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weirdjews asking 1) if animals have souls, and 2) how wanting the body to decompose is compatible with a belief in bodily resurrection.
I think I've posted these theories before, but I can't remember. Oh, well -- if I have, that's what cut tags are for.
First, let's start by stating that you HAVE a body, and you HAVE a soul. But you aren't your body, and you aren't your soul. You are the combination of your body and your soul. When you die, neither your body nor your soul stays together in one chunk -- both dissolve into the entirety from which they come. However, when we are resurrected, Hashem reforms our body, and reforms our soul, and reconnects them. Hashem will create for us a new body, and a new life.
Inanimate objects are bodies, but not souls. The most basic forms of life -- microbes, simple insects, earthworms, whatever -- have only the most rudimentary forms of souls -- just basic life.
On the other end of the spectrum, angels have no bodies, but are created solely of the most purified form of soul.
Humans exist at a balance point between these two states -- we have bodies, and the needs, urges, and desires of the body, and we also have the call to more spiritual actions, from the soul. It is because we have both of these that we have free will -- simple animals have no free will, nor do angels. We have choice because we can do both.
When we are in a state in which our more spiritual side is ascendant, we are in a state of tahor, and when our physical side is ascendant, we are tamei. While people have tended to place value judgments on the states of "tamei" and "tahor", translating them as "impure" and "pure", that's not really accurate -- as we are humans, we need both states. If we were only tahor or only tamei, we wouldn't have free will. If we existed, after death, only as souls, we'd be as angels -- and would therefore have no free will. Only because Hashem will reunite our re-formed souls with our re-formed bodies will we have free will, and continue to be human.
People speak of "levels" of soul -- nefesh, ruach, neshama (and further -- neshama l'neshama, chaya, and yechida). But it's a mistake, I think, to think of these as discrete things -- rather, they are continuous levels.
The basic form of the soul is simple life, awareness of the world, basic motion. That is nefesh, and all animals have it. An amoeba reacts to light, chemical compounds, seeks out food, and so forth -- those are the actions of a nefesh.
As the soul develops, it grows and stretches and becomes more complex, eventually gaining the ability to feel emotions. The more complex part of a soul which feels emotions is ruach.
I believe that pet dogs have ruach of some sort. "Higher" animals don't have the emotional maturity which comes from a fully-developed ruach -- but they DO have emotions, and can feel love, and connection, and fear, and worry and anxiety (pure fear may simply be a physical reaction, and part of nefesh -- but worry and anxiety are in relation to things which are not immediately present in the environment, and therefore are a more complex emotion, and part of ruach).
The nefesh is the very bottom part of the soul, and is what connects the soul to the body. When the body dies, the nefesh is extinguished -- which cuts the rest of the soul away. In something like a paramecium, that may be it -- if you extinguish the nefesh, there's nothing left.
But for something like a cat, dog, horse, pig, octopus, parrot . . . there's something else there -- something that remains after the nefesh is extinguished -- some part of ruach above and beyond the nefesh.
Incidentally -- as the ruach grows, it begins to develop the capacity for abstract thought. This is the realm of language, of symbolism, of abstract thought, and of neshama. Obviously, as you can see, the soul doesn't COMPLETELY develop one part before going on to the next -- a human starts gaining bits of neshama as early as two years old, or even earlier, even though the ruach isn't fully developed until thirteen on average. The neshama tends to be more-or-less developed by twenty.
I believe that there are some animals which have rudimentary forms of neshama. Adult ravens have shown some ability to consider a problem through before taking any action, which means that they are abstractly making a model of the world in their heads before acting on the real world -- which is in the realm of neshama. Some African Grey parrots have shown some understanding of the idea of numbers as an abstract concept, rather than as simply a physical one. Non-human primates have been taught sign language, which they seem to be able to understand to some level or another.
Humans' facility for language, abstraction, and symbolism is vastly greater than that of any other animal, so we are the only ones with fully developed neshama, at least, as far as I know, which gives us the best chance of managing to realize any other higher levels of development of the soul.
Those three levels of the soul are all related to this world, and therefore have some relevance to the state of tamei.
Neshama l'neshama is, in a sense, a temporary way to feel the state of chaya, which is the first state of being which is pretty much entirely soul-directed, or entirely tahor. It is a state of transcendence, of feeling the direct presence of Hashem, of direct communion with holiness. If we do Shabbat very well, we can feel this, a bit.
There have been people in the world who have lived in this state -- which is living in the state of chaya. In Judaism, I can think of the Baal Shem Tov, and Honi ha-Magdil. In Christianity, I think of St Francis of Assisi. The Buddha would be another example. Perhaps a handful of Indian gurus.
And there are levels above that, too, but I personally have no idea what they are. I've maybe once or twice experienced neshama l'neshama, so I can get a taste of what chaya is, but I can't even begin to formulate a concept of what yechida would be.
So: pet dogs would have ruach, which is more than nefesh, so something of the soul would transcend death. If so, then there is something to re-form after resurrection, just as the body is re-formed.
There isn't any definitive answer one way or another about whether pet dogs WOULD be so re-formed -- but I can't imagine that Hashem would let love go to waste.
weirdjews asking 1) if animals have souls, and 2) how wanting the body to decompose is compatible with a belief in bodily resurrection.I think I've posted these theories before, but I can't remember. Oh, well -- if I have, that's what cut tags are for.
First, let's start by stating that you HAVE a body, and you HAVE a soul. But you aren't your body, and you aren't your soul. You are the combination of your body and your soul. When you die, neither your body nor your soul stays together in one chunk -- both dissolve into the entirety from which they come. However, when we are resurrected, Hashem reforms our body, and reforms our soul, and reconnects them. Hashem will create for us a new body, and a new life.
Inanimate objects are bodies, but not souls. The most basic forms of life -- microbes, simple insects, earthworms, whatever -- have only the most rudimentary forms of souls -- just basic life.
On the other end of the spectrum, angels have no bodies, but are created solely of the most purified form of soul.
Humans exist at a balance point between these two states -- we have bodies, and the needs, urges, and desires of the body, and we also have the call to more spiritual actions, from the soul. It is because we have both of these that we have free will -- simple animals have no free will, nor do angels. We have choice because we can do both.
When we are in a state in which our more spiritual side is ascendant, we are in a state of tahor, and when our physical side is ascendant, we are tamei. While people have tended to place value judgments on the states of "tamei" and "tahor", translating them as "impure" and "pure", that's not really accurate -- as we are humans, we need both states. If we were only tahor or only tamei, we wouldn't have free will. If we existed, after death, only as souls, we'd be as angels -- and would therefore have no free will. Only because Hashem will reunite our re-formed souls with our re-formed bodies will we have free will, and continue to be human.
People speak of "levels" of soul -- nefesh, ruach, neshama (and further -- neshama l'neshama, chaya, and yechida). But it's a mistake, I think, to think of these as discrete things -- rather, they are continuous levels.
The basic form of the soul is simple life, awareness of the world, basic motion. That is nefesh, and all animals have it. An amoeba reacts to light, chemical compounds, seeks out food, and so forth -- those are the actions of a nefesh.
As the soul develops, it grows and stretches and becomes more complex, eventually gaining the ability to feel emotions. The more complex part of a soul which feels emotions is ruach.
I believe that pet dogs have ruach of some sort. "Higher" animals don't have the emotional maturity which comes from a fully-developed ruach -- but they DO have emotions, and can feel love, and connection, and fear, and worry and anxiety (pure fear may simply be a physical reaction, and part of nefesh -- but worry and anxiety are in relation to things which are not immediately present in the environment, and therefore are a more complex emotion, and part of ruach).
The nefesh is the very bottom part of the soul, and is what connects the soul to the body. When the body dies, the nefesh is extinguished -- which cuts the rest of the soul away. In something like a paramecium, that may be it -- if you extinguish the nefesh, there's nothing left.
But for something like a cat, dog, horse, pig, octopus, parrot . . . there's something else there -- something that remains after the nefesh is extinguished -- some part of ruach above and beyond the nefesh.
Incidentally -- as the ruach grows, it begins to develop the capacity for abstract thought. This is the realm of language, of symbolism, of abstract thought, and of neshama. Obviously, as you can see, the soul doesn't COMPLETELY develop one part before going on to the next -- a human starts gaining bits of neshama as early as two years old, or even earlier, even though the ruach isn't fully developed until thirteen on average. The neshama tends to be more-or-less developed by twenty.
I believe that there are some animals which have rudimentary forms of neshama. Adult ravens have shown some ability to consider a problem through before taking any action, which means that they are abstractly making a model of the world in their heads before acting on the real world -- which is in the realm of neshama. Some African Grey parrots have shown some understanding of the idea of numbers as an abstract concept, rather than as simply a physical one. Non-human primates have been taught sign language, which they seem to be able to understand to some level or another.
Humans' facility for language, abstraction, and symbolism is vastly greater than that of any other animal, so we are the only ones with fully developed neshama, at least, as far as I know, which gives us the best chance of managing to realize any other higher levels of development of the soul.
Those three levels of the soul are all related to this world, and therefore have some relevance to the state of tamei.
Neshama l'neshama is, in a sense, a temporary way to feel the state of chaya, which is the first state of being which is pretty much entirely soul-directed, or entirely tahor. It is a state of transcendence, of feeling the direct presence of Hashem, of direct communion with holiness. If we do Shabbat very well, we can feel this, a bit.
There have been people in the world who have lived in this state -- which is living in the state of chaya. In Judaism, I can think of the Baal Shem Tov, and Honi ha-Magdil. In Christianity, I think of St Francis of Assisi. The Buddha would be another example. Perhaps a handful of Indian gurus.
And there are levels above that, too, but I personally have no idea what they are. I've maybe once or twice experienced neshama l'neshama, so I can get a taste of what chaya is, but I can't even begin to formulate a concept of what yechida would be.
So: pet dogs would have ruach, which is more than nefesh, so something of the soul would transcend death. If so, then there is something to re-form after resurrection, just as the body is re-formed.
There isn't any definitive answer one way or another about whether pet dogs WOULD be so re-formed -- but I can't imagine that Hashem would let love go to waste.