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I don't think the soul is ever unconscious. I have a tendency to believe that the soul occupies a body in the construction stages and that it preceeds and succeeds the body. The soul being immortal, it would have to work both ways. If it is not immortal before the body then it must not exist before the body, and that implies that it is built with the body. I don't buy that. An immortal soul is an immortal soul.

I envision something more along the lines of not only the mortal flesh joining to become one but the joining of two "nefesh" and "ruarch" with a resulting attachment of "neshama" on the individuals first earthly breath. Whether the reaching out of neshama to yechida extends to/from only one direction will be fun to find out.

Good evening to you A-G. I just want to tell you that I feel like I'm reading about someone I am very familiar with upon reading some of your posts. ps. I keep using "" around the Kabbalist terms because I have never heard of them prior, so to me they are man words describing something I can understand. I love you.

It doesn't matter what we think about our soul/body existence in terms of the reality of it - it is the way God describes it whether we accept this truth or not. He describes it to us by telling us He will raise our bodies and reunite them with our souls. The resurrection of our bodies from atomic dust bins indicates that the soul was never intended to become separated from our physical substance. We are a body/soul unity and death breaks this bond and is unnatural in terms of the original creation. Hence our Lord Jesus Christ rises in his previously dead body - His soul and body joined together forever and ever as it ought to be. His tomb is emptied, He is touched by disciples - handled in His resurrected body. So we are told will it be for all men - we all will be raised. Some will have their souls reunited to bodies and then will suffer eternally in them. Others will be raised in their bodies and experience only eternal joy in them with Christ. The soul is conscious after death but the only indication I see in Scripture that the soul of anyone was conscious before birth is when John the Baptist in the womb of his mother lept for joy at the Lord Jesus presence.