Elokai Neshama Our Bodies Our Tools

Our bodies are given to us in order to enable our neshamos to keep the mitzvos. Mitzvos require us to have a body. Our neshamos are the “real you”—the body is our tool. Therefore, in Elokai Neshama, we promise to keep thanking Hashem as long as the neshama is within the body. Sometime in the future, Hashem will place the neshamos of tzaddikim into some type of a body, an even greater reward than Gan Eden. This is what is referred to as techiyas hameisim, one of the thirteen concepts that every Jew must believe. They can be found in the siddur after Shacharis, in a list of Ani Maamins.

Adapted from Emunah in the Classroom