Introduction

Although I hate to admit it, I have become more and more convinced that Thomas Hobbes had it right: human life is nasty, brutish, and short.

But so what?

In the end, all we truly have control over are our own souls, and often those souls must fight with themselves in arenas of our own making.

The real issue—and it is a spiritual issue—is how we face up to that hard truth, to the lifelong and, at times, fierce battle between who we are and who we want to be. That struggle can be intense (and, for some of us, stultifying).

As someone who has been both a rabbi and a martial artist for the past fifteen years, I have always been amazed at the striking similarities I’ve discovered as I continue to pursue these different and seemingly oppositional paths. Whatever weaknesses I possess, or mistakes I make, invariably carry over from one field to the next; whatever teachings, principles, or techniques I learn that advance and expand my skills in one area are inevitably mirrored by advances and growth in the other.

When I earned my black belt in karate just after rabbinic ordination, I had learned not only a particular set of combat skills, but a wide array of tools that would help me in my vocation as a religious teacher and counselor—commitment, patience, humility, the power of repetition and practice, empathy, the ability to channel my strength in positive ways, self-sacrifice. I had also learned to confront— and grow from—some of the darker aspects of my own restless soul—the fears, insecurities, wounds, anger, and occasionally violent impulses that resided in those hidden places within me.

Fighting taught me how to teach.

Like other animals in the natural world, all human beings have a “fight or flight” response embedded deep inside of us. It is our personalities and histories that largely determine toward which of these two poles we are more predisposed, whether when battered and backed into a corner we boldly stand toe-to-toe against our opponents (be they external or internal ones) or decide instead to take a dive.

If, as Carl Jung argued, every human being has a “shadow” within us to confront and contend with, then, in a very real sense, we are all engaged in a psychic battle on a daily basis, especially in this troubled and troubling era—and the prize isn’t a title or a belt, but a healthy, well-balanced soul. That is a fundamental goal of religion and religious practice, and that has been my own goal and struggle. I have come to the personal conclusion over the years that no theology or spiritual system that discusses God, without equal reference to the development and improvement of the individual spirit, is one that warrants our time, energy, or serious attention.

In Christianity, the image and symbolism of the cross is of paramount importance—it is meant, in part, to teach us about the challenges of being human, but also about the reality of redemption. In classical Islam, the concept of jihad relates, in many understandings, to the internal struggle that each of us must go through in order to grow in strength of character and in our relationship to God and others. And in Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths posit that life entails suffering—but that there is a path that allows the resolute (and enlightened) to escape its sting.

Sun Tzu’s ancient Chinese manual, The Art of War, is read today not just by future officers in military academies but by people the world over as a valuable code of behavior and guide to success, an aid in the way they conduct their lives, their interpersonal relationships, and their work. But the sayings and practices of history’s great spiritual warriors can do the same thing for modern-day men and women seeking to overcome their fears, empower their souls, and push past their obstacles.

This book’s objective is to provide a step-by-step program for contemporary searchers to become spiritual warriors ourselves. By interweaving the teachings of sages, mystics, and biblical figures with some of my own insights and personal experiences as a rabbi, seeker, and martial artist, The Challenge of the Soul offers a path toward self-empowerment and, ultimately, self-transcendence, a guide toward the inner redemption that so many of us in this disturbing time so desperately crave.

These are the principles, practices, and concepts I have found to be necessary to achieve that goal, which we will explore in the pages ahead:
• Openness
• Introspection
• Discipline
• Courage
• Creativity
• Stamina
• Restraint
• Perseverance

What are the qualities of a spiritual warrior? An understanding of, and mastery over, one’s own soul; insight and perspective; a sense of mission.

How do I define the word soul, that entity so vital to our path and program? What is its nature and relationship to God? Before I answer that question and starting point, it is worth noting that Aristotle thought that there were actually three different and distinct types of souls that inhere in the world: the nutritive soul (which even plants can possess), the sensitive soul (which is a part of nonhuman animals), and the rational soul (which belongs exclusively to human beings). The hierarchy is clear, and it is also cumulative—while a plant will never get beyond merely trying to nourish and sustain itself, only humanity is capable of self-preservation, sensitivity to and awareness of the world around us, and exercising our minds through the utilization of reason.

As a rabbi, this explanation is not enough for me. It leaves no room for God, or for that relationship with the divine that we often refer to as “spirituality.” So I must turn to the Jewish tradition to find both my pedagogic answer and my personal anchor. It is in Jewish mysticism—and in the Kabbalah, specifically—that the soul is explained in a way that rings the most true to me, intellectually and through my own experiences.

The answer can be discovered in the mystical acronym NaRaN: nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, the three different and interconnected levels of our single soul. Like Aristotle, the Kabbalists believed that the “soul” had a hierarchy of levels. The nefesh, the lowest rung, might be thought of as our life force, our drive to survive and to act (at times, out of more primal impulses and desires). Nefesh is related to how we express ourselves. Ruach, the next and higher level, could be conceived of as our spirit, the conscious reality inside us that yearns to be more than it is, but that also contains within it a spark of divinity. Ruach relates to self-empowerment and self-actualization. The third, highest level of the soul is neshamah, the last link in our invisible chain of being and the one that brings us closest to God. Neshamah is who we are at our most holy. It is not about self-expression or self-realization—it is about the transcendence of the self.

The Gaon of Vilna (1720–1797), one of the most influential rabbinic authorities of all time, was influenced himself by many of the core ideas of the Kabbalah—and that included ideas about the nature of the human soul. The Gaon believed firmly in the tripartite structure of NaRaN, but he believed that it was only at the middle level of the soul—ruach—that human beings lived out their spiritual lives on a daily basis. With nefesh (in all its primitivity) beneath us, and neshamah (in all its transcendent glory) above us, the Gaon claimed that our ruach is in a perpetual tug-of-war with its counterparts, each of which struggles to draw us nearer to it. Which will win? Our drives and feelings at their most base and animalistic, or our higher nature? Pulled in opposite directions, our composite soul, through the use of free will, must choose the overall trajectory of our spiritual development. Often it must fight tooth and nail with itself.

That battle for a balanced, integrated soul is our life’s mission. When we have accomplished that integration—when we have expunged or sublimated aspects of nefesh in ways that do not allow them to hold us back from inner growth and, at the same time, tapped into those metaphysical elements of neshamah that hover over us, dormant but waiting—then our soul becomes a healthy, indivisible totality, a conduit for the spiritual light of the Shechinah, the divine presence, to emanate and flow throughout our being. At this point of integration, even the most mundane of our actions become expressions of divinity.

Not everyone is up to this challenge, however. A spiritual warrior understands and accepts this difficult task and grasps its gravity. What more noble purpose could a human being have than to bring the light of God’s presence into our darkened world? Yet that can only happen after we have worked on ourselves, and that is the reason I have written this book—to help us with our inner work. There is constant crossover among the various levels of the soul, and the chapters that follow will illustrate that phenomenon very clearly. As we examine the lives, ideas, and struggles of others, we will bob and weave between the different rungs of NaRaN, and we will see (despite their interconnection) just how porous and murky the links of the soul, and the spiritual path, can be.

The ring is a symbol of battle. It is also a symbol of union. The dance between combat and communion is a universal one, and the footwork that is frequently required to harmonize these two very different experiences is extremely (some of us would say excruciatingly) difficult to master. Each of us must struggle against, and with, our many and varied opponents—the foes within ourselves as well as those in the office, at home, and that we encounter during the course of our day. The identification of, and engagement with, our real adversaries is the most basic challenge of the human condition.

But we are all in this contest together.

Your battle is my battle. And if, in openness and humility, we can listen toand learn from the words and deeds of those who have danced before us, then at least we’ll have a fighting chance.