Chapter 1
A Letter That Unlocked the Universe's Greatest Mystery
Einstein's letter to a grieving rabbi might hold the key to understanding our souls. In 1950, Rabbi Robert Marcus, devastated by his 11-year-old son's death, wrote to Einstein seeking comfort. Einstein's response contained a profound insight: "A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'... He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." This exchange between two remarkable minds-one who saved hundreds of children from Buchenwald and one who revolutionized physics-forms the foundation for Naomi Levy's spiritual exploration. The book has resonated with millions seeking meaning, including celebrities like Julianna Margulies and Norman Lear, who called it "a human and spiritual journey that illuminates the soul." Through personal stories, ancient wisdom, and modern science, Levy guides us to reconnect with our souls and discover the unity Einstein described.
Chapter 2
Searching for the Soul: Finding Our True Essence
From the age of four, I dreamed of becoming a rabbi. My father encouraged this dream despite girls being barred from rabbinical school then. When I was fifteen, he was murdered, and my world collapsed. People spoke of his "soul," but I felt only absence. Years later in college, I began sensing his presence. Worried I was losing my mind, I confided in a professor who assured me I was "meeting my soul." This experience rekindled my calling, and when the seminary finally admitted women, I became one of the first female rabbis.
Through mystical teachings, I discovered the soul isn't just our link to the afterlife but the key to this life-offering an Expansive Mind to see beyond our Narrow Mind's limitations. We live in what mystics call the World of Separation where life seems disconnected. Our Narrow Mind keeps us dwelling in smallness-petty, jealous, blinded by anger. But the Expansive Mind our soul offers allows us to see unity, compassion, and blessings.
Most questions people bring to me are actually soul questions. We sense we're not living the life we're meant to live. These longings arise because we've become separated from the inner voice meant to guide us. Our souls aren't lost-we've lost touch with them. The soul can't force you to listen, but it never stops trying. That empty feeling is the distance between where you are and where your soul knows you can be.
In Prague's Pinkas Synagogue, I discovered a profound answer through a simple drawing by Frantisek Brozan, a ten-year-old Holocaust victim. His artwork "Soul and Body" depicted a man with a miniature version of himself inside his torso-showing the soul as "the Me within me." This true version of ourselves, given by God, cannot be taken away even in imprisonment or death. It contains all our God-given strength and potential, waiting to be expressed in the world.
Chapter 3
The Three Levels of Soul: A Journey of Awakening
When Evan came to see me after his best friend James died of cancer at twenty-eight, he was searching for meaning beyond his formerly superficial life. I explained how the soul has three distinct layers, like the colors in a flame. The lowest level, Nefesh (the Life Force), appears as blue at the bottom of the flame-it's our basic will to live and grow, the energy we share with all living things. The middle layer, Ruach (the Love Force), is like the yellow light in a flame-the seat of emotion, intimacy, and the wisdom of the heart that reveals our true calling. The highest level, Neshama (the Eternal Force), is like the invisible heat above the flame-allowing us to experience unity with all things and glimpse eternity while still in this world.
I told Evan that acquiring your soul happens in stages-it must be earned layer by layer. While our bodies decay with age, our souls can keep growing stronger if we nurture them. The soul's journey expands both upward and outward like ripples in a pond-from self-concern to family love to universal connection. When Evan asked how to connect more deeply, I advised him to listen to his soul, study, pray, treat mistakes as growth opportunities, and eventually learn to see himself as a vessel for something greater flowing through him.
The challenge is that we've become experts at ignoring our souls' voices. Despite all our material pursuits, Ecclesiastes warns that "the soul is not filled" by our labors. The rabbis compare this relationship to a peasant who marries a princess-no worldly gifts impress her because "she belongs to the world above." Our souls long for eternal things-God, beauty, nature, learning, love, unity-and each has a unique mission only its owner can fulfill.
Chapter 4
Nourishing the Soul: Practices That Awaken Inner Wisdom
Despite all our material pursuits, Ecclesiastes warns that "the soul is not filled" by our labors. When we ignore the soul's needs, we develop symptoms of soul-sickness: materialism, emptiness, excessive ambition, jealousy, addiction, fear, anxiety. To heal our souls, we must learn to hear them again. Not by crushing our egos, which provide drive and character, but by taming them to listen. The soul never stops speaking; we must increase its volume through nourishing practices.
Meditation is powerful medicine not just for body and mind, but especially for the soul. Through meditation, we can connect more deeply to our own souls, to others' souls, and to the Soul of Souls. When we sit in stillness, we discover the noisy chatter of our minds, but beneath that noise is a steady, anchored presence-our soul patiently waiting for the mind to quiet down.
The Hebrew word "husa" offers a transformative mantra for meditation. Unlike the harsh inner critic many of us carry, husa represents the special compassion an artist has for their creation despite its imperfections. It's how God loves us-not as a punishing judge but as the Soul of the world cheering us on. Through regular husa meditation practice, we can soften our judgments of ourselves and others, allowing the soul's compassionate voice to grow louder than the critical judge within.
Music emerges as another central pathway to the soul, bypassing the mind to reach the heart directly. Music serves many purposes: it lifts spirits, unites strangers into "One Soul," awakens dormant souls, carries prayers, fuels revolutions, and transports us through time. For me personally, music provides the crucial transition between difficult pastoral duties like funerals and joyful celebrations.
Nature transforms us in ways our enclosed spaces cannot. In Sequoia National Park, standing before a two-thousand-year-old sequoia, I wept and momentarily disappeared-no thought, no weight, no me-just a being flowing effortlessly. As Einstein said, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." In nature, our souls feel alive and fed. The 23rd Psalm becomes personal: "You lay me down in green pastures, You lead me beside still waters, You restore my soul."
The Sabbath isn't about prohibitions but permission-permission for our souls to dream again. When Henry, a successful but empty entrepreneur, tried unplugging for Sabbath evenings, he rediscovered connection with his family and himself. The Sabbath spills its magic into all our days, teaching us to balance work and home, prose and poetry, ego and soul.
Chapter 5
Gaining Soul Vision: Seeing Beyond Appearances
Nourish and revive the soul and it will begin reviving you. The first subtle shift you may notice is in the realm of vision. What you see with your eyes is only a piece of truth. Daily our eyes deceive us, but the soul offers its expansive vision-a consciousness of the whole we struggle to perceive. Soon we may begin seeing the bigger picture, how seemingly random threads are woven together in a single majestic tapestry.
After getting a traffic ticket for a "California Roll" at a stop sign, I learned the importance of truly stopping-brake, count to three, feel the pull backward. The greatest sin against our future is losing hope-but the future isn't fixed. We can rewrite our life story and begin again. The antidote to ego's tunnel vision is simple yet difficult: truly stopping. Jews practice this when praying the Amida by taking three steps back before beginning. When we slow down and hold our plans lightly, revelation emerges.
One week before Beth and Eric's wedding, they sat in my study barely able to look at each other-fighting over his desire to wear red Converse high-tops with his tuxedo and tablecloth colors. Rather than seeing a doomed relationship, I knew how to defuse this bomb by leading them from pettiness to gratitude. I asked how they first met, moving them from their narrow problem to the breadth of their connection. Eric described spotting Beth at Urth Caffe, approaching her with food stuck between his teeth. Their laughter softened their hearts, and fifteen years later, they remain happily married with three children.
The Psalm says, "I called to God from my narrowness, and God answered me with a vast expanse." Between painful events and our responses lies an expanse where the soul dwells, offering more thoughtful options than the ego's knee-jerk reactions. Like Hagar in the Bible who suddenly "saw a well" that was there all along, the soul's expansive vision reveals choices we couldn't see before. This journey from narrowness to expansiveness begins with breath, creating space for new perspectives that can transform our emotions, senses, thoughts, and actions.
Chapter 6
From Vision to Action: Bringing Soul to Life
Freedom requires not just changed thinking but changed behavior. The Life Force within the soul must ignite action. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explained after marching with Dr. King in Selma: "Our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying." Dreams arise from the soul, but require the body to fulfill them-transformation comes when intention unites with action.
Can people truly change? Despite a cynical therapist's claim that "people don't really change," I've witnessed profound transformations in countless lives. We exist between two SOS states: the dire "Save Our Ship" crisis that forces change, and the subtle "Same Old Stuff" that keeps us comfortable in mediocrity. The soul sees time differently than the ego does-understanding life's brevity makes every wasted moment an emergency. Change happens when we recognize and seize moments of grace (Et Ratzon)-spiritual openings when normally locked doors swing wide.
The Hebrew phrase "Hayom harat olam," often mistranslated as "Today the world is born," actually means "Today is pregnant forever"-words first spoken by the prophet Jeremiah in despair. This haunting concept describes our tendency to conceive ideas but never birth them. Like my own panic when holding my friend's newborn while nine months pregnant myself, many of us fear completing what we've begun.
Scott Tansey, a photographer with a tremor who attended my services, captured thousands of breathtaking panoramas over forty years but never printed a single one until a sermon broke through his defenses. His fear stemmed from childhood trauma-his father's death in a plane crash taught him that what you love can be taken away. What keeps us "pregnant forever" might be fear of judgment, inner criticism, responsibility, or simple inertia. The soul, however, descended to this realm to know fulfillment, not just potential.
Chapter 7
The Love Force: Discovering Intimacy and Calling
As we develop Life Force and gain wider vision, freedom, and the power to act, we prepare to welcome the Love Force-the second layer of soul called Ruach, the yellow light within a flame. Ruach's domain is wisdom of the heart and emotional intelligence. This Love Force helps us lower our defenses to experience true intimacy and opens us to our calling. The Infinite One speaks to us not only from eternity but from within, helping us uncover our soul's mission in this world.
Every year before Yom Kippur, I have an anxiety dream. This year, I dreamt I was at a retreat when people asked me about the essence of Yom Kippur. My mind went blank, but words emerged: "Yom Kippur comes down to just two themes: First: 'And I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.' And second: 'And I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.'"
We all begin life with open hearts, but inevitably get hurt. We make vows: "I'll never get fooled again," "I'll never forgive her," "I'll never pray again." These vows slowly turn our hearts to stone-protecting us from pain but also blocking love, joy, and spontaneity. After my father's murder, my heart became stone. I was filled with anger, hating everyone including myself and God. But at the Western Wall a year later, I smelled my father's presence and broke down sobbing. My vow was annulled-I didn't have to go it alone.
Rachel's life changed forever on July 20, 2011, when she accidentally hit Jack, an elderly man, with her car while reaching for her phone. What began as a typical day for this perfectionist supermom turned into a nightmare when Jack later died from his injuries. Consumed by guilt and shame, Rachel sought forgiveness from God, from Jack's family, and from herself. Following Maimonides's teaching, she visited Jack's grave to ask his soul for forgiveness. After three and a half years of reaching out to Jack's family, Hannah and Kevin finally agreed to meet. Instead of the anger Rachel expected, she received compassion, hugs, and forgiveness.
When I officiate weddings, I emphasize that the traditional Jewish marriage blessing teaches five qualities essential for a holy relationship: joy, romance, friendship, camaraderie, and peace. Joy manifests in six forms: rejoicing, happiness, singing, dancing, celebration, and elation-a good partner should make you laugh. Romance, while initially a gift, requires nurturing to survive over time. Friendship must be built through honesty and loyalty. Camaraderie transforms lovers into family. Peace (shalom) means wholeness-seeing that differences lead to a greater whole rather than antagonism.
Chapter 8
Finding Your Soul's Purpose: The Call That Won't Be Silenced
As the Love Force grows stronger within you, you may begin feeling something pulling you. This call extends beyond professional life-sacred calls tug at you constantly, and even your challenges can be keys to your calling. You are needed daily, with every moment asking you to show up with all your gifts.
Parker Palmer teaches that vocation comes from the Latin word for "voice"-it's not a goal we pursue but a calling we hear. Our strongest gifts are often ones we barely recognize possessing. Sometimes we yearn for things against our soul's grain while the ego makes its own plans. When you align with your soul's call, life falls into place and fears give way to purpose.
How do we follow our soul's mission? The rational mind says play to your strengths, but your soul whispers to look at your shortcomings too-your very weakness may be the key to your life's work. Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, "The Indiana Jones of Wildlife Protection," exemplifies this truth. As a child with a severe stutter, Alan was placed in "retarded classes" and stopped talking to people entirely. Yet remarkably, Alan could speak fluently to animals without stuttering. In his bedroom closet, he'd talk to his pets-a turtle, chameleon, hamster, snake-believing they understood him when humans didn't.
After finally learning to control his speech at nineteen, Alan pursued zoology and wildlife conservation. That stuttering, lonely child became a giant in conservation, establishing the world's first jaguar preserve in Belize and securing the largest tiger reserve in Burma. His greatest achievement was creating the Jaguar Corridor stretching from Mexico to Argentina. Though once angry at God for his childhood suffering, Alan came to see his stutter as a divine gift that made his life's work possible. His inability to speak taught him to read people through silence and pauses. "I can hear people loudest when they're not talking," he told me. "Words are almost irrelevant... You don't need words to get to the soul of another person."
I was fast asleep when my phone rang after midnight. "Rabbi, Cate tried to kill herself," sobbed her father. Cate was a bright-eyed twelve-year-old studying with me for her bat mitzvah who loved challenging God with questions. At the hospital's psychiatric unit, I found her parents shattered. In Cate's room stood a harsh guard who barked orders at her like a criminal. When he left, I hugged Cate, who confessed she didn't know why she'd attempted suicide. We sat in silence until a new guard arrived.
This man, Michael, approached differently: "My name is Michael, and the good Lord has sent me to be your guardian angel. I'm here to watch over you and make sure you're safe from harm." Cate's face calmed, tears of gratitude welling in her eyes. "I'm right outside your door," he said before leaving. "Remember, I'm Michael, your angel."
Twenty years later, Cate is thriving with a family of her own. But the Tale of Two Guards remains embedded in my heart-the first operating from ego and dominance, Michael from empathy, love and light. He saw his work as divine calling. You have the power to choose how to approach any profession. You can focus on just getting the job done, or understand you're here to do God's work.
Chapter 9
The Eternal Force: Glimpsing Unity and Eternity
As we nourish and awaken the soul, the Love Force transforms into a throne for Neshama, the Eternal Force, the third layer of soul-the invisible light of a flame. Experiencing Neshama isn't a one-time event, and few people learn to live fully in its realm. Yet when it's active within you, you become aware of your soul's divine sense of unity, akin to Einstein's description of the "whole" we are usually blind to. The Eternal Force gives us glimpses of heaven here, where time melts into eternity, death becomes less frightening, and we may realize our deceased loved ones have never truly left us.
As a twelve-year-old, I once saw a man trying to extinguish a car fire, feeling pity until I realized it was my own father. This moment revealed the "optical delusion" Einstein described-our tendency to see ourselves as separate from others. We say "Thank God it's not me" to protect ourselves from vulnerability, but this denial makes us small. The soul doesn't need protection; it craves connection. We're all "homeward bound"-hobos seeking our way back to our essence. When we claim our empathy, we claim our destiny.
In the Bible, the forty-two stops of the Israelites' desert journey serve as a spiritual blueprint for our lives. The Baal Shem Tov taught that every soul must pass through forty-two journeys from birth until death. Life's apparent detours and setbacks are actually raising your soul rung by rung. Even when life feels disjointed, every hardship has been subtly leading you forward. Your soul has work to do in every place and circumstance. Sometimes it teaches willpower, sometimes compassion; sometimes receiving, sometimes giving.
One morning when our kids were little, my harried husband Rob called from the car asking me to "buy him some time." After a confused exchange, I realized he meant the herb thyme! This misunderstanding sparked a philosophical conversation with the herb vendor at the farmer's market about the nature of time itself. Time keeps spinning out of control, with years rushing by-yesterday my children were in car seats, and now my nest is empty. The Psalms describe our days as "a passing shadow"-specifically like the shadow of a bird flying overhead, gone in an instant.
But I discovered how to slow time down during a silent retreat with other rabbis. In that silence, I experienced days that felt like weeks, breaking through to another dimension where time stood still. I realized God's promise of "orech yamim" isn't about long life, but about long, full days-days with color and shape that feel deeply lived. The holiest moments aren't the showy ones like graduations or weddings, but those unexpected ordinary times when you relax and let the magic in. We need to "kill time"-smash the clock and be available for something sacred to happen.
When Jerry, an eighty-seven-year-old congregant, confessed his terror of dying, I held his papery hand and shared that even Moses had begged for more time on earth. Over the following weeks, I brought Jewish teachings about death that had comforted me-texts about the soul's reluctance to leave the body, about how the soul comes from eternity and descends to fulfill a holy mission. Jerry was particularly moved by the rabbinic account of Moses's soul refusing to leave his body until God personally drew it out with a kiss. When his end came, I rushed to his side where he whispered, "Rabbi, I'm ready to say the final Shema with you." As we recited "Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," everything seemed to melt into oneness. Time stopped, worry departed, and all that remained was love.
Chapter 10
Coming Full Circle: Finding Our Way Home
After leaving a message for Einstein expert Alice Calaprice, I received a call back within an hour. When I explained I was searching for Rabbi Marcus's original letter to Einstein, Alice promised to help. The next day, she emailed me the letter I had been seeking throughout my journey. As I read Rabbi Marcus's heartbreaking words about his son's death from polio, everything became clear-why Einstein wrote what he wrote and how his words were meant to comfort a grieving father.
Rabbi Marcus had written to Einstein describing his son's death as having "shattered the very structure of my existence" and asked whether there was any comfort or consolation for what had happened. He questioned whether his "beautiful darling child" had been "forever wedded into dust" or if there was something that "defied the grave."
At the American Jewish Archives, I discovered Rabbi Marcus's personal letter to his deceased son, written three months after Jay's death. In this intimate writing, Rabbi Marcus revealed he already held the answer he had sought from Einstein: "My unceasing love for you is immortal, my son; it is a stream direct from the fount of God and can never dry up... we shall once again be united in eternity." Everything had come full circle-Rabbi Marcus's letter had found new life, teaching us that within us lies a soul that is eternal and immortal.
When Jeni's father Michael was murdered, the family chose to donate his organs. His heart went to Tom, a college guidance counselor with congestive heart failure who could barely walk ten steps. Within forty-eight hours of receiving Michael's heart, Tom was walking again. Six months later, he was skiing. A beautiful relationship developed between Tom and Jeni's family through letters, calls, and gifts. When Jeni got engaged, she faced the heartbreaking reality that her father couldn't walk her down the aisle. In a moment of inspiration, she invited Tom to take her father's place. Meeting for the first time, Tom took Jeni's hand and placed it on his pulse so she could feel her father's heart beating.
Through these connections, we see Einstein's truth-the veil of separation is a delusion. As Sefer Yetzirah teaches, "Their end is embedded in their beginning and their beginning in their end." Everything comes full circle. The soul's journey isn't linear but cyclical, always bringing us back to where we started, though transformed by the journey. In this way, we discover that what Einstein wrote to Rabbi Marcus wasn't just about physics or philosophy, but about the deepest truth of our existence-that separation is an illusion, and in the realm of the soul, we are eternally connected to everything and everyone we love.
