Why Humans Walk Upright: A Kabbalistic Look at the Soul, Thought, and Our Divine Design

The Kabbalists teach that it is no coincidence human beings walk upright on two legs, while animals typically walk on all fours with their heads facing downward. Animals are driven by instinct alone, without the power of thought or free will.

You will never see a gathering of bees protesting, "We're tired of building the same hive for thousands of years!" And yet we marvel at the intricate hexagonal design of the honeycomb, admiring the intelligence behind it. In fact, this structure isn't the result of thoughtful planning but is simply programmed instinct. All of nature functions this way, acting according to its inborn patterns.

What Makes Humans Different?

Humans are set apart by a soul. According to Jewish mysticism, the soul is layered:

• Nefesh – the life force shared with animals (desires, instincts)

• Ruach – the spirit of emotion

• Neshamah – the divine intellect

• Chayah and Yechidah – deeper spiritual levels unique to the human soul

When a person feels hunger or desire, which part of them feels that? It is not the Neshamah, because it is purely spiritual and has no need for food. The body alone- like a rock or a table- has no awareness at all.

The Arizal explains that the sensation of desire comes from the Nefesh, which is the lowest level of soul, and resides in the liver. This is what connects the spiritual to the physical and explains why humans share base desires with animals.

The Structure of the Soul in the Body

• Nefesh → Liver (desire)

• Ruach → Heart (emotion)

• Neshamah → Brain (intellect)

When someone is happy, the heart feels expanded, and when sad, the heart feels constricted. Pride lifts the heart, whereas anger heats it. These are all signs of the Ruach acting in the heart.
The Neshamah, on the other hand, resides in the brain- the mysterious "gel-like flesh" which has the power to think, analyze, and create.

Why Do Humans Stand Upright?

Kabbalists explain that this is because the soul resides in the head, and like everything in nature, the soul pulls toward its source- upward toward G-d. A dead body, by contrast, falls because there is no soul to lift it.

Even animals that can stand, like apes, are naturally hunched forward, reflecting their lower spiritual source.

Interestingly, apes are the animals most similar in appearance to humans. But not all apes walk upright. The Talmud says that some types of human-like apes were actually descended from people.

When People Rebelled Against G-d

In the generation of the Tower of Babel, people united in a rebellion against G-d. Their plan wasn’t to physically fight G-d by climbing a tower, as one might mistakenly think. Rather, as Targum Yonatan explains, they wanted to build a symbolic tower, crowned with a statue holding a sword pointed toward the heavens as a statement of defiance.

G-d responded by saying, “Let us go down and confuse their language.” Until then, the entire world spoke the same language of Lashon HaKodesh, the holy tongue in which the world was created. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch notes that the word "נבלה" (confuse) shares a root with "נבול" (wilted), suggesting that all other languages are a wilted form of Hebrew.

According to the Talmud, G-d transformed their leaders into apes. While Darwin was right to notice the similarity between apes and humans, he misunderstood the direction- it’s not that humans evolved from apes, but that some apes descended from people who rebelled.

This event occurred around 4,000 years ago, as explained in the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin.

Our Souls Are Destined to Rise

Humans are the crown of creation, and the structure of our body reflects that. We walk on two legs, with the brain above the body, signaling that intellect should lead.

Had we walked hunched like animals, the brain and the belly would be on the same level which would reflect a diminished spiritual stature. The human being is created to look up, to think, and to elevate the world.