the same way that you can interpret a dream
with the understanding that everyone and everything in the dream
is really part of you, yourself:
(quoted by Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonoyye in Toledot Yaakov Yosef (Pekudei 3, vol. 1 p. 259 in the Jerusalem edition of 5733)
Toledot Yaakov Yosef Lekh Lekha 1, vol. 1 p. 51
