A Chabad meditation

The soul, the inner undefinable essence of a human being is ineffable. Immanently-transcendent, the soul’s presence is sensed but remains evasive in the ever present attempt to signify it’s un-significance.

The expression, or the translation of the souls silence, the garments in which the essence of the soul garbs itself are three-fold. Through thought, or intellectual processes the soul is revealed to the self. In thinking, the person reveals himself towards himself through himself. Through speech, or dialogue the soul is revealed to the other. In discourse, the person reveals himself towards the other through the I-Thou dialectic. Through action, or practical manifestation the soul is revealed to the exterior world. In movement, the person imposes and impresses himself upon his surroundings through his actions.

Within each mode of expression there is a preliminary stage of revelation-prior-to-externalization. In this place of revealed/hidden, expressed/suppressed the soul speaks in letters. The letters, the stones of speech, engrave themselves in thought, speech and action. Before the thought can be revealed it must be written in the mind. Before the word can be spoken it must be written on the tongue. Before action can manifest, embodied in corporeality it must be written internally.

These letters, the signs of signification serve as the concretized residue of spiritual potencies. Between the ineffable soul and revealed expression, operates the transitional mode of internal writing.

As Edmond Jabes wrote, “you are the one writing, you are the one written”…