Parshas Pinchos 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
בטרם אצורך אצרך בבטן ידעתיך ... (ירמי' א-ה)
Yirmiyahu HaNavi discusses a prophecy he received and his response to the Almighty. Hashem told him that he was destined to be a prophet, “Before I created you in the womb, I selected you. before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.”
R’ Menashe ben Yisroel zt”l, a Spanish Kabbalist from Amsterdam wrote in his Spanish-written sefer regarding Techiyas HaMeisim, that two important conclusions can be drawn from the words of the Navi. First, that Hashem is the one who forms a child in the mother’s womb and not biology - a matter of major discussion prior to advanced imaging technology. Also, souls are not conceived along with their bodies. Rather, Hashem grants the soul life and immortality and when it is paired with a body it can then choose to retain that immortality or lose it through sin. He explains, in the name of the Zohar HaKadosh zt”l, that as such, the father provides the matrix of the body, the mother the flesh, and Hashem provides the soul.
Thus, it is true that the parents form a unity to create a human body, but the actual process of formation is not physical. Rather it requires the soul to nourish it and give it the ability to become an entity. Hashem’s comment to Yirmiyahu underscores the known truth of conception. When a child is conceived, he already possesses all three components of life – the bones from the father, flesh from the mother, and a living soul from the Almighty Himself.