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Does our soul have a memory?

Rabbi Alon Anava avatar
Rabbi Alon Anava

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I got this question a few times uh in many different ways how can it be that a person goes through a near-death experience or an outer body experience and he has memories of what he saw so we know that in in this world when the soul is in our body then our brain has a way to to hold the memory but how can it be when the soul doesn't have a brain how can it be that the soul remembers experiences that he it saw when it was out of a body whether it was an out of body experience a clinical death a near-death experience however you want to call it so the answer is very simple we know that our soul originates from the most highest level in spirituality our soul is basically a piece of God and once the soul came down to this world it had to dive down from the highest level where it was where it originates which is right next to God and it Dives down through thousands and millions of of of Worlds till it descends down to this world now only a very small piece of the soul is in our body mainly because the soul is so holy and so spiritual that it cannot dwell in the body so only a very small piece of the soul is in the body now to understand it a little bit more further we know that the soul has five levels five parts of it uh the highest part of the soul is called which is the essence of the Soul it's part of hem sitting next to hasem next to God and it does not descend from there it doesn't go down the next level which is a lower level of the Soul it's called is is the part of the soul that surrounds the body how how it it's called in English Aura this is the part of the soul that is very holy and it does not penetrate the body it just hovers around the body and then excuse me and then there is and is the soul nees is the spirit and R actually I think R is the spirit and the nees is the the spiritual being but these are three levels of the soul the which is the highest of all three are very small whole piece of it is in the in the body uh we know that the part of the Nish is centered in the forehead even though the Nama is spread in the entire body but most of it is centered in the head and then we have the nefes which we know the nefes is is in our blood the nefes the spiritual part is dwelling in the blood and the is the is the spiritual is the is the spirit that enlivens the body now all these three are connected to the body and the two above ones are above the body and they don't descend down to the body now in order to understand it a little bit better when the soul comes down to the world then it cannot function in this world because it's a spiritual entity it cannot be part of the world it cannot relate with the world so it has to get dressed into the to the body and it uses spiritual garments now the same way that I would want to pull out a boiling hot dish from a boiling hot oven and if I would put my hand in I would I will get my hand burnt so I put my hand into a glove to protect my hand and through this glove I can operate so the same way the soul needs to interact with the world it cannot interact with the world it's a spiritual entity it doesn't know how to speak it doesn't know how to move things it's it's not part of this world so the soul gets dressed into spiritual garments and those garments are the tools that help the soul maneuver and and and work in this world and we know three main garments and thought speech and deed these are the main three garments that the soul gets dressed in and in each one of them there are thousands of levels and different types of garments so when the soul comes down to the body in order for the body to interact sorry in order for the soul to interact with the body it has to get dressed in those garments and the same way that you put your hand in a puppet and you you know you move your thumb so a piece of the puppet moves you move your hand like this so another piece of the puppet moves that's exactly the way the soul gets dressed into the body into those spiritual garments and it interacts with the body here comes a more deeper level of of of understanding is that the soul is the more intellect part of the of the of the spiritual entity that's in the body and the nees and the is the more of a physical connection to the body we know that the nees the spiritual being the spiritual part of the Soul that's in the body we know that it's in the blood the same way that the blood runs into in our veins and there's not one point in the body with no blood and the blood keeps circling around all the time and the blood itself has a temperature why does it have a temperature because it constantly Bubbles and if you would look through a microscope or if you would ask a scientist or a doctor you'll see that the blood is constantly some type of a vapor that exactly how you will boil water on the stove and there's constantly going to be this VAP Vapor coming up so the blood is constantly warm and and there's a vapor going up from the blood in that Vapor that's where that neish that's part of the soul is dwelling and this is the connection between the physical and the spiritual this is where the body and the Soul gets connected in in that Vapor of the blood and we know that the soul that part of the soul is in the blood we we we read it in the in the Tor where it says that the that part of the soul the ne is the blood and we know that that Shalom when a person gets wounded and a certain amount of blood leaves leaves the body then the person dies that's that's where the the capacity of how much the the the spirit that neph has to be in the body and there's a there's a famous story in the midash that when K killed he then he didn't know how to kill him so he stabbed him all over the body because he didn't know from which part the neish will come out this is a midash that's talking about that that K stabbed heav I don't know how you say k in English Cain the sons of the sons of Adam and Eve so K Cain I think you say in English he stabbed his brother Heil over the body because he didn't know where the spirit comes out from so going back to the question the way the soul interacts with the uses the body to interact with the world is only through those spiritual garments kind of like a if you ever saw like a big bulldozzer like a big tractor that there a driver sitting in in in the booth and he has a lot of sticks excuse me has a lot of sticks and he Maneuvers the entire machine sorry he Maneuvers the entire machine he pulls this stick and the arm goes up he pulls that stick and the Machine goes to the left and he kind of Maneuvers the entire machine the the bulldozzer and he's able to move the arm and and and shovel and and and move things so exactly the same way the soul gets dressed in the body and it needs tools to to maneuver the body to move the body to think to speak to act to move the hands to move the entire entire body so the soul uses those garments and because of these garments that's how the soul has the ability to remember things because the first garment is Mak is thought the second garment is speech and the third garment is is did so when the soul uses the Garment of thought anything that happens to the soul in the body is registered and and preserved in that garment so when the soul leaves the body it there's there's more to it because when the soul leaves the body it starts ascending all the way up and that takes a while because we know that the first year that a person passes away the nefes is still attached to the body the body has to completely decomposed in order for the neish to go up and we know that the soul has to go through up and higher and higher before it's entered back where it originated from so during that time when it ascends then the Soul still uses those garments it still has recollection to those with those garments but once the soul ascends to to its Essence and it doesn't use those garments anymore here it goes a little bit more into depth how the soul what happens to the garments how the soul uses the garments because the garments are part of the soul and the mitv mitzvas and the Torah learning that is done in this world are becoming attached and part of those those garments here is already more a whole concept regard regarding those spiritual garments but to go back to the to the to the question itself the soul has the ability to remember what it experiences when it's out of the body because it uses those spiritual garments till it ascend all the way up to its source so when a person has a near-death experience or an outer body experience or any type of experience the soul leaves the body it's still very much connected to those spiritual garments and it's able to interact and and use those garments to that low level where the soul is because when the soul leaves the body it's it's even though it's in a spiritual realm it's still in a very low level has to ascend and Ascend and Ascend and go higher and higher there's endless amount worlds and the more it ascends then it kind of removes from it the the more physical part or the the the physical remaining that's that's stuck to the soul but there's a whole there's a whole process when the soul leaves the body it takes a long time to ascend and go to a higher level and a higher level and a higher level and a higher level and the higher it goes it starts removing and getting undressed from those garments but in the lower level when the soul leaves the body it still used that those garments it still has those garments and those garments has the gives the soul the ability to remember the experience so when the soul comes back to the body when the person wakes up then the Soul is Again part in the body and the soul is dressed in those garments especially in the Garment of M of thought and it's able to remember what it was what what it was exposed to what it saw what it felt and it stays as a memory in the body but that's basically how people who have near-death experiences out body experiences they're able to remember and have visions of what what what they saw this whole topic has is is very there's much more to it there's a lot of depth into the to the the spiritual structure of the soul and and the whole all the levels of the Soul so there's much more to know about that but just to touch that question how does a person has a memory of what he saw is mainly by having connection to these spiritual garments