The self and the soul

Abstract

This paper explores the elusive and esoteric concepts of self and soul. After examining the psychological concept of self, as differentiated from ego, the authors present a unified theory of psychological, psychoanalytical and spiritual conceptualizations in light of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. We suggest that understanding the self system (whether in object relations, intersubjective or interpersonal terms) is enhanced by the framework found in the Jewish mystical literature.

Notes

1. This term makes its first appearance in 1900, in Freud (1900, p. 49), referring to “agencies” or “systems,” Vol. 5, p. 537.

2. Tanya (Schneur, 1973, p. 57). Tanya means, “it has been taught.”

3. 1: 16b, 2: 176a. See also Daniel Matt's (2004) translation, vol. 1, p. 125.

4. Jungians capitalize the term Self to indicate that it is all-encompassing, that it includes negative as well as positive qualities. When once asked what “the shadow” was, he replied testily, “simply the whole unconcious!” (Ann Shearer, personal communication, December 2004).

5. Gershom Scholem (1991, p. 252) tried to explain this phenomenon in, “the Concept of the Astral Body.” “What is the nature of this element which … is referred to in the Zohar and other writings as man's tselem? Is this a Kabbalistic version of the doctrine of the self as the deepest spiritual essence within man, or is it a version of the idea of an astral body or psychic body within man, which constitutes a third, independent entity mediating between body and soul?”

6. The term sefirah is itself related to the Hebrew words saper, which means “to express” or “communicate,” sapir meaning “sapphire,” “brilliance” or “radiance,” and safar which denotes “number.” These etymologies convey the kabbalistic idea that the sefirot communicate, filter, and transmit divine intentions and energies to the physical world.

7. The Pardes Rimmonim (Orchard of Pomegranates) of Rabbi Moshe Cordevaro (gate 23, part 16, viz.etz) makes the connection between the Tree of Life being “man” (“For man is the tree of the field”—Deuteronomy 20:19) and the Tree of Life. The connection is contained in the joining of the Tree of Atzilut, which draws its sustenance from Chochmah (Zohar Shemini, 40a). In his book, Kabbalah (Scholem, 1974, p. 106), the scholar, Gershom Scholem, also refers to the schema of the sefirot as a tree.

8. Usually, in the human metaphor, the sefirah of malchut is depicted as below the sefirah of yesod. See supernal “Man” in Aryeh Kaplan's, Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation) (Kaplan, 1990b, p. 151).

9. See figures in Aryeh Kaplan's (1990b, pp. 26, 28–30) Sefer Yetzirah.

10. In the old days (i.e. the 18th and 19th centuries), Kabbalists would try to sift the sparks that pertained to their souls by “going into exile,” literally wandering from village to village for months at a time (Naftali Loewenthal, personal communication, December 2004).

11. Chassidism is essentially the active expression of the Jewish mystical tradition as expounded by the Baal Shem Tov, 1698?–1760. See Loewenthal (1990).

12. In the book, On the Essence of Chassidus, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Y. Greenberg, and S. Handelman (1998) postulated a further soul, the Nefesh Hasichlit or intellectual soul. He said it is a tool by which the Godly soul can communicate with the consciousness of a person. Moreover, it is the means by which the upper spiritual realms can communicate with the lower earthy realms, and the Godly Soul can communicate with the Animal Soul. But he also said that that there was a Nefesh Hasichlit or Intellectual Soul of the Animal Soul. We think it is less confusing to keep to the traditional picture of an “Animal soul,” Nefesh B’hamit and a “Godly soul,” Nefesh Elokit, whereby each has an intellectual component that allows them to communicate with each other as well as denote spiritual and material realities.

13. The Benoni has been described by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in Tanya (Schneur, 1973). He is a person whose moral character is intermediate or halfway between a Tzaddik (a person with no evil inclinations) and a Rasha (a person mired in egotistic desires). While the Benoni never sins, the evil inclination still exists in his nature.

14. Lurianic Kabbalah is the Kabbalah, as expounded by Rabbi Yitzhak ben Shlomo Luria. He is generally regarded as the greatest of all Kabbalists. Known as the Ari (the acronym for Haloki Rabbeinu Yitzhak, “the godly Rabbi Yitzchak,” he lived in 16th-century Egypt and, for the last two years of his short life, in Safed, northern Israel. The Ari developed a unique system of Jewish mysticism, which is the basis for most mainstream Kabbalah as well as subsequent Chassidic thought.

15. Chassidim maintain that the Nefesh does survive physical death, at the gravesite of the person concerned.

16. Jung (1963, p. 358).

17. Our paraphrase of the quote by Niel Micklem in “I am not myself: A Paradox,” in Jung's concept of the self: its relevance today? Papers from the Public Conference organized in May 1990 by the Jungian Postgraduate Committee of the British Association of Psychotherapists, No. 3, p. 4.