Clearly, traditions concerning these heavenly creatures are the purest form of myth. The identification of these heavenly creatures with lightning also underscores the mythic ties to natural events. These creatures are unique to heaven, but they are not like any of the categories of the angels. They are, instead, another kind of fiery creature. References to these creatures are often found in the hymns of the Hekhalot texts.
The name of the living creature (hayah) who leads the heavenly hosts is Israel, and the words of the Shema, the central prayer of Judaism, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4, are inscribed on its forehead. The portion of the daily liturgy that the celestial beast leads is called the Barekhu. See “The Living Creatures,” p. 159.
A parallel is found in Sefer ha-Komah, where the precious jewel in the center of God’s crown is described as having the words, “Israel, My people; Israel, My people, is Mine.”
Sources:
B. Hagigah 13a; Genesis Rabbah 2:2; Exodus Rabbah 47:5; Midrash Konen in Beit haMidrash 2:39; Sefer ha-Komah, Oxford Ms. 1791, lines 114-115; Hekhalot Rabbati 8, 10-12; 3 Enoch 21.
Studies:
The Faces of the Chariot by David J. Halperin.
“Special Angelic Figures: The Career of the Beasts of the Throne-World in Hekhalot Literature, German Pietism and Early Kabbalistic Literature” by Daniel Abrams.
196. THE COUNCIL OF SOULS
The souls of the righteous existed long before the creation of the world. God consulted these souls in creating the universe, as it is said, They dwelt there in the king’s service (I Chron. 4:23). God called upon the souls of the righteous, who sat on the council with the Supreme King of Kings, to come together. He then took counsel with them before He brought the world into being, saying, “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). So too did they help Him with His work. Some assisted in planting and some helped create the borders of the sea, as it is said, Who set the sand as a boundary to the sea (Jer. 5:22). Nor does God make any important decision without consulting the Council of Souls. So too did God take counsel with the souls of the righteous. He asked them if they were willing to be created. And that is how the souls of the righteous, including the souls of Abraham and the other patriarchs, came into being.
While there are traditions that God took council with the angels or a divine partner such as Adam in creating the world, here the phrase, “Let us make man” from Genesis 1:26 is said to refer to a Council of Souls (nefashot shel Tzaddikim), with whom God consulted before creating the world. These souls of the righteous are said to have existed before the creation of the world. In fact, it is not specified that they were created by God at all, but only called together by God before He created the universe. Further, they not only give their consent for the creation of the world, but they participate in it, assisting God in planting and creating the boundaries of the sea. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev interprets God’s consulting with the souls of the righteous to mean that He asked them if they were willing to be created.
Evidence of a divine council can be found in several biblical passages, such as Psalms 82:1, which states that God stands in the divine assembly; among the divine beings He pronounces judgment. Here the term for the divine assembly is “adat el.” In Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Frank Moore Cross describes this council as the Israelite counterpart of the Council of El found in Canaanite mythology, referring to El, the primary Canaanite god. It would thus seem that this obscure Jewish tradition is directly drawn from the Canaanite. Psalm 82 adds a strange twist to this myth: God appears to condemn the gods of the Council of Gods to death: “I had taken you for divine beings, sons of the Most High, all of you; but you shall die as men do, fall like any prince” (Ps. 82:6). This might be interpreted to mean that monotheism declares the death of polytheism. Jeremiah 23:18 also describes a divine council: But he who has stood in the council of Yahweh, and seen, and heard His word—He who has listened to His word must obey. Another reference to the divine council is found in 1 Kings 22:19-22, where God addresses the host of heaven, asking who will entice Ahab, and a certain spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, “I will entice him.” Other passages suggesting the existence of heavenly beings with whom God discusses His decisions include Isaiah 6 and Job 1-2.
Usually the term, “the souls of the righteous,” refers to the souls of the pious who have died, and whose souls have ascended to Paradise. By pre-existing, these souls become identified as primordial gods, such as are found in other Near Eastern mythologies. By calling them together as a council, God implicitly recognizes their power. It must be assumed that the council of souls gave its approval for the creation of the universe, since God proceeded with it after that.
Another possible explanation would be to identify “the souls of the righteous” in this midrash with the angels. In other sources, God is said to have consulted with the angels before creating man, and there are traditions and countertraditions of the notion that the angels somehow participated in the creation of the world itself. See “Creation by Angels,” p. 116. However, it would be highly unusual to refer to the angels as “the souls of the righteous,” although Philo does refer to angels as “unbodied souls.”
A prooftext for the existence of such a council of souls or angels can be found in Daniel 4:14: The matter is by decree of the watchers, and the sentence by the word of the holy ones. Both of these terms, the “watchers” and the “holy ones,” suggest some kind of supernatural figures from the heavenly realm, whether angels, souls, or additional divinities. The Council of Souls may also be identified with the heavenly court, and identified as the Watchers. See “The Heavenly Court,” p. 208, and “The Watchers,” p. 457.
There are parallel myths about God consulting the angels, rather than souls, in the creation of Adam. The text of Genesis 1:26 states that God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” But in the Pseudo-Yonathan Targum on Genesis 1:26, this is changed to read: “And God said to the angels who minister before him, who were created on the second day of Creation. ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” See “Creation By Angels,” p. 116.
In Genesis Rabbah 8:9 the question of how many deities created the world is directly broached: “How many deities created the world? You and I must inquire of the first day, as it is said, For ask now of the first days (Deut. 4:32).” The rabbis subsequently debate whether the first sentence of Genesis describes creation by one God or by many, since Elohim is plural. Read this way, the first line of Genesis reads: “In the beginning Gods created the heaven and the earth.” That such a debate can take place at all is remarkable, considering the centrality of monotheism. But it is also a tribute to the open-ended willingness of the rabbis to explore even apparently heretical interpretations of the Torah. The existence of this discussion and the fact that it was recorded in a primary text such as Genesis Rabbah, indicates that the “heretical” had some advocates among the rabbis. Perhaps it harks back to a residual pagan myth, a Canaanite myth about a council of gods.
Such divine councils rule in Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Canaanite mythology. In the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, Marduk is made head of the divine council by defeating Tiamat, the personification of the sea. It is likely that the existence of such a council in Jewish tradition is a remnant of such an ancient myth. Ugaritic texts describe the abode of El, the primary Canaanite god, and his council on the mountain of El, where the gods are seated at a table. El’s abode is said to be in the north. This setting and location is echoed in Isaiah 14:13: “I will sit in the mount of assembly, on the summit of Zaphon.” (Zaphon is Hebrew for “north.”)
God’s perplexing use of the first person plural in verses such as Let us make man in our image (Gen. 1:26), Behold the man has become like one of us (Gen. 3:22), and Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there (Gen. 11:7) can be explained as addressing the divine council. This same usage is found in the Ugaritic texts. Most midrashic texts interpret “Let us” as God addressing the angels.
&nbs
p; Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 8: 7; Maggid Devarav le-Ya’akov 1; No’am Elimelekh, Bo 36b.
Studies:
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic by Frank Moore Cross, pp. 36-43, 186-190.
“The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah” by Frank Moore Cross.
“The Council of Yahweh” by H. Wheeler Robinson. “God and the Gods in Assembly” by Matitiahu Tsevat.
Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature by E. Theodore Mullen.
197. ADAM’S SOUL
All souls were originally included in Adam’s soul. After Adam was created, God showed him all the souls contained within his soul, and all the future generations that would follow. Thus Adam is the source of all souls. That is why on Rosh ha-Shanah, the day that Adam was created, the entire world is judged, for Adam contained within him all the souls of mankind.
After Adam sinned, the souls attached to Adam’s soul descended into evil. However, some of the other souls that were originally part of Adam’s soul split off, for Adam’s soul originally included six hundred thousand “old souls.” But when Adam sinned these souls broke into six hundred thousand soul-roots. Ever since, these souls have been reincarnated in this world, so they can rectify Adam’s sin.
However, some say that before Adam was fully created, souls of different people were to be found in different parts of his body, and when Adam decided to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, elevated souls flew away from him. Then there are others who say that there were also new souls in Adam’s soul, which had never come into the world. These souls were not revealed to Adam, and after he died, these new souls became separated from him. They now issue forth from the Tree of Life. Many angels are produced above to protect these holy souls from harm. In this way a multitude of these living souls are generated, which are drawn down to those worthy of them.
Since Adam was the first human, Jewish tradition holds that his soul was the source of all subsequent souls. The total number of souls is said to be 600,000, the number of the Israelite men present at Mount Sinai. According to Ben Ish Hai in Derushim Bereshit, the soul of each Jew is represented by a letter of the Torah. According to Hayim Vital, “The source of all souls is Adam and is then divided into the three patriarchs, then into the 12 tribes, and afterwards divided into the 70 souls who accompanied Jacob to Egypt. Each of these 70 parts is further divided until we find that the total number of souls descended from Adam’s soul is 600,000” (Sefer ha-Hezyonot 4:41). In Sefer haGilgulim Hayim Vital offers an alternate explanation: “The majority of all souls come from Adam’s sons Cain and Abel, and from them separate into all who were born afterward.”
However, once the Jewish population exceeded 600,000, the problem arose about the source of their souls. The solution was the concept of “sparks of souls.” According to this explanation, Jewish souls received not whole souls, but sparks of souls—portions of souls. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav describes these as “offshoots of the 600,000 primary souls” (Likutei Moharan 119b). In the same passage, Rabbi Nachman speaks of “illustrious Tzaddikim who beget souls from a heavenly source higher than the 600,000 primary sources.” He also said that it is possible for one person to have sparks of souls of several individuals. Thus Rabbi Nachman spoke of having sparks of the souls of Moses, Rabbi Akiba, the Ari, and the Ba’al Shem Tov. For a related myth, see “The Creation of Souls,” following.
In Homat Anakh, Lekh Lekha, Rabbi Hayim Yosef David Azulai, quoting the Ari, states that the good element of Adam’s soul was reincarnated in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, while the evil part of his soul was reincarnated in Ishmael, Lot and Esau. This solves the problem of how both good and evil people descended from Adam. An alternate explanation is that some particularly pure souls, such as the soul of the Ba’al Shem Tov, hid in the garden while Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Thus they were spared the consequences of the sin.
Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk is said to have said to his brother, Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol (1719-1800): “My brother Zusya, if all souls were contained in Adam’s soul, it means that our souls were also there. How is it, then, Zusya, that you didn’t stop Adam from eating from the Tree of Knowledge?”
Sources:
Exodus Rabbah 40:3; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Ki Tissa 12; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Pekudei 3; Zohar 1:12b-13a, 1:90b; Likutei Torah ha-Ari, Kedoshim p. 191; Sha’ar ha-Gilgulim 31; Sefer ha-Hezyonot 4:41; Sha’ar ha-Pesukim, Bereshit 3; Sefer ha-Gilgulim 1:3a;Ohev Yisrael, va-Et-Hanan 81c; Sefer Netivot ha-Shalom; Beit Aharon; Derushim Bereshit; IFA 12985.
198. THE CREATION OF SOULS
All the souls that would ever exist, from Adam till the End of Days, were fashioned during the six days of Creation. All remained in the Garden of Eden on high, and all were present at the Giving of the Torah. That is meaning of the verse Whatever happens, it was designated long ago and it was known that it would happen (Eccles. 6:10).
All souls in the world above were initially both male and female. But when they are born into this world, they are either male or female, the male soul in a male body and the female soul in a female body. If worthy, they will reunite again in marriage, and they join together to form a single unit in every way, body and soul. That is why the other’s soul is known as a soulmate.
All of these souls were present in the Garden of Eden and at the giving of the Torah. But one pure soul among them, that of the Ba’al Shem Tov, was not present when Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit.
Six hundred thousand souls were present at Mount Sinai. Later, when there were more Jewish bodies than souls, only a few Tzaddikim received complete souls. Instead, most people have sparks of a soul, or the sparks of more than one soul.
This myth explains the traditions behind the concept of a person seeking their bashert or destined one. Here it is understood that the one who is sought is actually the other half of a person’s soul, with whom he or she was once united in paradise. For more on the concept of bashert see “God Makes Matches,” p. 66.
The sixteenth century kabbalists of Safed included reincarnation or gilgul among their basic principles, and it remains a key principle among Sephardic Jews, in particular, to this day. The Ari believed that he was the reincarnation of Rabbi Akiba. For more on the subject of sparks of soul, see “Adam’s Soul,” p. 162.
The Torah is said to contain 600,000 letters, one for each one of the 600,000 souls present at Mount Sinai. Commenting on this, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said, “I cannot sleep. Before I fall asleep, all 600,000 letters of the Torah come and stand before me” (Sihot ha-Ran 176). According to Rabbi Moshe Hayim Luzzatto, known as Ramhal, there are 600,000 heavenly souls, which are the roots of all the souls of Israel. Each soul consists of an upper part that remains in heaven and a lower counterpart that inhabits a human body (Adir ba-Marom).
Rabbi Menashe ben Israel finds the presence of the souls at Mount Sinai attested for by the verse, I make this covenant to those who are standing here, and with those who are not here with us today (Deut. 29:14). In this context the word “standing” is used in the sense of existing. Thus those who are standing here refers not only to the souls of the living, but to the unborn souls of future generations as well. They too were present at Sinai to receive the Torah. In this way, the souls of all Jewish generations received the Torah at Mount Sinai at the same time (Nishmat Hayim 2:16). See “The Giving of the Torah,” p. 270.
Rabbi Dov Ber offers a unique interpretation of the origin of souls. He states that each soul is a tiny particle of the Shekhinah, like a drop in the ocean (Maggid Devarav leYa’akov 66.)
Sources:
Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Pekudei 3, 9; Zohar 1:12b, 3:43b; Etz Hayim, Sha’ar haGilgulim, Hakdamah 22; Ma’amar ha-Hokhmah; Sh’nei Luhot ha-B’rit, Mishpatim; Pardes Rimonim 65a; Nishmat Hayim 2:16; Maggid Devarav le-Ya’akov 66.
199. TREE OF SOULS
God has a tree of flowering souls in Paradise. The angel who sits beneath it is the Guardian of Paradise, and the tree is surro
unded by the four winds of the world. From this tree blossom forth all souls, as it is said, “I am like a cypress tree in bloom; your fruit issues forth from Me.” (Hos.14:9). And from the roots of this tree sprout the souls of all the righteous ones whose names are inscribed there. When the souls grow ripe, they descend into the Treasury of Souls, where they are stored until they are called upon to be born. From this we learn that all souls are the fruit of the Holy One, blessed be He.
This Tree of Souls produces all the souls that have ever existed, or will ever exist. And when the last soul descends, the world as we know it will come to an end.
Rabbinic and kabbalistic texts speculate that the origin of souls is somewhere in heaven. This myth provides the heavenly origin of souls, and in itself fuses many traditions. First, it develops themes based on the biblical account of the Garden of Eden. It also builds on the tradition that just as there is an earthly Garden of Eden, so is there a heavenly one, as expressed in the principle, “as above, so below.” Just as there is a Tree of Life in the earthly garden, so there is a Tree of Life in the heavenly one.
Had Adam and Eve tasted the fruit of the earthly Tree of Life, they would have been immortal. But once they had tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, immortality was closed to them. Therefore He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24).
Tree of Souls Page 44