Rabbi David Green and photographer Moshe Schlass unlock the door to the spirit

Photos: Moshe Schlass

IF my soul is holy, why am I drawn to the unholy? Can understanding my soul help me in my day-to-day life? How does my soul stay within my physical body? What happens to my soul when I die?

You don’t have to be a student of chassidus, or even a Torah scholar, to have these questions. And that’s why author, artist, musician and kiruv personality Rabbi David Green, who forged his own spiritual journey several decades back before landing in Jerusalem, has written a book to help people navigate those very existential ideas.         His first work, A Book about You, published in 2011, probes the layers that help people find their individuality and soul awareness. A big part of knowing who you are is knowing what you are — and knowing that the soul is the most essential part of who you are, will contribute to the “journey to the real you.” Everyone has an individual personality and unique soul powers, which pave an individual and meaningful path, and engender a stronger sense of inner peace while moving forward in life to achieve one’s own unique contribution to the world.

“People are so eager to travel, to see the world and expose themselves to different experiences when actually, the most thrilling adventure is the journey into yourself,” he asserts.

“This was Hashem’s directive to Avraham: ‘Lech lecha.’ It begins with ‘lech.’ First, you have to remove yourself from all distractions, foreign ideologies and influences. Then you can go to ‘lecha,’ to yourself, to explore your individuality and embrace it. Once free from all those distractions, we have the ability to hear our own inner voice, which already knows who we are and what we’re here to achieve. And when people get to know who they really are, they can learn to love themselves, love others, and go on to loving Hashem for the Divine gift of their essence, created in His image.”

Concurrently, Rabbi Green released an album of original compositions called Journeys to the Real You, and the songs and lyrics (for example, “Jerusalem eye of the universe / City of peace between the body and the soul / and the heavens and the earth / between one another….”) are woven throughout the book with QR codes connecting the reader to the songs being quoted.

After more than a decade of “soul” music, videos, seminars and podcasts, Rabbi Green’s latest endeavor, Pictures of Your Soul, goes back to those basic questions and explores the beauty of your soul and how to grow, even from a very low place, should someone be struggling with their spiritual awareness and identity.

Often, pictures really are the window to the soul, and because our visual sense is so powerful, the book hinges on full-size, engaging photos to make the spiritual lessons based on chassidic teachings more tangible. But in order to do that, Rabbi Green needed a photographer who not only speaks the language, but whose camera is a lens into the very souls of his subjects.