"In the service of the Almighty, the point of departure is Modeh Ani"
-- Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber of Lubavitch
WHEN WE AWAKEN IN THE MORNING, G-d graciously restores our soul (nefesh)within us in order to experience another day of life.
Every morning we recite the Modeh Ani blessing. It is both a blessing and a prayer of faith.
for returning my soul within me in compassion —
great is your faithfulness."
It is a lovely prayer, and a lovely reminder.
“Returning my soul within me” is also an expression of the Triune nature of our conscious existence. Going slower and in more detail, it is read as You, God, return “my soul” to “me”, meaning within my ‘body’. The body referred to here is not really mine, but was provided to me by G-d.
Who is the “I”, that possesses a soul that needs to be “returned” to its body?
What we have is the expression of the Divine (King) who returns a soul to a body. Here is Spirit, Soul and Body, and an additional fourth element, the “me” in the “my soul”. For the “I” that is referred to here is not “You, God”, neither am I the soul, nor the body that is praying. Although I am all of that too.
This is my response:
“I am of the angels, descended from the realm of the Elohim.”
The “You” are the angels, from the realm of Elohim. The soul that is returned is the “vivifying” soul, my Nefesh, the one that “gives” life to the body. The “I” is know as the Ruach, the wind that blows between the soul that “rests” in the manifest realm, my <nefesh, and the upper soul that
the expression of the Breath of the Infinite Oneness, my Neshamah.
B"shem.
I am the ray of supernal light,
the light that casts no shadow
entering the space of constraint.
I am the expression of the God-head
in the body of Creation.
I am the awakening. I am Me,
God, experiencing Myself.
I am myself, knowing nothing.
I am everything, knowing my Self.
I am that other that also Sees me.
I am perverse, needing what is
not God to experience God.
I am covered, with a skin
so thick, so embalmed am I
in the density of my incarnation
the white noise of my present presence,
that I forget
that I am God.
and have so embraced the other
that I have become an-other,
“separate”,
a self — the
“I” am
with a name,
believing, nay
knowing, that it has been
separated from the Mother
who nurtured
me from before my conception
that I can experience the very God
that I am… will be…
and always was.