Our Unique Neshamot
BY RABBANIT RACHELLE SPRECHER FRAENKEL
In a video that touched Jewish hearts around the world, Yehuda Bachar – a strong, broad-shouldered young man in a tank top, a necklace around his neck, looking every bit the festivalgoer on his way to the Nova trance music gathering – is seen driving to the party. Yet, in what feels at first like a moment of jarring contrast, he is softly singing Elokai Neshama to the moving melody by Alma.
Yehuda was murdered in the Nova massacre. When his story emerged, we learned more about him: raised in an ultra-Orthodox home, he had chosen to leave his family’s way of life, but remained a man filled with faith and inner light. That morning, on his way to Nova, a friend sent him a message of despair. Yehuda chose to respond not with advice or argument, but with this very song – its words a reminder that even when you feel stained, worn out, and broken beyond repair, your soul remains pure, clean, and untouched. It can never be soiled. Even when you feel utterly alone, there is One Who breathed that soul into you, Who guards it every moment, and it is never too late to begin anew.
For Yehuda, gratitude was both a mission and his guiding instrument: “As long as the soul is within me, I give thanks before You.” In light of the tragic circumstances in which his story came to the world’s attention, the blessing’s closing words – “Who returns souls to lifeless bodies” – have taken on an even deeper meaning.
I encountered this short prayer again in a different context. A friend once told me about her own close friend who, for several years, had stopped observing mitzvot. After a long journey through the Far East, this friend returned home – and it was clear that something within her had changed. When she was asked what had happened, she replied simply: “I’ve started praying again.” “How so?” “Every day, I say Elokai Neshama.”
It is fascinating that a mere paragraph of six short lines could make the difference between a life of prayer and a life without it. How invaluable could it be if we managed to truly pray even one paragraph, with absolute focus and devotion? It is also worth pondering – why this passage in particular? What is it about these words that draws a person face-to-face with the deepest truth of their being: that they are at once mortal and Infinite?
The famous Mishnah of Akavya ben Mahalalel is often associated with somber thoughts of mortality and funerals:
“Reflect upon three things, and you will not come into the grip of sin: Know from where you came, to where you are going, and before Whom you will ultimately give account. From where did you come? From a putrid drop. Where are you going? To a place of dust, worms, and maggots. And before Whom are you destined to give account and reckoning? Before the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He” (Pirkei Avot 3:1).
Yet the 16th-century Salonika sage, Rabbi Moshe Almosnino, noticed something striking. Why does the Mishnah repeat itself? Rather than stating the facts outright, it poses these as questions, twice, and only then states an answer. His explanation: a person must reflect in two dimensions. Yes, you come from a lowly origin and will return to dust. But before you consider that, know also that your soul was quarried from beneath the Throne of Glory. “Know from where you come” – from the loftiest place. Let that awareness elevate your intellect and your spirit. And “Know where you are going” – not only toward the grave, but toward the return of your soul and spirit to the G-d Who gave it, for from Him it was drawn, going back to the home from which it came in its youth.
Rava, upon completing his prayers, would add a personal supplication: “My G-d, before I was created, I was not worthy. And now that I have been created, it is as if I had not been created… I am as dust in my life, all the more so in my death. Behold, I stand before You like a vessel filled with shame and humiliation… May it be Your will, L-rd my G-d, that I sin no more, and that what I have already sinned before You, may You wipe away in Your great mercy – but not through suffering or harsh afflictions” (Berachot 17a). This raw and humble prayer, facing the fragility of existence and the heartbreak of falling short of one’s divine potential, eventually became part of the vidui confession of Yom Kippur.
Popular culture sometimes rephrases it more brightly: “Your birthday is the day G-d decided the world could not go on without you.” I’ve seen it on greeting cards and bumper stickers, often attributed to various rabbis. In the dark humor of my son’s yeshiva high school, the addition was inevitable: “And the day you die is the day G-d decided the world can manage without you.”
To my surprise, the bumper sticker actually appears in the writings of Rav Kook. In his meditative style, he reflects:
“Before I was created, it was proof that the world had no need of me; had there been something incomplete without me, I would have been born earlier. The moment I was created was the moment Heaven determined I was needed to fulfill some purpose in the perfection of reality. If my actions align with that purpose, then in this moment I am truly worthy (kedai). But if they do not, then in truth I am still as ‘unworthy’ as before I was born” (Iggrot Ra’aya #91).
I returned to these words recently when a close friend, an officer in combat in Gaza, was severely wounded. In the first days, we could think only of the shattering physical cost and the life forever altered. Later came the realization of just how close he had been to death – and the deep awareness that G-d had decided the world could not manage without him. In that moment, he was declared truly kedai.
I then remembered a shiur by Rabbi Tamir Granot in his Tel Aviv yeshiva on the eve of Yom Kippur. After studying Rava’s prayer and Rav Kook’s meditation, he suggested that each student add their own personal version of the prayer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and offered his own prayer as an example:
“My G-d! Before I was created, I was an infinite wholeness – a spark of the Divine above. And now that I have been created, I have been given the chance to manifest that infinite perfection in a finite world. Even though I am dust in my life and dust in my death, and though I know I am bound by the limits of time and matter, still my soul has no boundary, no end. Therefore my dreams and aspirations are also without boundary or end. The wholeness destined for me is likewise without limit. I have within me a G-d-given power to fulfill my unique mission in the world. And if I am lacking, if I fall short – it is only because I am dust, for so I was created. But in every moment I yearn to grow, to perfect myself, to bring my vision of wholeness into every facet of my soul and my deeds in the world. Master of the Universe, I rejoice in You, and may You rejoice in me. Indeed, I am worthy (kedai)! And with Your help, I will yet be kedai.”
Rabbanit Rachelle Sprecher Fraenkel is a Yoetzet Halacha and Senior Scholar at Nishmat, and Head of Hilcheta Advanced Halacha Studies at Matan.