The Philosophy

What is Spiritual Education?

Spiritual education addresses the three primary voices of the soul – the Nefesh, the Ruach, and the Neshama. According to both the revealed (Talmud) and hidden (Kabbalah) traditions in Judaism, God speaks to each individual through three channels – the mind, the heart, and the body. Spiritual education accesses and harmonizes all three of these voices, allowing for a full engagement of the soul with the subject at hand.

If these three voices of the soul are not fully engaged, the students will inevitably suffer some level of disconnection from the material. The students may understand the material, they may successfully be tested on the content, but they will not become personally engaged with it.

We should not equate ”understanding the material” with ”knowing the material.” “To know” something in the Torah meant to be fully unified with it, fully engaged with it. This does not happen when only the intellectual voice is used. How often have we heard students casually remark, “My heart’s not into it.” We need to take this remark very seriously. The Talmud states, “A person only learns when his heart is engaged.” Spiritual education is a new paradigm of learning in which:

• The three voices of the soul- the nefesh, ruach, and neshama - are engaged.


• The learning is personalized. It is not exclusively intellectual, rather also emotional and experiential.


• The goal is not the conveying of material, rather the developing of a personal connection to the material.


• The goal is not only using one’s mind, rather using one’s mind to affect one’s heart.

[To understand how it is possible to “affect one’s heart”, please see article: Learning with one’s heart.]