Boaz asked Staff ago Dear Daat Emet,
Recently, because of a friend who returned to religion, I have become aware of the many significant puzzling opinions about spiritual differences between Jews and other people. One of the common opinions is that Jews have an exclusive on souls.
This has raised a number of questions for me:
What does it mean that a Jew has a “soul” and gentiles have only “spirit”?
Does this refer to a spiritual “closeness” with G-d?
Is this an addition to “in G-d’s image created He him” and thus the creation of man is replaced by the creation of the Jewish man?
What is the source of the idea that only Jews have souls?
Boaz
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Dear Boaz,
The basic, fundamental view upon which religious Judaism rests is faith in G-d’s Revelation to the “chosen” Jewish people at Sinai. From this faith stems the view that the Jewish people are different from other people. Why would G-d have revealed Himself only to the Jews if they are no different from other human beings?
Based on this fundamental belief R’ Simeon the son of Yochai arrived at a racist conclusion: “You [Jews] are called Man and gentiles are not” (Yevamot 61a).
For more detail see the essay The Jewish Nation Is The People Chosen To Fulfill The Purpose Of Creation. Some passages from the essay:
This world view of the Jewish people as the chosen people is the lot of all rabbis, as shown in the entire holy canon and specifically in the Torah.
This faith leads to one inescapable conclusion. The Jewish people are better than the other nations. This chauvinist conclusion will cause any reasonable soul to rebel, and will shock all who love equality.
Therefore do not be astonished when you read the chauvinist and repulsive words of Rabbi Judah HaLevi in his book Kuzari (essay five, paragraph 20), “The least of animals is more exalted than the highest of plants, and the least of men is more exalted than the best of animals. Thus the least of the children of the Divine Torah [the Jews] is more exalted than the best of the nations [the gentiles], for they do not have the Divine Torah, for the Torah, which is from the Divine, bestows upon souls the customs and characteristics of kings.”
The same holds of the words of Rabbi A.Y. HaKohen Kook in his book Orot Yisrael, chapter five, paragraph 10: “The difference between the Jewish soul…and the souls of all the gentiles, of all levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the anima of man and the anima of the beast, since the latter difference [between man and beast] is only quantitative, while the former [between Jew and gentile] is qualitative.” There are many more such statements in Rabbinic literature.
To separate the chosen Jewish people from the other nations, G-d commanded the chosen people perform circumcisions to show their difference from the other nations.
It is written (Sefer HaChinnuch, commandment 2) in his explanation of the reason for the commandment of circumcision: “One root reason for this precept is that the Eternal Lord, be He blessed, wished to affix in the people that He set apart to be called by His name a permanent sign in their bodies to differentiate them from the other nations in their bodily form, just as they are differentiated in their spiritual form, their very ‘exits and entrances’ [their purpose and way in the world] not being the same. This [physical] differentiation was set in the golden orb [the male sexual organ] as it is the causal source if the existence of the [human] species — apart from the fact that this constitutes the perfection of the physical form, as we have stated. The Eternal Lord (be He blessed) desired to perfect the [physical] character of the Chosen People [by removing the foreskin].”
You see with your own eyes that the view of the rabbinic world is racist in the worst sense of the word. The chosen nation is separated from the other nations of the world by a physical mark, “their very ‘exits and entrances’ not being the same,” to complete their character and physical perfection.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet