Why is it that a stone can outlast a human, when a human bears a more eternal soul than a stone?
Jewish mystical thought teaches that everything is alive. Without receiving some version of divine light, a soul, an entity could not exist at all. It’s just a question of how alive, what level of life. Life comes in a spectrum of four basic levels: mineral, vegetative, animated and human. A stone is a type of mineral life. It exists on one extreme of the spectrum; whereas, a human is on the other extreme of the spectrum and obviously much more alive than a stone. Naturally, one would expect an entity with a higher life force to outlast one with a dimmer life force. Yet, a childhood gem can easily outlive its owner.
It seems quite likely that in the times of the Garden of Eden and in the future resurrection a human will outlast a stone. In this mini-essay, I am only addressing current conditions.
What every soul hopes to be revealed on the earthly level. As a child yearns for closeness to his or her parent by imitating his or her ways, so too each soul seeks closeness to the Creator by imitating His ways, which is to give, give, give, give and give. The earthly level is the corner of reality with the highest degree of fill-able lack. Souls come here specifically for their opportunity to give. If one complains that there are too many problems here, well what does one expect a place specifically designed for giving to look like?
Being a lower soul level, a stone’s capacity for giving is relatively limited. A lot less form shifting is necessary for a stone’s soul to reveal its full capacity to give than would be necessary for a human soul. For a human soul, under usual conditions, one body is not enough for her to give in every kind of way she can. That’s why successive reincarnations are necessary (even without addressing the issue of past life “makeup”). Each body is genetically and culturally designed with unique understandings, talents and capacities. The way a human can give in this lifetime is unlike the way s/he was able to give in past lifetimes. Hence, “The Gate of Reincarnation” teaches that while the self-same soul may inhabit multiple bodies, each lifetime is usually a different “spark”.
Each “spark” or “facet of giving” needs a body differently formed to be revealed. This is why, unlike a stone, a highly eternal soul is matched with a highly temporal body - allowing the body to be shed in time to reveal a fresh “facet of giving”.
This can be compared to two raw pieces of food over a fire. One is huge and thick and other is small and thin. The one which is huge and thick requires constant turning over to get done; whereas, the one which is small and thin require relatively little turning over. So too in contrast to a stone’s soul, a human soul needs a lot of turning over for each of her sides to have contact with the fire of the earthly - unless some version of surround heating is introduced.
Hopefully, this is what is already beginning to occur. With scientific, therapeutic and technological advances it seems like it may be possible to remold existing bodies into vessels to reveal additional soul facets. For example, certain therapies may expand mind processing, which may increase the soul’s capacity to reveal additional facets without having to change bodies. Of course, there are relative levels and levels of this phenomenon. These advances may be spiritually speaking what is behind people living longer and longer than they used to on average.
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