Soul Perspective: Elecha Yah | Rabbi Shefa Gold

Elecha Yah nafshi esa.

To You God I lift up my soul. (Psalm 25:1)

Sometimes it feels like I am a human who is in search of the expanse of my soul… yet in my clearer moments I know that I am that expansive soul, enjoying and learning from the experience of being human. This practice of Soul Perspective, lifts me up into that clarity. In difficult circumstances that don’t make sense from my human perspective, I use my holy imagination to access the soul contract. For example, when I am involved in a serious conflict with someone… I imagine our two souls hanging out before birth, making a loving agreement. “Let’s meet when we’re in our 20’s, OK? And we’ll have this amazing attraction, and then we’ll gradually find out how different we are and begin learning from those differences. I’ll help you heal that old rigidity that you’ve been carrying so many lifetimes, and you can help me get rid of my fantasies about love so that I can eventually open to real Love.”

This chant helps me to remember that, when I open to the Soul Perspective, even the most difficult encounters can be transformed into opportunities for Soul growth. After chanting this, you might try writing an imaginary dialogue between from the soul perspective between yourself and someone who triggers you. Let it begin from a premise that as souls, we come to love and serve each other, but that love and service often take forms that are difficult and troubling as forces of awakening.

To hear the chant, use the audio player. To download the chant, right-click the note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

Soul Perspective

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Soul Perspective PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 283.