The Soul

Sometimes my wife says to me: 'You are my soul. Without you I believe I am without a soul.' I begin to laugh and start to ask myself: 'What is the Soul?' We can say that the Soul is what gives life to everything that is alive. Some beliefs say that the Soul travels from the human to the animal and from there to the plant, or vice versa. I do not know whether the Soul makes this kind of journey, but I believe that everything that lives has a soul. Our brain makes it possible for us to think, to direct our life functions, to feel, to love, to suffer, to adapt, to learn, to judge, to decide. All this activity of the brain makes what we call the Soul. Pull the plug on the brain, the body dies and nothing remains of what was called Soul.

The Soul makes every human different. Even twins who resemble each other like a mirror each have their own Soul that distinguishes them from their twin. There is a belief that says the Soul never dies. This is true for the person who leaves a work before dying. Every time we remember their work, we remember this person, that is to say their soul. This also shows that believing is a function of the Soul. In Hebrew we have three words that resemble each other a great deal. One is Ruach. Another is Nefesh. The third is Neshama. We say 'Nefesh Yehudi', we say 'his Neshama went out of him', speaking of almost the same thing. In Turkish the word 'breath' (nefes) has the same root as 'Nefesh'. When we hear music we like very much, it is the Soul that shivers. When we read something we like very much, it is the Soul that trembles. Basing ourselves on Nefesh, we can say that it is breathing that makes us live, and when one does not breathe, in the end one dies. In the Torah we read that God breathed a breath into Adam and Adam began to live. This word in Latin is 'Anima'. From there come the words 'Animation' or 'Animal'. In Greek it is Psyche. From there came the word Psychology, the science of the Soul.

I do not know whether there are many people in the world who drink rakı, but there are also people who sing the song: 'I give my soul for rakı.'