Spiritual Sparks: How Does Music Touch Your Soul?

When words fall short, music steps in to speak.

Welcome to Spiritual Sparks. You’re receiving this email because you signed up to receive weekly insights on spirituality. Each week, I’ll share 3 meaningful ideas, 2 thought-provoking quotes, and 1 reflective question.

Some moments in life can’t be explained, only felt. Music is a rare gift that speaks straight to the soul, often more clearly than words ever could.

3 Ideas

1. Why does almost everyone love some kind of music?      

Because music is a universal language: It speaks directly to the soul. It bypasses logic and reaches something deeper, more innate and transcendent. It crosses all boundaries, touching hearts and connecting people young and old. Music rises above cultures, and backgrounds, fostering shared emotion and common experience.

2. Music is more than entertainment; it’s a form of wisdom.

It blends structure, beauty, and emotion with mathematical precision and expressive depth. At its highest, music becomes sacred wisdom, echoing Divine harmony. It doesn’t just express feeling; it reveals the order of the universe beneath the surface of sound, and can act as soul-refining wisdom.  

3. How does the soul and body interact when we listen to music?

Music awakens the brain like few other sensory experiences, lighting up emotion, movement, and memory in perfect harmony. It touches the heart too, steadying its rhythm, quickening its pace, even drawing it into sync with others when we sing as one.

Classical wisdom teaches that the soul is present throughout the body, but especially alive in the mind and heart, where thought, feeling and connection dwell.

Music stirs them all... tuning body and soul into harmony.

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2 Quotes

“A niggun (a soul melody without words) is the quill of the soul. Through it, the soul writes what cannot be spoken. It ascends beyond words, beyond thought, to connect with the Divine.”
— Baal Shem Tov, Jewish mystic, regarded as the founder of the Hasidic movement within Judaism

“Soul music is timeless. It speaks to the spirit and moves something deep inside you.”
— Alicia Keys, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter known for blending soul, R&B, and classical influences

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1 Question

What is one song or piece of music that touched you as a transcendent experience ... something that felt bigger than the lyrics it might have contained? Why do you think it resonated so deeply with your soul?

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If a piece of music ever touched your soul in a way that felt beyond words, I’d love to hear about it. Some responses may be shared (anonymously, unless you say otherwise) in the next edition of Spiritual Sparks.

Until next time,
Wishing you light, insight, and a little soul music 

Rabbi Ze'ev Smason

P.S. Know someone who'd enjoy Spiritual Sparks? Forward it along — the more souls inspired, the better.  Those desiring to receive Spiritual Sparks can contact Rabbi Ze'ev Smason at [email protected]