Hot answers tagged soul
7
By the way, generally a "Talmudist" means someone who studies the Talmud; the rabbis who wrote the Talmud are known as The Sages, Hazal (an acronym for "our sages of blessed memory"), or the Tannaim (those before the year 200) and Amoraim (from 200 to 500).
Okay, let's back up here.
The reading of Deuteronomy is a very nuanced one, which your translation ...
5
Rashi in Maseches Beitza 16a writes that the neshama yesera is:
רוחב לב למנוחה ולשמחה ולהיות פתוח לרוחה ויאכל וישתה ואין נפשו קצה עליו
This very roughly means that it expands his heart so that he has a greater capacity for rest and joy and is able to eat and drink more without overdoing it.
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Yechida is one of five levels of the soul often described in the teachings of Chassidus, which were only revealed about 250 years ago - which is likely when the concept (named as such) became mainstream. The five levels of the soul are mentioned in Midrash Rabba (Bereishis 14:9, Devorim 2:37), written in the 4th - 5th century - the earliest source I could ...
4
http://www.chabadlibrary.org/books/default.aspx?furl=/admur/tm/11/15
איתא בזהר ח״א צא, ב. שאיש ואשה הם נשמה אחת, אלא שבירידת הנשמה לעוה״ז,
באה מחצית הנשמה בגוף של זכר, והמחצית השני׳ – בגוף בת־זוגו. ולכן נקרא
כל אחד מהם בלשון "פלג גופא" זח״ג ז, ב. קט, ב. רצו, א. , כיון שבכל אחד
מהם לבדו יש רק חצי נשמה. ועז״נ בראשית ב, כד, "על כן יעזב איש את אביו
...
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Rabbi Shnuer Zalman of Liadi explains the idea of the Neshama Yesera in Torah Ohr (Parshas Vayakel pg. 87). The discourse is elucidated in the Chassidus Mevue'res series (Shabbos pg. 23), and is adapted in English here.
The basic explanation is as follows: Midrash Rabba writes that the soul is called by five names: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and ...
3
See Derekh HaShem here paragraph beginning with "והנה". A partial quotation:
כי אין נפש הבעלי חיים אלא דבר גשמי, מן הדקים שבגשמיות ― Although animals may have a soul, it is not a spiritual entity, it is the most fine of physical entities.
His sources include your possuk Koheles 3(21) *ורוח הבהמה *הירדת היא למטה לארץ. (see the Feldheim edition ...
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neshama yeterah doesn't literally mean "an extra soul", it means "extra soul" as if the amount of soul that you have is continuous. the conceptualization is for example that you have less soul when you are tired or angry and more soul when you are at rest. see footnote 5 on neshama yeterah in the tenth chapter of The Sabbath by Heschel here.
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