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Download the PDF Worksheet HERE
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gagsu8grekp6yowaaca65/Lesson-15-Nefesh-Elokit.pdf?rlkey=7azd1oa13zbj43al7t11w6m01&dl=0
What if the deepest part of you was never damaged, never lost, and never truly disconnected? In Lesson 15 of Kabbalah for Everyone, Rabbi Yisroel Bernath explores the Nefesh HaElokit, the Divine Soul. Drawing on Tanya, this class teaches that our Divine identity is not something we earn through spiritual achievement. It is something already present within us, even when buried beneath distraction, failure, shame, or spiritual exhaustion. As Rabbi Bernath puts it, there is an enormous difference between something being gone and something being covered.
The lesson explores how the Divine soul differs from the animal soul and rational soul, and how all three are ultimately meant to work together. The animal soul brings energy and passion, the rational soul translates and directs, and the Divine soul provides the deeper orientation: “G-d is real. I belong to G-d. What am I here to do?”
Through Tanya’s teachings on Chochmah, Binah and Daat, thought, speech and action, ratzo v’shov, and Dirah BiTachtonim, Rabbi Bernath shows that spirituality is not about escaping ordinary life. The soul came here precisely to illuminate it.
The practical invitation is beautifully simple: don’t wait until you feel spiritual. Give your soul a garment, one thought, one sentence, one mitzvah, one concrete action. Holiness does not have to remain a feeling; it can enter your calendar, your relationships, your money, your body, and your everyday life. Ultimately, teshuvah is not about creating a new self. It is about uncovering the part of you that always remembered where home was.
Key Points
- Your Divine soul is not something you earned. Spiritual accomplishments reveal the soul; they do not manufacture it.
- Hidden does not mean gone. Failure, distraction, resentment, anxiety, or shame may conceal the soul, but they do not redefine its essence.
- The three souls ask different questions:
Animal soul: What do I want?
Rational soul: What makes sense?
Divine soul: What is true before Hashem? - Chochmah, Binah and Daat turn spiritual truth into lived awareness. An idea moves from inspiration, to understanding, to something personally real.
- Thought, speech and action are the soul’s garments. You do not need to wait for inspiration before doing something holy.
- The soul did not descend simply for its own growth. It came to transform the body, animal soul, and physical world and through doing so, the soul itself rises higher.
- Ratzo must lead to Shov. We rise spiritually not to escape life, but to return to life carrying G-dliness with us.
- Teshuvah begins with dignity, not self-destruction. A mistake can demand responsibility without becoming your identity.
- The ultimate goal is integration. Divine direction, rational understanding, animal passion, and physical action can all become partners in making this world a dwelling place for G-d.
Wednesday, September 16 at 7:30 PM
THE FORGIVENESS EXPERIMENT: LIVE
What Are You Ready to Stop Carrying Into the New Year?
An honest, interactive evening about forgiveness, repair, letting go, and what we want to leave behind before Yom Kippur.
Register HERE https://www.jewishndg.com/civicrm/event/info?id=109&reset=1
#Kabbalah #kabala #KabbalahForEveryone #Judaism #mysticism #jewishmysticism #NefeshHaElokis #DivineSoul #Tanya #chassidus #Chochmah #Binah #Daas #chabad #Teshuvah #RatzovShov #JewishSpirituality #soul #purpose #mitzvah #spiritualgrowth #InnerWork #JewishWisdom #Hashem
Rabbi Yisroel Bernath's New Book The Forgiveness Experiment is Available now:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Forgiveness-Experiment-What-Would-Your/dp/1069217638
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR2QNJL6
Audiobook: https://bit.ly/4tPFZhV
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