from the Jews who wrote & call the hebrew scriptures their own in their own language:
INQUIRER:
I have never heard of this doctrine before. But I am surprised you people don't put "mind, body and soul." Because a lot of you kinds of people are obsessed with crosses and souls... You hear people in songs always say "in my soul..."
Understanding the source of our soul and its eternal essence.
One of the foundations of our faith is the belief in the immortality of the soul, and in life after death.
If one believes in God's justice, one must also believe in the immortality of the soul. How can we otherwise reconcile the fact that many righteous individuals suffer in this life?
Just as the unborn child has many endowments which are of no use to it in the womb, but demonstrate that it will be born into a world where they will be used, so does a human being have many endowments which are of little value in this life, which indicate that man will be reborn into a higher dimension after death.On the physical plane, man is indistinguishable from animals.
Details of immortality are not mentioned in the Torah since revelation only deals with the present world. The prophet therefore says when speaking of the World to Come, "Never has the ear heard it -- no eye has seen it -- other than God: That which He will do for those who hope in Him" (Isaiah 64:3). That is, not even the great prophets were allowed to envision the reward of the righteous in the Ultimate future.
Man shares physio-chemical life processes with animals, and on the physical plane is indistinguishable from them. We therefore speak of man having an "animal soul" (Nefesh HaBehamit) which is contained in the blood, i.e. in the physio-chemical life processes. Regarding this soul, the Torah says, "The life-force of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11).
Since this animal soul is what draws man away from the spiritual, it is commonly called the "Evil Urge" (Yetzer Hara) in the Talmud.
INNERMOST ESSENCE
In addition to his material self, however, man possesses a soul which is unique among all of God's creations. In describing the creation of Adam, the Torah says, "God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils a soul-breath of life (Nishmat Chaim). Man [thus] became a living creature (Nefesh Chaya)" (Genesis 2:7).
The Torah is teaching us that the human soul came directly from God's innermost Essence in the same way that a breath issues forth from a person's lungs and chest cavity. The rest of creation, on the other hand, was created with speech, which is a lower level, for just as sound waves are generated by a person but do not contain any air from the lungs, so the rest of creation emanates from God's Power but not from His Essence.
THREE PARTS
The soul consists of three parts which are called by the Hebrew names, nefesh, ruach and neshama. The word neshama is a cognate of nesheema, which means literally "breath." Ruach means "wind." Nefesh comes from the root nafash, meaning "rest," as in the verse, "On the seventh day, [God] ceased work and rested (nafash)." (Exodus 31:17).
God's exhaling a soul can be compared to a glassblower forming a vessel. The breath (neshama) first leaves his lips, travels as a wind (ruach) and finally comes to rest (nefesh) in the vessel. Of these three levels of the soul, neshama is therefore the highest and closes to God, while nefesh is that aspect of the soul residing in the body. Ruach stands between the two, binding man to his spiritual Source. It is for this reason that Divine Inspiration is called Ruach HaKodesh in Hebrew.
THE NESHAMA IS AFFECTED ONLY BY THOUGHT, THE RAUCH BY SPEECH, AND THE NEFESH BY ACTION.
WILL POWER:
Doesn't that last line sound a bit like most Christian descriptions of the trinity?
NESHAMA: FATHER - thought - mind;
RAUCH: SON - body - the word;
NEFESH: HOLY SPIRIT - breath/spirit - active force;
ONE GOD - All are one
We were created in this likeness. Mind / Body / Spirit. Each characteristic has its own dimension. That is why no one has ever seen God & lived.