The Soul Electric: Unveiling The Psycho-Spiritual Meanings of a Biblical Word

A mysterious word in the Bible encodes a profound formula for self-rectification, which became a foundation of Hassidic thought.

For over a hundred years, we have been living in the age of electricity: we use electricity all the time, everywhere, and in almost every aspect of our lives; every wall in our homes has several electrical outlets, into which we plug a vast array of devices; if there is a power outage, we suffer, and we make sure to pay our electricity bill on time so that we are not disconnected from the current. More than anything else, electricity embodies the technological age.

Most of us are so therefore surprised to discover that the Hebrew word for “electricity”, chashmal (חשמל), is ancient, originating thousands of years before the discovery of electromagnetic force. It is a biblical word, appearing only three times in the Bible, all in the same place – in the mysterious prophetic visions of the prophet Ezekiel, where it describes a kind of divine, wondrous fire. Here is its first appearance:

And I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came from the north, a great cloud, and a fire flashing forth continually, and a bright light around it, and in the midst of it something like the appearance of chashmal in the midst of the fire (Ezekial 1:4).

There it is, a word so familiar to the modern Hebrew speaker from signs and electricity bills – familiar, yet so foreign. What does this mysterious word mean in its original, ancient, prophetic context? Stripped of its modern associations, the very word evokes a kind of electric thrill in us. What was the original electricity, before it flowed through the wires of history and became the synthetic light now illuminating at you from your screen?

At times silent, at times speaking

The sages of the Talmud dedicated their lives to interpreting every word in the Bible, and the word chashmal is no exception. However, as is their way – since there are “seventy faces to the Torah” and there is no one “correct” interpretation of words – they did not settle on a single absolute meaning. Instead, they explored the word, turning it over and over in their unique Jewish minds in search of fragments of meaning from which they could construct an interpretation. Here are their conclusions as they appear in the Talmud:¹

What is chashmal? Rabbi Judah said: Creatures of fire that speak [chayot esh memalelot]. In a Tannaic source, it is taught: At times they are silent [chashot], at times they speak [memalelot] – when the speech goes forth from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One, they are silent, and when the speech does not go forth from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One, they speak.

Two interpretations are offered for the word chashmal. The first, by Rabbi Judah, breaks the word into three parts, according to their main consonants and as described in Ezekiel’s vision: chashmal hints at CHayot eSH meMALelot – creatures of fire that speak, namely the creatures seen by Ezekiel in his vision, from whose mouths fire emerges as they speak.² The second interpretation, from the Tannaic source, divides the word into two parts with exactly opposite meanings: chash (silent) and mal (speaking).

We now want to focus on the second interpretation, which has two advantages over the first one. First, it divides the word in a more symmetrical and elegant manner. And second, it is from the Tannaim, the sages of the Mishnah, whose interpretations are considered superior to those of the Amoraim, from whom came the first interpretation.

Run and Return

From the second interpretation, it emerges that chashmal expresses a paradoxical connection between silence and speech, in that order. The holy creatures, it explains, are silent “when the speech goes forth from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One,” and speak “when the speech does not go forth from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One.” This implies a kind of dialogue between the God and the angels, in which first God speaks and they are silent, and then the roles reverse.

This interpretation has turned the word chashmal into a kind of code name in Judaism for a profound spiritual insight, which, simple as it may sound, is not easy to implement: One should be silent before speaking. Praises of silence are scattered throughout the Rabbinical writings (e.g., in Pirkei Avot: “Say little and do much,”³ “I have found nothing better for the body than silence,”⁴ “A fence for wisdom is silence,”⁵ etc.). In addition, a famous verse in Ecclesiastes even clearly hints that silence should precede speech: “A time to be silent and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7). But the word chashmal expresses this idea most succinctly: First chash, be silent, then mal, express your words.

The inner teachings of the Torah delve into the idea of the silence and speech of chashmal by linking it with another phrase found nearby in Ezekiel’s vision (and expounded in the Talmud immediately after our source): “And the creatures were running and returning [ratzo va-shov, רצוא ושוב]” (Ezek. 1:14). In modern Hebrew, we usually understand this phrase as referring to cyclical movements in general, but according to Kabbalah, it mainly expresses a cycle of spiritual ascent and descent: “running” signifies rushing upward to God, and “returning” signifies coming back down to earth. These two movements exactly parallel the cycle of silence and speech between God and the holy creatures: The rush to God is silent self-nullification to hear His word, and the return to our reality is our speech when God is silent. The phrase “the creatures [ha-chayot] were running and returning” is interpreted in Chassidut as saying “the vitality [ha-chayut] is running and returning” – our inner heartbeat should be constructed as a cycle of ascent and descent, silence and speech, retreating inwards and expressing ourselves outwards.

Above all, the explanation of the word chashmal sharpens and clarifies the nature of the silence that should be imposed before speaking. It is not just any silence, a silence facing empty space, but a silence whose time is “when the speech goes forth from the mouth of the Holy Blessed One.” The silence of chashmal is a silence for listening to God, a silence that seeks to detect the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) of God within us, i.e. our soul. This is felt in the fact that the word chash means not only to be silent but also “to sense,” and that the letters of chash are the core of the root chashav, “to think”: The silence is intended so that we can get a sense of what it is we want to say before we express it with our mouths. Speech that arises from sensing God’s still small voice will also succeed in audibly conveying it.

From Cycle to Process

Many generations after the sealing of the Talmud, there lived a unique Jew named Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, who charted a new path in studying the ancient sources of the Sages. In many places, the Baal Shem Tov proposed the development and refinement of the sayings of the Sages, and one of these places was their interpretation of the word chashmal.⁶

The silence and speech hinted at by the word chashmal, explained the Baal Shem Tov, are only the framework. Silence curbs our natural tendency to think of ourselves as all-knowing, but something additional must happen between it and proper speech. For this, the Baal Shem Tov pointed to a second meaning embedded in the word mal: he explained that mal can be understood not only as referring to speech but also to “cutting” and especially “circumcision” (milah). Between silence and speech, a deep internal clarification process must occur, carefully weighing and selecting our words, a process akin to spiritual circumcision.

By adding this interpretation, the Baal Shem Tov transformed the word chashmal from a two-stage cycle, as it was with the sages, into a three-stage process, known as chash-mal-mal: chash for silence, mal for circumcision, and finally a second mal for verbal speech.

Although at first, the image of circumcision may seem foreign to the original chash-mal pair of silence and speech, it actually fits very well. According to Kabbalah, there is an inner connection between the organ of circumcision and the tongue: They constitute the two organs of procreation in a person – one for physical procreation and the other for spiritual procreation.⁷ Just as we must circumcise the lower, more physical organ, so too we must “circumcise” our tongue, clarify and purify our speech. This inner circumcision comes on the heels of the silence phase that preceded it and leads up to the stage of speech that follows it.

Submission, Separation, Sweetening

The Baal Shem Tov also gave names to the three stages of chash-mal-mal. He called them “submission” (hachna’ah, הכנעה), “separation” (havdalah, הבדלה), and “sweetening” (hamtaka, המתקה), explaining that they characterize every genuine process of self-improvement:

• Submission: This stage corresponds to the word chash meaning silence. This stage signifies calming the urge for self-expression and externalization – a prerequisite for stepping out of our boundaries and learning something new. In fact, submission is the subjugation of the ego itself, which is mainly expressed in the feeling that we already know everything and are perfect in everything. The submission stage opens us up to new perspectives, which are not natural to us.

• Separation: This stage corresponds to the word mal meaning circumcision. Separation is an internal clarification process where we cleanse ourselves of all the negative elements within us and strengthen our identification with the good. The separation stage is possible thanks to the submission that preceded it and is conducted within the space of silence we imposed on ourselves (the fact that this stage is called mal just like the next stage, hints that already here self-expression begins to reemerge, but only inwardly, in the form of the reemergence of our divine essence).

• Sweetening: This stage corresponds to the word mal meaning verbal speech. In this stage, we can once again express ourselves outwardly, this time from a rectified and purified place. This stage is called sweetening because it sweetens the bitterness that accompanied the submission and separation stages, where we restrained ourselves from coming to full and free expression.

As mentioned, the Baal Shem Tov emphasized that any complete spiritual process must go through these three stages. They must come in that order, and none can be skipped. In any situation, we must first submit our ego and remember that we are far from perfect; then we must separate ourselves from all the negative elements in our attitude towards this matter and reveal the essential good core within us; and only then can we achieve self-perfection concerning that matter, and the sacrifices we made in the previous two stages will be sweetened in us.

From Angel to Human

The ability to stop, be silent, and carefully weigh one’s words and deeds is the main marker of inner work. Therefore, it should also be the main trait we look for when seeking a rabbi. When the Baal Shem Tov explained the stages of submission, separation, and sweetening, he quoted a saying from the Sages (found in the same Talmudic tractate where chashmal is explained, a few pages later), which says: “If the rabbi resembles an angel of the Lord of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth; if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth.”⁸ The Baal Shem Tov points outs that the Hebrew word for “angel” (mal’ach, מלאך) is the reverse of the word for “as mute” (ke-eelem, כְּאִלֵם): Angels are silent and modest creatures who do their work quietly and discreetly. Likewise, the quality of an “angelic” rabbi is that they initially resemble a mute – they do not hasten to speak or answer, but carefully select their words in silence and then express themselves.

As we recall, the whole idea of chashmal was born from Ezekiel’s prophecy about angelic “creatures of fire.” The idea of the muted angel we just presented suggests that, among the two aspects of chashmal, silence and speech, it is mainly silence that is angelic. This makes speech more of a human trait. Indeed, in the description of the creation of man, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7) the term “a living soul” (nefesh chayah) is translated into Aramaic as “a speaking spirit” (ruach memalela). Perhaps inspired by this, the classical definition of humankind in relation to the mineral, vegetable, and animal realms below it, surprisingly has it described as medaber, “speaker” (and not, for example, “thinker,” as in the Latin homo sapiens). The silent “running” movement towards God is relatively angelic, but the “returning” movement expressed here on earth as speech is quintessentially human.

The secret of chashmal, therefore, alludes to a sort of transformation process from angel to human. More precisely, it can be seen as embodying a kind roundabout evolution from an animal to an angel and finally to a human: Submission subjugates our animalistic side, turning us into a sort of angel; separation is the discovery of the elevated human soul within us thanks to our “angelic” silent inner work; and sweetening is the expression of our human soul outwardly. The human level may seem lower than the angelic level, and a kind of anticlimax, but in truth it’s explained that the root of the human soul is higher than that of the angel, since, unlike the angel, a human has free choice between good and evil.

What does this developmental path offer us? Often, to justify human weaknesses, people use the common expressions “it’s only human” or “I’m only human.” What these expressions mean is that, unlike angels, humans have an evil inclination and are therefore are prone to sin. However, the thought “I’m only human” can easily degrade into the thought, “I’m nothing but an animal with impulses and needs.” To balance the picture, we need to add another reference point to humanity, which is the animals. True, we are not angels, but neither are we animals: We can master our impulses and choose good. But now a new problem arises: Overemphasizing our superiority to animals might lead us to the illusion that we are angels without any animalistic inclinations...

Understanding the secret of chashmal as an animal-angel-human developmental path offers us a way to be balanced humans, to acknowledge our non-angelic nature without descending into animality. Don’t immediately say at the outset, “I’m not an angel, I’m only human,” it teaches us. If you do that you won’t rectify your animal nature, but rather deteriorate into it. Instead, first strive, within yourself, to be like an angel, to do everything to subdue your animality and separate yourself from it. In this way, you will merit to be a true human being, standing with your feet on the ground while speaking heavenly words.

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1. Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 13a.

2. Ibid., Rashi.

3. Pirkei Avot 1:16.

4. Ibid. 1:17.

5. Ibid. 3:13.

6. Keter Shem Tov 28.

7. Sefer Yetzirah 6:8.

8. Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 15b.