How Can a Spiritual Soul Exist Within a Physical Body?

Shir asks: "Hello. If matter and spirit are two separate realities, how can the body limit the soul within it? Also, if the soul does not exist in space or time, how can it enter and connect with a physical body that is bound by space and time? I’d appreciate an explanation."

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Hello Shir, and thank you for your thoughtful question.

Many compare the soul to a driver steering a car, although even in this metaphor, both driver and car exist in the physical realm. The deeper challenge is how can the soul — made of an entirely different essence than matter, “drive” and influence the material body?

First, it’s important to recognize that only God Himself is beyond space and time. The soul, by contrast, while spiritual, is still a created being and therefore limited compared to the Creator. As Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal) explained, even within the spiritual world there are degrees: a lower spiritual level can be seen as “material” relative to a higher one. Only God is infinite, transcending all boundaries.

Thus, the soul, though spiritual, can influence and control something more limited than itself — the physical body.

Why the Soul’s Perception Is Limited by the Body

In answer to your question regarding how the physical body can restrict the soul’s perception, confining it to physical senses such as eyes and brain, this is indeed like the driver in a car, who sees reality only through the windshield. If the windshield is dirty, his view is restricted. For someone speaking through a telephone, the true person is beyond the wire, yet the communication is reduced to electrical signals. Likewise, a person watching a video game can become so absorbed in the screen-world that he forgets his own reality.

So too, the soul perceives the world through the “window” of physical senses and the processes of the brain. These limit its awareness of the higher reality. This limitation is purposeful as our descent into this world is a test for the soul. We are given Torah and mitzvot precisely to refine ourselves through the challenges of life inside a physical frame.

Why Doesn’t the Soul Just Leave the Body?

If the soul is not bound by space and has no physical volume, how does it stay within the body? Why doesn’t it simply “leak out”? After all, the body has no walls capable of holding something spiritual inside.

This is itself a constant miracle. God actively holds the soul inside the body at every moment.

This is reflected in the blessing Asher Yatzar, which thanks God for forming the body with “openings and hollows.” On a simple level, this refers to our organs and their delicate balance, but the sages also understood it spiritually: God miraculously keeps the soul within the body every second.

The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 6:1) comments: “He performs wonders — because man is like a bag filled with air. If a bag were punctured even slightly, the air would escape. Yet the human being is full of openings, and still his spirit remains within him. This is truly a wonder.”

Rabbi Moshe Isserles (the Rema) adds: “The wonder is that God preserves the human spirit within, binding something spiritual to something physical.”

A Daily Miracle

Upon waking each morning, we say Modeh Ani: “I thank You, living and eternal King, for returning my soul within me with great mercy.” We follow with the blessing: “The soul You placed within me is pure.”

In truth, our very life is an open miracle. Naturally, the soul should leave the body instantly but God’s constant will keeps it within. Every heartbeat and breath is evidence of divine supervision — not only that God created us, but that He sustains us every moment.