When a Mother’s Womb Turns into a Grave
In his monumental work Kohelet, King Sh’lomoh seeks to describe how man, having reached his old age (Ecc 12:1), is returning to his everlasting home (Ecc 12:5) where he had come from. The old man’s mind begins to darken, as the autumn of his life with clouds and rains is approaching (Ecc 12:2), all as a description of human life coming to an end. The dissolution of the life by which the separation of soul and body and the return of the soul to the Creator is thus completed, while the ordinary life continues in its course (Ecc 12:3-5). And the end of the life-force and the earthly body is the end of the perishing man. The body returns to the dust, as it was originally, for from the dust it was made of (Gen 3:19), and the life-force goes back to its Creator to whom it belongs and originated from (Psa 104:29), as the wise man says,
And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the ruach returns to Elohim who gave it. (Ecc 12:7)
This is the natural course of human life: man is born, lives, and dies, and this is the end of his labor. “All is short-lived” (Ecc 1:2), says the wise man. But what if life is terminated before its intended proper end or its full extent? What if life is cut short even before it had the chance to begin?
Does this innocent baby know what is outside of the mother’s womb?
It is the object of this work to expose what has been obscured in the translations of Genesis 9 that significantly changes the message of the Torah. But this is only possible when we know what the Hebrew text indeed reads. We will explain the reason for this in due course. We will now return to continue what we commenced in the article “The Real Face of Abortion America Must See It to Believe It!”, which we suggest the reader review before proceeding here. Thus, in the following, we would like to posit another way to look at Genesis 9:6.
Souls of man
By the wisdom of Zohar, “a deep secret has been entrusted to the wise hearted”. There are three levels to the non-physical composition (soul) of man, each level attached one to the other. These three levels are called by the Hebrew words nefesh, ruach and neshama, which terms we will employ here instead of foreign substitutes which may or may not exist in the foreign languages. The first and lowest of the three levels of soul is nefesh. Nefesh is the life-force, the vitality, that builds the physical body, as the verse states, “The blood is the life-force/nefesh”. When a person is formed in the womb, the Creator breaths nefesh of life into the nostrils, and the embryo becomes a living being (Genesis 2:7). Nefesh being the life of man is his conciseness comprising in itself all feelings, emotions, knowledge, understanding, etc., i.e., his self-awareness that define the term “person”. This includes also man’s awareness of procreation. When a man unites with his wife, then his nefesh (vitality) is aroused. At that moment the man’s nefesh places itself within his seed for impregnating his wife with life-force. And that moment of conception, the new life starts being formed by three co-creators: the Eternal, husband, and wife. The body of the embryo is built from this life-force, nefesh.
Now when a person dies in this world, the following occurs. The nefesh never leaves the place where the body is buried but remains there in a latent form. The ruach (the second level of soul) is the force that causes nefesh to endure in the body and the body organs to function according to the pre-ordained DNA code. Nefesh leaves the body when a person dies and returns to its Creator, as it was with Him before the conception of life. This secret is reflected in the verse by the wise man: “The ruach returns to Elohim who gave it” (Ecc 12:7). Ruach leaves this world when a person dies, separates from the nefesh which remains at the burial place, and ascends to a place called “Gan Eden”. This is what is meant by the verse. The neshama is the life force higher than the nefesh and the ruach. It is the spark of the Eternal which He breathes into man and thus ignites the life in him. Neshamah is the channel of communication (an interface) between the human being and the Eternal. Neshamah is also the sub-consciousness of man which seats deep down in him. Without neshamah, the earthly body, nefesh, and ruach comprise the primitive nature of man. Now, when man dies, neshamah separates itself from the nefesh and ruach and returns to the Creator. This is what we learn from Zohar, Sitrei Torah Page 81a briefly and plainly explained here.
Life of human in human
Good and evil are laid out for everyone to see. After the Universal Deluge, the Supernal One blessed Noach and his family with the words to be fruitful and increase so that they would fill the earth. And He also said,
And surely your blood of your lives (nefesh) will I require from the hand of every beast will I require it. And from the hand of human being, even from the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life (nefesh) of human being. (Gen 9:5)
And the correct interpretation of this statement is, “the blood which is the life (nefesh) in human I will require. I will settle the account of the blood you shed by punishing you, if you take the life of another human being”. Rabbeinu Bahya comments on this verse that the deeper meaning of “but I will demand an accounting for the blood of your life-force” is the prohibition to commit suicide, for the Scripture found it necessary to say, “from the hand of human being, will I require the life of human being”. This appears to us to be correct.
Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood is shed, for in the image of Elohim has He made man. (Gen 9:6)
Although this translation is easy to read, nonetheless it is inaccurate. Why is there necessity for this redundancy since verse 5 has already made it very clear to the reader that if one takes the life of another, he will die without taking pity on the life of a murder? What is being conveyed here by the words “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood is shed”? The answer is hinted at in the apparently extraneous word “human”, for the Torah is not merely being repetitive here. A question arises therefore as to what is written in the Hebrew text of the verse.
At first reading of such a translation, it appears that the Torah has revealed the penalty for murder, i.e., a capital punishment, for it is clear to the reader that the perception of a capital punishment is expressed by the words “by man his blood is shed”. And the reason for such a severe level of punishment is expressed by “for in the image of Elohim has He made man”. The warning not to commit murder is legislated in the very Covenant (Exodus 20:13): “Do not commit murder!” Although this is absolutely true, the Hebrew text of verse 6 reveals something more. This is the literal translation of verse 6,
Whoever sheds blood of the human in human, his blood shall be shed, for in the image of Elohim has He made man. (Gen 9:6)
What exactly is being described here, and to what question we are answering? In order to make this clear to the reader, the Torah says, “human in human”. Understand this according to what it literally says in Hebrew. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood is shed” in Hebrew literally reads adam ba’adam, meaning “human in human”. What is being conveyed here? The Torah is telling us something beyond what is immediately obvious. The wording of adam ba’adam teaches what Sanhedrin 57b explains in the following: “One is liable even for killing fetuses. One who sheds the blood of a person in person, his blood shall be shed. What is a person that is in a person? You must say: This is a fetus that is in its mother’s womb”. If the Torah had written what the translations claim it says, we would not have known the abortion is murder. Thus, the reason why adam ba’adam is necessary, although the passage would have been understood without it, as prohibition against taking one’s life, is because Torah wanted to prohibit the murder of the unborn. The choice of words by the Torah teaches against the abortion. And the reason the Torah uses the word adam “human” was to remind us that what we call “fetus” today is a living human being. Thus, the following command emphasizes what was warned in the previous verse, namely, not to terminate life at its conception,
And you, be fruitful and increase, bring forth abundantly in the earth and increase in it. (Gen 9:7)
Although the issue of abortion referred to the generation before the Deluge, the same issue seems as relevant today as ever. The Torah wanted to make it clear that after the abortion is explicitly forbidden at the onset of the new world after the Deluge, mankind is bidden to be fruitful and increase abundantly in the earth. We may therefore best understand what the Torah has in mind by recalling the issue of abortion.
How Judaism sees abortion
The reader’s mind will settle when he/she reads Rambam’s interpretation of this. Rambam, who codified all Torah laws in a single work known as Mishneh Torah, also approached the verse from the angle of Sanhedrin 57b to state that the Sages ruled that if complications arise and a pregnant woman cannot give birth, it is permitted to abort the fetus in her womb, for the fetus is considered in such a case endangering its mother. This is the case when in some very rare medical conditions the fetus imperils the mother’s life due to incompatability of the mother and baby’s bloods or makes the delivery impossible or too dangerous for the mother to survive due to a bad position in the womb or other endangering circumstances. In such a case, the life of the mother takes precedent over the life of the baby. But Rambam also states that if the head of the fetus emerges (the delivery has started), it should not be touched, because “one life should not be sacrificed for another. Although the mother may die, this is the nature of the world”, states Mishneh Torah. In other words, when the delivery has started, it could not be stopped and must go through. If the mother dies due to complications, the life of the baby must be preserved, for it takes precendent over the life of the mother. Taking the life of the baby in such a case is considered murder, which is known today by the deceiving term “partial birth abortion”. Mishneh Torah also states that whether a person kills an infant that is one day old, he should be executed if he killed him intentionally, for it is murder, or exiled (in a sanctuary city as defined in the Torah), if he killed him unintentionally. This is the case today when a baby, who has survived the “partial birth abortion” is left aside without medical care to die. This is murder according to the Torah. The termination of pregnancy, therefore, for reasons other than codified in the Mishneh Torah is completely unacceptable.
With that said, it is incumbent upon us to know matters that are revealed to us in the Torah—that abortion is murder. This subject requires a lengthy exposition, but it is all explained in our commentary in the series “Sanctity of Life”, to which we would like to turn the reader’s attention.
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