(In memory of Chaim Barukh Yehudah ben Dovid Tzvi zl)
The Secret of the Additional Soul
Summary: At the close of the Hashkiveinu blessing in the Shabbat Maariv, we invite the holy Shekhinah to be our guest (as it were). She responds by wrapping us in her protective embrace, and by gifting us with the neshamah yeteirah (Additional Soul). Finally, the zohar explains how Shabbat is the World to Come in miniature.
Says the holy Zohar:
Come! Expand your vision!
When Yisrael blesses and invites the Sukkah of Peace (aka the Shekhinah) to be their sacred guest—when they say “the One Who extends the Sukkah of Peace”—Supreme Holiness descends and spreads her wings over them, sheltering them as a mother shelters her child.
All the evil types withdraw from the world, leaving Yisrael under the holiness of their Master. That is when the Shekhinah gives her children new neshamot (souls). Why is it that only on Shabbat she gives new neshamot? All neshamot reside within the Shekhinah and through her that they come into the world. Since it is on Shabbat that she is present with her children, embracing them, it is then that she gives each one a new neshamah.
Rebbe Shimon said more:
That Shabbat is the World to Come in miniature is related to the Shekhinah gifting new neshamot to Yisrael. This definitely accords with the secret teachings. They parallel Shemitah (the sabbatical year) and Yovel (the Jubilee year, once every 50 years). [OB: Shemitah is Malkhut, the “daughter;” Yovel is Binah, the Mother.”]
Where does that additional neshamah come from? It come to the Shekhinah from the Masculine [Z’er Anpin] who took it from the World to Come, Binah. This addition is given to the Holy People.
That extra soul cheers them. So they forget their weekday concerns and all their suffering and troubles. This is the Shabbat tranquility of, “And it will come to pass on the day that God gives you rest from your sorrow and your anxiety, and from the difficult bondage which was forced upon you” (Isaiah 14:3).
Zohar 1:48a–b
© Copyright 2014 148west.com/O. Bergman
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