Emor: Shame, Nefesh, Tikkun

Leviticus 21:1: “And Hashem said to Moshe, Say to the Kohanim the sons of Aharon, and say to them, none of them shall defile himself for a (dead) person, for a Nefesh among his people.” The first point Rashi brings is the double language of “Say, and say.” Rashi notes the Gemara in Yevamot 114a: “That the elders should warn the youth.”

The word Nefesh particularly struck me. I am constantly seeing this word as a stage in life as regarded by the Arizal, and with that I paired the concept Rashi notes to the concepts of Nefesh. Here it goes.

We sit alone feeling that familiar weight in our chests, the one that has us rushing to find comfort and consolation. We are usually drawn to physical remedies, some good and some bad, to help us cope with that heart-pull. But at times something inside us knows that it is time to go deeper. We need to understand not just why we struggle, but where we truly come from, and the actual architecture of our souls.

Turning to the teachings of the Arizal in Sha’ar HaGilgulim, we can start to change everything.

Before our physical world existed, Hashem created the World of Tohu, a realm filled with such intense divine light that the vessels meant to contain it could not hold it. These ten great vessels shattered. This is called Shevirat HaKeilim, the Breaking of the Vessels. From that shattering, many holy sparks and souls fell into the lower worlds, becoming scattered and trapped within physical reality, trapped in places, things, and circumstantial stories.

Figure the concept of song waves. Each one has a unique pattern which makes each one distinguishable from the next. Think about a pattern on a key. It needs the bumps and grooves to open a particular lock. The same is with every story. Each lived experience has the ups and downs, the emotional roller coaster which forges the rhythm and shapes that key to finally unlock this scattered particle of light and bring it back home to its source, Hashem.

Then came Adam HaRishon. He lived in a place where there was no shame, as the Pasuk Gen 2:25 states, “And they were not ashamed.” In Eden he had it all, he had what we are so desperately trying to get after our Tikkun, perfection. All of humanity’s souls were originally contained within him as one vast, unified soul. When he sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, that great soul shattered as well. The oneness was broken. Every person alive today carries only a small fragment of what was once part of that single soul.

The Etz Hadaat is the root to all patterns, because up until the sin everything flowed with divine truth. But the properties of the tree contained the ability to question, “What if this or what if that?” And now with these new questions we created new paths of life and we have to live them and learn to rectify them by going down those paths of thoughts and come to a conclusion that nothing can be better than the original divine path we were on at the beginning. And once that understanding is embedded in our foundations we cling to this knowledge with all our hearts, living within our minds as though we are back in the Garden before the sin.

Each part of Adam’s soul was broken into roots, and all of those roots have many branches. Each of us belongs to a specific soul root. Some souls are major roots who are vast and powerful, while most of us are branches growing out from those roots. We share certain qualities, certain struggles, certain ways of seeing the world with others who come from the same root. We begin to see how certain words in Tehillim speak straight to our hearts, as if they were written from the same stream of consciousness that flows through us. It feels like walking along an ancient path that someone from our own root had already walked long before us. We see how we are attracted to certain things and people who are similar to us, since we share the same root.

We start to understand that life is not random. The specific challenges that keep returning, the particular temptations that pull on us so strongly, the circumstances we were born into, these are all connected to the level where our sparks fell during the shattering. The lower the world our sparks descended into, the heavier and darker the Tikkun we must perform.

Now is where the Arizal dives into the path of Tikkun, meaning, “what are we to do in order to rectify and return those lost patterns of light to their source?” Here is where he introduces the five levels of growth.

The Nefesh, our most physical self, is tied to our bodies, our habits, and our instincts. Above it sits the Ruach, the emotional world, the realm of our character traits and feelings. Then comes the Neshama, the intellectual and spiritual soul that can grasp deep truths and yearn for Hashem. Even higher are Chaya and Yechida, levels so refined which I bless all of us to reach in our lifetime.

The Arizal taught that these levels must be rectified in order, from the lowest to the highest. Most souls spend many lifetimes simply trying to perfect the Nefesh before they can truly begin working on the Ruach.

Now we can begin to see our own struggle with new eyes. We live in a neighborhood of crime and we must do something about uplifting the environment, by changing the beliefs of the youth and beautifying the surroundings. The struggle isn’t merely a place to run away from. It is a place where change is possible if only we have the courage to make a stand and do something about it.

But we don’t always realize what the struggle wants from us. The heart-pull we feel, that sudden wave that rises in our chest when we encounter struggle, doesn’t lead us to fix. Rather it pulls us to desires addictions, and distractions. But truthfully it is not merely desire. It is our Nefesh crying out for help. Yet it is shame, deep buried shame from things we have done in this very lifetime, that holds us back from doing what must be done to correct what needs fixing.

We can sit with Hashem and speak about our shame. We can cry and beg for forgiveness, and we can even prove to Him and to ourselves that we are becoming better. We can feel moments of relief when we become completely honest with ourselves in the quiet. And between ourselves and God, or between ourselves and our very own soul, it feels possible to start making a change.

But when we turn toward the external world, when we think about the people around us, something in us tightens. Our Nefesh does not live in isolation. It is woven into our relationships, into the way people see us, into the life we have built on the surface. And to truly rectify the Nefesh, we cannot simply do the work in secret. At some point, we must be willing to be seen.

This is how relationships work. We cannot simply show up when we are feeling whole, while burying the secrets. The most prosperous and loving marriages come from being open to who we are completely, unashamed of our actions and unafraid of the consequences. Just as we learn to open up and admit to ourselves what we truly need to fix in order to live a whole life, and just as we learn to show up to Hashem with honesty and admit to our broken parts, we must do the same with our external world and the people around us so we can remove the shame that is buried deep within us.

Only then can we truly make the difference we so desperately want to see. Only then can we uplift the shattered pattern of light hidden somewhere. We have to take our hidden shame and bring it to light, and so we start shining with the light waiting for us from the first moments of creation.

The shattering scattered not only sparks but also pieces of our own soul. Some of those pieces fell into dark places, and our work in this lifetime is to find them, to elevate them, to bring them back into holiness. The heart-pull is the signal that some of our sparks are still trapped. Every time it comes, it is our soul reminding us that the work is not yet finished.

We used to believe that our mission was simply to overcome addiction. Now we see that it is much more delicate and personal. Our mission is to gather our own unique sparks. Our mission is to heal the specific fractures that only we can heal. And the deepest fracture we carry is this shame that still lives in hiding.

There is a strange comfort in understanding that we are not broken for no reason. The brokenness is part of a much larger story, the story of the vessels, the story of Adam, and the story of Shevirat HaKeilim. Our personal struggle is actually a small chapter in a cosmic romance between Hashem and His creation.

And yet, understanding is not enough. We can speak beautifully about roots and branches, about shattering and rectification, about Nefesh and Neshama. We can draw metaphors between thoughts and branches, between Tehillim and our own inner voice. We can see how King David’s words feel like they are speaking from our own root. All of this brings us comfort. But comfort is not Tikkun.

The real test is not whether we can understand the system. The real test is whether we are willing to live it. Whether we are willing to stop managing the symptom of the heart-pull and finally address the shame that lives beneath it. Because a soul cannot reach true union while it is still hiding parts of itself.

This work is about having the courage to fully accept our past self, all of it, and to eventually let it be seen. Not just by Hashem in the private chamber of our hearts, but in the real world where our Nefesh actually lives.

We may not know when that moment will come. We may not know what words we will use or how our life will look afterward. But we can no longer pretend that staying hidden is compatible with the path we claim to be walking. Every time the heart-pull returns, it is no longer just a moment of weakness. It becomes a teacher. It is pointing us toward the exact place where our Tikkun must happen. It is showing us exactly where our soul is still fractured.

Emor, Ve’amarta… L’nefesh Lo Yitama Be’amav. The Nefesh is at the lowest rung of this great climb, and we need to be vigilant not to make our Tikkun harder than it already is. The greater things that have happened in our lives and the shame they carry are holding us back from being fully of service to Hashem. It would be a disservice if we would allow ourselves to defile ourselves with things that don’t concern us.

Much like the Kohein who has a service to provide for Hashem should be warned by the elders to refrain from approaching what would render him improper for their service, we too must note the things that remove us from being completely open to the service we are capable of providing in the world.

When we see it as a marriage we can truly come to understand that the only way this can work out is when we show up completely and don’t budge from the truth. Only then can we birth the greatest children in the world. Only then will the fruits of our labor be worthy to be served on the table of Hashem.

Shabbat Shalom

David Lemmer

LemmerHypnotherapy.com