Sin death and beyond
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN<br />
losing the advantages it had acquired in its former body. Why send the soul of the wicked to<br />
another body in order to punish it here below? Was there anything to prevent God from<br />
punishing it while it was in its first body?"<br />
The School of Luria.<br />
Upon the doctrine of metempsychosis was based the psychological system of the practical<br />
Cabala, inaugurated by the cabalists of the school of Luria. According to them, all the souls<br />
destined for the human race were created together with the various organs of Adam. As there<br />
are superior <strong>and</strong> inferior organs, so there are superior <strong>and</strong> inferior souls, according to the<br />
organs with which they are respectively coupled. Thus there are souls of the brain, of the eye,<br />
of the head, etc. Each human soul is a spark ("niẓaẓ") from Adam. The first sin of the first man<br />
caused confusion among the various classes of souls; so that even the purest soul received an<br />
admixture of evil. This state of confusion, which gives a continual impulse toward evil, will<br />
cease with the arrival of the Messiah, who will establish the moral system of the world on a<br />
new basis. Until that time man's soul, because of its deficiencies, can not return to its source,<br />
<strong>and</strong> has to w<strong>and</strong>er not only through the bodies of men, but even through inanimate things. If a<br />
man's good deeds outweigh his evil ones, his soul passes into a human body; otherwise, into<br />
that of an animal. Incest causes the soul to pass into the body of an unclean animal; adultery,<br />
into that of an ass; pride in a leader of a community, into that of a bee; forgery of amulets, into<br />
that of a cat; cruelty toward the poor, into that of a crow; denunciation, into that of a barking<br />
cur; causing a Jew to eat unclean flesh, into a leaf of a tree which endures great suffering<br />
when shaken by the wind; neglect to wash the h<strong>and</strong>s before meals, into a river.<br />
The main difference between the passing of the soul into a human body <strong>and</strong> its transmigration<br />
into an animal or an inanimate object consists in the fact that in the former case the soul<br />
ignores its transmigration, while in the latter it is fully aware of its degradation, <strong>and</strong> suffers<br />
cruelly therefrom. With regard to the transmigration of the soul into a crow Moses Galante,<br />
rabbi at Safed, relates that once he accompanied Isaac Luria to 'Ain Zaitun to pray at the tomb<br />
129
Change language