Once upon a time people—not philosophers of course—used to imagine there was a thing called the soul that enabled one to find meaning in life, and value and direction in the world. The “soul” could do this because it came “from above,” where it had shared in the blissful perfection of the spirit; this prenatal experience was assumed to be of decisive importance for all that was to come. Plato, in Phaedros, spoke of a “being thrown into birth” that was the result of an intellectual “fall” within the yet unborn soul. Jews assumed a general innocence of the soul before being clothed with flesh.
An early popular tradition that is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (Nidda 16b) tells of Laylah, the Angel of Night and Conception, who brings our semen before the Lord of the Universe. The tiniest particle of existence faces the source of all existence—not as a particle, but already an individual, individualis, indivisible: a person. The future fate of this person, the external features of his earthly life, are determined there and then; but enough freedom is granted him to choose either to fear the Lord or reject Him: it is this that makes him a person.
Another version is preserved in the Midrash Tanhuma. It pictures the soul, not yet born but already possessing a name, journeying through Paradise and Hell to learn the prehistory of both the blessed and the damned, thus to discover that human action is either good or bad, there being no neutral sphere in life, and that the world is here for man’s good. This journey is followed by a guided tour to all the places the particular soul is to inhabit on earth. And although all this is forgotten at birth, the child and the adult retain subconscious memories: I’ve been here before, I’ve known this before!
An anonymous compiler, in the early Middle Ages, brought together some such tales he found scattered in Talmudic-Midrashic literature and composed a kind of metaphysical embryology. The concepts he presented could never become part of official Jewish doctrine; the legislators of Jewish life were not concerned with fantasies; Jewish philosophers, Aristotelian and otherwise, objected to the childish and primitive elements in such tales. Only musings about the soul strongly influenced by Platonic and Stoic views, and on a higher intellectual level, appear in the authoritative discussions of medieval Judaism. But popular Jewish faith in the Middle Ages valued the deep regard for life these legends manifested, the idea of the sanctity of sexual intercourse, of conception and growth, the knowledge that in spite of its hardships—which are seen very realistically in our treatise—life is ultimately worth living. The soul, unwilling at first to wear flesh, a human body, finally falls in love with life and is sad when it ends.
The Hebrew original on which the present translation is based has been preserved in some rare manuscripts; the text of one of these was reproduced by a 17th-century Christian Hebraist, Johann Christoph Wagenseil, in Germany, and later included by Adolph Jellinek in his Bet ha-Midrash, a collection of short Midrashic texts published in 1853. The translation is by Francis Golffing.
—Nahum N. Glatzer
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In what manner does the conformamation of the child happen? Rabbi Jochanan said: What does it mean when it is written: “Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number?” It means the great, the marvelous things which the Holy One, blessed be He, does for the conformation of the child.
For in the hour when a man approaches his wife, the Holy One, blessed be He, calls out to His messenger, the one who is guardian over pregnancy, and says to him: Know that this man tonight shall beget a child; go now and watch over the seed.
The messenger then does as he is bid. He takes the seed, brings it before the Holy One, blessed be He, and speaks to Him thus: Lord of creation, I have done as you told me; but what is to become of this seed? Make what disposition you choose. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, determines at once whether it shall be strong or weak, tall or short, male or female, foolish or wise, rich or poor. But whether it is to be just or unjust He does not determine, for as we say: “Heaven ordains all, save the fear of Heaven.”
At once the Holy One, blessed be He, beckons His messenger, him who holds sway over souls, and says to him: Deliver that soul before me. For in this manner have all creatures been formed since the beginning and so shall it be unto the end.
At once the soul comes before the Holy One, blessed be He, and bows down before Him. At this hour the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to it thus: Enter into that seed. On the instant the soul opens its mouth and declares: Lord of Creation, the world in which I have resided from the day You made me is sufficient unto me; give me leave, if this be Your pleasure, to remain without and not enter into that mortal seed, for I am holy and pure.
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And the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to the soul: The world into which I would have you enter is better than the world in which you find yourself now. It was for this seed that you were meant on the day I made you.
At once the Holy One, blessed be He, bids the soul enter that seed, though against its will. And the messenger returns and bids the soul enter into the womb of the mother. Then he summons thither two messengers to watch over the creature lest it fall. And over its head a light is kindled, as the Scripture has it: “When His candle shone upon my head,” and it looks about and beholds the world from beginning to end. And on the morrow the messenger takes this creature and leads it into the Garden of Eden and shows it the just, those who are dwelling in glory, and says to the creature: Do you know whence this soul came? And the creature makes answer and says: No. Then the messenger speaks to the creature thus: Him whom you behold in such glory and so exalted was formed like you in his mother’s womb; and so was this one, and this one; and they all obeyed the laws and ordinances of the Holy One, blessed be He. If you do as they have done, after death—for they too have died— you will be exalted in glory as they are. However, if you do not, your destiny will be to dwell in a place which I shall show you presently.
And in the evening he takes the creature to the place of the damned and shows it the sinners, those whom the minions of Hell confound and strike with fiery rods until they cry: Woe is us!—but no one takes pity on them. And once more the messenger speaks to the creature: My son, do you know who these are that the flames burn? And the creature answers: No. Whereupon the messenger says: Know that these too were formed from mortal seed in the wombs of their mothers, but they failed to obey and bear witness to the Holy One, blessed be He; it is for this that they suffer so. Know, my child, that you are destined to leave your abode and die. Therefore, do not choose the path of the sinner but the path of the just: and thus you shall live eternally. But where do we find proof that this is so? It is written: “Let thine heart retain My words: keep My Commandments, and live.”
And he journeys with the creature from morning until night and shows it all the places where it will tread, and the place in which it will dwell, and the place in which it will be buried at last. And after this he shows it the world of the good and the ill.
Toward evening he returns the creature to the womb of its mother. But the Holy One, blessed be He, shuts it up with doors and bars, as it is written: “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as it had issued out of the womb?” and it is written: “And I have put My words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of Mine hand”; and the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to it thus: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.” So the child lies in its mother’s womb for nine months; for the first three months it dwells in the lower part, for the second three months in the middle part, for the last three months in the upper part. It partakes of all that its mother eats and drinks; its waste, however, it does not pass, for else its mother would die. For this reason it is written: “Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number.”
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When the time has come for the creature to issue from the womb, that selfsame messenger visits it and says: Come forth, for it is time now to enter the world. But the creature replies: Did I not say once before to Him who spoke to me, Lord of Creation, that the world in which I have dwelt all this time is sufficient unto me? The messenger replies: The world which I would have you enter is more beautiful than that other one; and he adds: Unwilling you were formed in the womb of your mother; unwilling you are born and step forth into the world. The creature cries as it hears these words. And why does it cry? Because it must leave the world it has dwelt in. The moment it issues forth the messenger strikes it under the nose, and extinguishes the light that shone over its head and bids it step forth, unwilling; and the creature forgets all it has ever seen. And as it steps forth it cries. Why? Because at that hour seven worlds are led past it.
The first world resembles that of a king: every one inquires into the child’s pleasure; everyone desires to see and to kiss it, for this is the first year of his life.
The second world resembles that of a pig that is always completely surrounded by filth—and so is the child in his second year.
The third world resembles that of a kid gamboling in the pasture: so does the child frolic until his fifth year.
The fourth world resembles that of a horse proudly prancing along the road: so does the child bear himself proudly, flaunting his youth, until he has reached his eighteenth year.
The fifth world resembles that of a donkey on whose shoulders a pack-saddle is laid: in like manner burdens are placed upon him; he is given a wife, he begets sons and daughters, and has to provide for his children and servants.
The sixth world resembles that of a dog that must provide for itself: it snatches its food where it can, snatches from this one and pilfers from that one, and is not ashamed.
The seventh world resembles that of a scarecrow: for now he is utterly changed, even his servants curse him and wish him dead, and his children mock him to his face.
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At last the time has come for his death. The messenger of the Lord appears before him and says: Do you recognize me? And he replies: Yes. Then he adds: What brings you to me today? And the messenger says: I have come to take you away from this world.
Then he cries, his voice resounding from one end of the world to the other, but not a creature can hear him. And he says to the messenger: Did you not lead me out of two worlds and set me down in this world in which I dwell now?
And the messenger says to him: Have I not told you long since that “Unwilling you were begotten and born, and so you are destined to die, and at last will stand and give account before the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He?”
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