על תורת הנשמה הכפולה בקבלת המאה השש עשרה ומקורותיה

The 16th-century Kabbalists of Safed held various views of the human soul, envisioning it as stretched between heaven and earth, bridging the divine realm and the human body. According to their beliefs, the soul is not only divided into two parts—one rooted in divinity and the other grounded in human existence—but also extends across the entire spectrum of emanation, from the different dimensions of the god head to the human body. By overcoming the division and distance between these two parts (without nullifying their fundamental separation), the fully realized religious persona can draw divine abundance from the upper part of the soul, which is connected to the highest lights of the divine, down to the lower part. This leads to the integration of the higher soul into human consciousness and allows the flow of the Holy Spirit into the human recipient. The reception of the Holy Spirit equated with God, is mediated by the higher part of the soul attached to the highest aspect of the Godhead. This study investigates this theory and examines its roots in earlier Kabbalistic and earlier philosophical and rabbincal sources.