I hope Spring has been beautiful for you, and that you are feeling the beginnings of the great transformation that is intensifying, as we approach the June Solstice and the opening of Summer.
I found this amazing work by Rabbi Wayne in the depths of his computer, and thought it would be a rich and lovely piece to share with you, as we are in the process of ending one season and beginning another, letting go of an old world and entering a new world, finishing a great exhale and wondering if another inhale will arrive.
Rabbi Wayne could talk about anything with gusto — from how much he liked your shoes, to what you ate at last night’s party, to the minutia of Israeli politics, to… But really, the whole time he was thoroughly enjoying his conversation with you, he was thinking deeply about God and the Cosmos and the Soul and how we will heal our world with Love.
Here is the result of a bit of his deep thinking. I hope it takes you to a place of great Peace within your Beings.
Your continuing presence in my life and your ongoing hunger for Rabbi Wayne’s wisdom are both very precious to me. Thank you,
Ellen, continuing the work of the Elijah Minyan
Not Here, Present Elsewhere
The Eternal Soul
Rabbi Dr. Wayne Dosick
No matter how much we love, no matter how holy our words and deeds, no matter how great our contribution to the collective wisdom of the world or to creating a just and peaceful existence, no matter how much we cherish this life and want to be here, one day, we — each and every one of us — is going to leave this Earth. We are, in common parlance, going to die.
One of the greatest mysteries of human existence — the question that fascinates, and taunts, and frightens, and devastates, and soothes us — is: “What happens to me after I die?”
Since no one has ever offered a definitive, irrefutable answer, throughout the ages, there has been widespread speculation, sourced in physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional response.
Each religion and faith community has developed its own — oft-times overlapping — concepts about life and death, life and afterlife, This World and the World to Come.
As human consciousness grows, we are given more and more glimpses of what awaits. The veil between This Side and The Other Side is growing thinner and thinner.
Here is the cosmology of life and death, as we understand it.
- In the beginning, God created all souls that would ever live in body on Earth.
- Every soul has an independent and an everlasting existence, and is endowed with eternal and universal knowledge.
- The eternal soul dwells on the Other Side, in the World of the Spirit.
- Every now and then, a soul makes an agreement — called a contract — to come into body on this Earth, in order to fulfill a specific assignment or mission, or to raise the sparks toward the perfection of this world, or to work out a particular (set of) life issue(s) — what the Hindus call karma.
Some say that before choosing/agreeing to be born on Earth, the soul goes to the Heavenly “Karma Library,” and chooses up to seven issues to bring to Earth as the “soul-work” of this lifetime, in order to enhance, enrich, and ennoble the soul in its evolution.
Some go even further by saying that the soul picks the circumstances into which it will be born here on Earth — parents, place, community, conditions — in order to help facilitate, or challenge, the Earth-work that is to be accomplished.
The soul always has the choice to accept or reject the contract. It is a free will universe, in the Heavens as it is on Earth.
- So, at any given moment in time, some souls are on the Other Side, and some are in body.
- According to tradition, there was one time — and one time only — when all souls — either in body or not — were together on Earth. That was at Sinai to receive God’s word and will. Every soul experienced and holds the theophoric moment at Sinai.
- All souls that come into body share a collective Earth-mission: to be a partner with God in fulfilling God’s plan to move the world toward balance, healing, transformation, and perfection.
- The individual souls that come into body each have a specific mission that will aid in the fulfillment of the collective mission. Each individual mission is different for each soul. However, in body, we do not know our “soul mission,” because, in body, we cannot possess universal and eternal knowledge — that is only for the Other Side.
Since a soul cannot bring the totality of universal knowledge to Earth, and must accept the limitations placed upon it by the boundaries of human existence, an old legend teaches that just before a soul — now placed in the body of a baby in the womb —emerges into human life, an angel taps the fetus on the upper lip. The tap, which takes away the entirety of knowledge, leaves a little indentation — which is called the philtrum. Throughout the Earthly lifetime of the soul, that little mark serves as a reminder of what once was known, what must be learned, and what will, one day, be known again.
Every once in a while, a soul sees glimpses or shards of what it once knew. Some call it deja vu, some call it extra sensory perception, some call it intuition. We call it “soul memory.” - Our Earth-journey, and the free-will choices we make, will lead us toward our mission.
- A person’s soul contract may take a long time to fulfill, or, sometimes, it is fulfilled in a few moments, a few days, weeks, a few months, or a few years. That is why some life spans are long and some are short.
- When the contract is complete, with a whoosh of sudden swiftness, or a long, slow, ever-diminishing soft whisper, God withdraws Divine Breath from our once life-animated Earth-body. The Earth-body becomes an empty vessel and “passes away” or “passes over” — or, as we commonly say, “dies” — and the soul returns to the World of Spirit.
The Eternal Question: What Happens To Me After I Die?
A tourist visited a venerable sage.
He was astonished to see that the sage’s home
was only a simple room filled with books.
The only furniture was a table and a bench.
“Where is your furniture?” asked the tourist?
“Where is yours?” replied the sage.
“Mine?” I am only a visitor here.”
The sage replied, “So am I.”attributed to the Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan
Throughout human history, individuals, religious and faith communities, cultures and societies, philosophers and theologians, have tried to describe — yes, to make sense of — the ultimate question: What happens to me after I die?”
In contemporary times, there are a number of responses:
- Dead is dead.
This is the choice of modern intellectual rationalists. Eschewing belief, and insisting on empirical, existential proof, this is the concept which insists that life is everything and death is the end.
This insistence, however, leads to a number of questions: What is the purpose of life, of my existence, if all there is are these few short years on Earth? Am I not part of a grander design and plan than my own personal life?
And, this insistence can lead to a life of hedonism. If this is all there is, why should I bother to lead a good life — a life that is for anything more than my own pleasure?
“The day of death is concealed so that people will build and plant.” Midrash Tanchuma, Kedoshim - Living on through memory.
This concept affirms that death is death, but celebrates the meaning and purpose of each individual life through the memory of those still alive.
Thus, the meaning of life is based on what I accomplish, how I love. Tangible work remains; passions and commitments remain; love and legacy remain.
The problem, of course, with this concept is that in a generation or two or three, those who knew me, those who might have been influenced by me, will also be gone from this Earth, and all that will remain is a few stories, a few memories.
Still, this idea offers a taste of immortality, and, as the late Rabbi Morris Adler prayed —and his words still remain and are quoted five decades after his own tragic death, when he was murdered on his own pulpit on a Sabbath morning by a deranged young congregant — “We thank You, O God of life and love, for the resurrecting gift of memory, which endows Your children, fashioned in Your image, with God-like sovereign power to give immortality through love.” - Eternity of the soul.
With no exact vision of an afterlife, this concept affirms the everlasting, eternal existence of the soul.
What makes this lump of clay that is a human body into a living, breathing human being is the soul, given by God. Each one of us is a spark of the Divine; each one of us is precious to God.
If God cares enough to place a soul in this body, then, when God takes back my soul, and I die, God will not abandon my soul at the grave. God will watch over and protect my soul, because it is a part of God.
The difficulty with this idea is that it is so ambiguous. What is the nature and the form of the soul? Does human awareness continue at death, or does it live on? Where and how does the soul spend eternity?
Yet, this belief in the eternity of the soul assures immortality — if not in the Earthly form, then, surely in the spiritual.
“Death is not the end; the earthly body vanishes; the immortal soul lives with God.” Union Prayer Book I - Judgment, reward, and punishment in an afterlife.
This concept has many differing interpretations and visions, but at its core is the idea that for following God’s commands here on Earth, and exhibiting good, decent, ethical behavior, God offers an eternity of reward.
Conversely, for transgressing God’s commands, and violating standards of decency and goodness, God metes out an eternity of punishment.
This concept has been used throughout the ages by religious communities to attempt to control people’s behaviors and conduct. It is the source of the “fire and brimstone” preachings that contrasted eternal reward for being and doing good, with eternal punishment for misbehavior, disobedience, and perpetrating evil.
Despite the many and varied descriptions of Heavenly paradise and wretched Hell that theologians, writers, artists, and storytellers have envisioned, this belief has a number of difficulties.
What is Heaven? What is Hell? What is the nature of reward or punishment?
Pope John Paul II changed millennia of Church teaching by stating that Heaven and Hell are not places, but states of mind.
Yet, still, in so many minds and hearts, the images of the physical Heaven and Hell remain.
So, do I enter Heaven or Hell in human form? Do I retain human awareness? Will I meet relatives and friends who are already dead? Will my grandmother still be old and sick, as she was when she died? Will she recognize me, since she died when I was 19 and, now, when I die, I’m 92? Will my friend who withered away from cancer or who was crushed in an automobile accident be restored to healthy form? Will my parents, spouse, children, merit heaven, and, if not, will I ever see them again?
The unknown nature of reward and punishment can be scary, and make one afraid of death.
Yet, a reward or punishment in the afterlife makes this life purposeful. It satisfies the human need for justice, and it lessens the fear of death, for it offers the assurance that death means not oblivion, but life everlasting.
“If a person sought the best course in life, reward awaits beyond the grave that will last for eternity.” Ecc. Rabbah 5:14 - Here is what we believe.
When the soul leaves the Earth and “passes away” or “passes over” — or, as we commonly say, “dies” — it goes back into the World of Spirit.
There, the soul is greeted at a joyous “Welcome Home” party, attended by the souls of relatives and friends, and, sometimes, the souls of Guides and MasterGuides, whom the soul has known in Earth-life.
Then, the soul begins a Life Review. This Life Review is conducted by the soul, with the assistance of Guides and MasterGuides. In this Life Review, the soul rests and is cleansed of any imperfections that may have attached during the lifetime. It reviews how it fulfilled its mission and contract, and how it dealt with its karmic issues. It incorporates the karmic
Because each soul does its own Review, and because there are so many variables in a lifetimes, there is no set amount of time for the Review (especially since we are speaking of time here in Earth-terms.) Some souls may do it in a few weeks; some in a few months; many in a year or so. Some souls take decades or eternity. (Can you even begin to imagine how long Adolph Hitler’s Life Review will take?)
The key element of the Life Review is the soul’s ability to forgive itself for mistakes, errors, transgressions during the Earth-life, and, especially for the failure — perceived or real — to fulfill the soul mission, or to deal with the karmic issues of that lifetime. Here, forgiveness takes on its real meaning — to for-give, to give back to God the pain, or guilt, or anger, or sense of failure, connected to the lifetime. Only when the soul can for-give, can the Life Review be concluded, and the soul be ready to move on.
This concept of Life Review — conducted by the soul itself — removes the notion of punishment in a place called Hell.
The process of forgiveness does not include the process of forgetting. Each soul retains and remembers everything that happened to it in this and in any and every lifetime. This is called Soul Memory.
The soul moves on to a place of choice, where, in consultation with the Divine “assignment desk,” it will determine its next course. The soul may choose to rest and “hang out” on the Other Side for a while. The soul may move on to Divinely assigned tasks in the Spirit World. It may choose to become a Guide or a MasterGuide for someone on Earth. It may take on an assignment in this cosmos or another.
Or, it may choose another in-body Earth journey — in what is commonly called reincarnation. - Reincarnation.
This concept teaches that souls are not only everlasting, but independent, and return to life in succeeding lifetimes — if you will, recycled after death, and come back into body one or more times. This idea is at the core of Hinduism and other eastern beliefs, and within the mystical traditions of a number of other faith communities. In my own faith tradition, this concept began with the Kabbalists in the 13th century, and was reaffirmed by the Chasidism beginning in the 17th century.
Gilgool hanefesh, the rolling or transmigration of the souls, as the Kabbalists called it, affirms that all souls are eternal, and suggests an answer to the mystery of death — that there is little distinction between life and death, for both life and death are part of the continual flow of the wholeness of the universe.
“Even though man’s body is of small dimension, his soul is more extensive than Heaven and Earth, because its knowledge embraces all that they contain.” Saadya ben Yosef Gaon
“Fear not death. It is just a matter of going from one room to the other.”
In any and every case it is a free will universe, and the choice is made by the soul. This is not to say that God cannot be rather persuasive in asking — or suggesting — a new mission, but the ultimate choice remains with the soul.
When the soul is in the Other Side, in the World of the Spirit, it is in the direct presence of God. It is Home.
There is an intricate and complex structure to the Other Side, and a plethora of Beings, with varying and fascinating assignments that move our worlds forward.This notion of being in the presence of God is described by some as Heaven.
Being in God’s presence has no particular form or format, no tangible, physical rewards. Ascending to God’s holy realm, being in God’s holy presence, being infused with God’s holy Light, is reward enough. Being with God, being in God’s Garden, is being in Paradise. And, with God it is safe, and sweet, and good.
~ Even with all this comforting understanding of what happens after we die, because we are human beings with human emotions, we are often bereft when the ones we cherish so very much leave this Earth. We feel alone and lonely.
While we do not worship deceased ancestors, there are some who say that when our loved Ones go to the Other Side, they are not abandoning us. Rather, they are going to become our Intercessors — to stand before God to advocate for us, to plead for us; to demand that the evolution for us and our world become easier and less fraught with obstacles and danger.
And it is not only our own personal dear ones who intercede. All the great Masters, and Sages, and Beings of Light who ever walked on this Earth come before God to supplicate for us. We are the ever-continuing recipients of the gift of enduring love.
The Psalmist said: “You shall be happy, and it shall be good for you.”
The sages explain: “’You shall be happy — in This World.
‘And it shall be good for you — in The World To Come.’”
Ps. 128:2 and Pirkae Avot 4:1
The mysteries of life and death are only mysteries when they are clouded by the limitations of Earthbound existence and Earth-bound knowledge.
For in the deepest place, each God-created, transcendent soul — each human being — knows our origins, our pathways, our destination.
“How body from spirit does slowly unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.”
Theodore Roethke
The soul is eternal.
When we are not here, we are present elsewhere.
In whatever place, whatever form,
the soul, the spirit, lives on forever.
“The soul sings all the time.”
Rav Abraham Issac HaCohen Kook
From God.
To God.
In the Light of God.
The circle is never-ending.
The circle continues still.
Rabbi Wayne Dosick
The Spirit of God continually abides in our eternal soul.
And our soul lives in the Infinite God.
Always.
And forever.
In my Soul is Life Eternal
adaptation of Jewish Sabbath afternoon prayer
In my Soul is Eternal Life
NOT HERE; PRESENT ELSEWHERE NOTES
I am deeply grateful to my holy wife Ellen Kaufman Dosick for her tremendous contribution to the understanding and articulation of these complex theological concepts.
Ellen Kaufman Dosick (1954 – ) Master practitioner and teacher of the psycho-spiritual therapy, Soul Memory Discovery, and channel-author of the monthly Internet publication Cosmic Times: Spiritual News You Can Use www.soulmemorydiscovery.com1
“…soul memory” psycho-spiritual therapy received, developed, and transmitted by Ellen Kaufman Dosick
“A tourist…” attributed to the Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1839 – 1933) rabbi, scholar, ethicist, and yeshiva founder and head in Belarus and Poland, known by the name of his book, Chofetz Chaim (Desirer of Life) (1873) famous for its instruction about the laws of gossip and slander.
Rabbi Morris Adler zt”l (1906 – 1966) spiritual guide of Congregation Sha’arey Zedek, suburban Detroit, tragically shot to death on his pulpit during Shabbat morning services, Saturday, February 12, 1966, by a deranged congregant
“The Pope….” Pope John Paul II in a General Audience, The Vatican, July 21, 1999
Heaven “is not an abstraction nor a physical place amid the clouds, but a living and personal relationship with the Holy Trinity.”