What REALLY Makes Someone Jewish? The Answer Is Shocking.

In today's day and age, we have finally been forced to go to the deepest most spiritual truth that Jewish identity is a metaphysical condition. We cannot speak of Jewish identity without speaking of spiritual truth. Because ultimately what makes a Jew Jewish is not ethnicity or culture, the language you speak at home or the passport that you hold. It's not even your level of Jewish observance because unfortunately there are plenty of Jews who Torah defines as Jews and they do not observe Judaism. So it's none of those things. What is it? It is an inherently spiritual definition. In other words, why are you Jewish? Because your soul is Jewish. There are other souls. Jewish souls are Jewish. Now, what makes a what is a what's a Jewish soul? What's a soul? Well, let's start like this. A soul is not a body. Soul is not a body, but a soul needs a body. What's a body? A body is a container for a soul. A body is a vehicle for a soul. A soul is a mission, is a purpose, is a function. It's very uh abstract, right? Purpose, mission, those are not physical objects. There's what a thing is, what it is, and then there's its function, how it's used. So there's the what and there's the how you call, you can call it the the physical and the spiritual. So the soul is not what, it's not the thing. It's not a physical object. It's the how. Meaning, it's the purpose of your existence. It's how you use your existence in the way that it was intended to be used. So your soul basically means your purpose. But your purpose can only be accomplished in a body. So your purpose comes down from this abstract spiritual realm which you can call heaven and experiences embodiment. It comes into a physical container or vehicle called a body so it can accomplish its purpose. And what is your soul which is a spiritual being? What is its purpose that can only be accomplished through embodiment and can only be accomplished in the physical world on the physical plane? Soul came from heaven down to the physical plane. Why? to make the physical world holier than heaven. Think about that. One of the I'm sure you heard of my manades. Yeah. Everyone heard of my manades? Okay. The hospital. There's a hospital. My man. Okay. My manades is one of the great Jewish thinkers. And he codified something called the 13 principles of faith which are basic beliefs that are central to Judaism. Like the belief in the the oneness of God for instance. or the belief in the divine origin of the Torah. Okay. One of the beliefs, core principal beliefs, the resurrection, that after Messiah, which is another one of the principles of faith, after the world is perfected, when there's world peace, that's a basic Jewish belief that this world is perfectable, there will be a resurrection, which means that souls that were in bodies and that body expired and those souls went to heaven, those souls will come back from heaven into embodiment again. And that's a primary Jewish belief. So the question is like this. Think about a soul that lived its embodiment hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago. You know what a yacht site is in Yiddish? It's called a yortsite. >> It means the anniversary of the passing of a person. So every year on the anniversary of the passing of a person the nishama the soul has an aliyah an aliyah means an ascent an elevation it goes to a higher level in heaven and that's why the surviving family members say kadesh the famous that prayer is actually made to facilitate the elevation of the soul in heaven. So, think about souls that had their embodiment hundreds of years ago or even thousands of years ago. Think about like Moses who lived over 3,000 years ago. And think about what he accomplished in this world and that when he passed away at 120 years old and he went to heaven, he already went to an extremely high level. And then every single year on the anniversary of his passing, he would have another elevation go to an even higher level. And then at some point very very soon we hope the world will become perfected. First thing will be world peace but then there will be resurrection and all the souls in heaven are going to come back into embodiment including Moses. How every year for over 3,000 years he's been having an elevation to higher and higher levels of paradise. You know you know what paradise is? It's paradise. Now what is paradise for a soul? It's not a hot tub, a jacuzzi, sipping pina colada. For a soul, paradise is experiencing godly truth, which for a soul is extremely pleasurable. So, we're talking about souls who are experiencing profound spiritual pleasure in the highest heights and then all of a sudden one day they're going to get a tap on the shoulder and say, "Hey buddy, you turn. Turn it around 180. go back down. How does that seem How does that seem fair? Why will that happen? Why does that make sense? So, we're forced to say, you understand the question? So, we're forced to say that apparently when this world becomes perfected that it'll be holier than heaven. And when that happens, a soul that's been going to higher and higher levels, at that point, the only way to go higher will not be to go to another level of heaven, but to come to the physical world. Because the physical world will be the ultimate level of spirituality. It's a crazy concept. So you are your mission, your purpose, which we call an ashama or a soul. That mission or purpose could only be accomplished here in the physical world in your physical container called your body. What is your physical mission? to perfect the physical world and to make this world holier than heaven. What are the mechanisms by which you accomplish that? The 613 commandments. The 613 commandments are behaviors. They're not meditations. They're not ideas. They're not feelings. Now, to be sure, there's a concept called cavana, which means intent. And when you meditate and you study and you learn about the deeper meaning of a mitzvah, then you'll have greater cavana. And you'll have greater feeling with which to infuse your behavior. But the bottom line is the behavior. The bottom line is behavior. The purpose that you came to this world for was action to perform mitzvah. Not for the pleasure of God consciousness that the souls have in heaven, but for the power of refining this physical plane that you only have while you're in a physical Body.