Bottle neck issues

There is a constant conflict between the G-dly soul, which is intellectual and thinks objectively, and the animal soul, which thinks instinctively and impulsively.

The animal soul, who animates our bodies, draws us to the desires of the flesh. The G-dly soul, who shines through the mind, keeps on reminding us to do, not what feels right, but what is right.

The G-dly soul inside the body, our identity as human beings, is life itself. The body which is heavy and lethargic conceals and hides this inner soul. We need transcendence to rise above and go beyond the wants of the body in order to successfully allow the soul to express itself.

To live life, real life, not just the body being alive, a person needs the unhindered and unimpeded flow from the soul. However, as the soul coming first through the intellectual mind tries to make its way down to our heart and emotions and to influence the rest of our body, encounters bottleneck traffic. This is the shape and form of the narrow straights that exist between the head and the heart namely the neck.

Pharaoh was a wicked king over the land of Egypt, who kept the Jewish souls in servitude. He was assisted, the Bible tells us, by three servants, the butler, baker and butcher.

In Hebrew, the letters that spell “Pharaoh” can also mean the neck. “Egypt” in Hebrew can also mean constraints, and the first letters of the three servants spell, impure.

Mysticism explains that in a person’s neck, his Pharaoh - constraints, there are three major vessels corresponding to the three above servants. The baker is represented by the esophagus, the butcher is represented by the carotid artery and blood vessels and the butler is represented by the trachea. These three servants symbolize the resistance in the neck, between the head and heart.

The bottleneck that holds back the influence of the mind over the heart, and gives the heart and emotions in which the animal soul expresses itself, strength to resist the intellect are these three vessels. When a person continually indulges himself in physical enjoyment for its own sake, like eating – the baker – or is immersed in general pleasures, the butler – and identifies all his enthusiasm and heat of the blood in materialism - the butcher, it will strengthen the pharaoh in the neck to keep the soul in bondage.

When a person lives in order to eat and to enjoy, and his focus in life is materialism, the blockage is fortified. The more a person is into materialism, the more he is desensitized from intellectualism and G-dliness, and the animal soul is strengthened

When a person learns and gains the habit to ignore these impulses and instead of living to eat, he eats in order to live, as King Solomon says, “someone who guards his mouth and tongue, (this person) guards his soul from harms and troubles.”

That is why the Jews had to run away from Pharaoh. A person must escape the clutches of this terrible pattern. The more a person gives in to a bully the stronger the bully becomes. When a person allows himself to be manipulated by the commands of his own Pharaoh and his attendants, the more he gives in to materialism and reinforces these habits, patterns and strengthening of the body of flesh, the more difficult he makes it for the soul and the mind to be successful in influencing and harnessing the emotions.

To be continued….