Nishmat Chayim — Performance Polo

Nishmat Chayim — the breath of life. G-d breathed it into the first human, and into each of us. Every morning we say it: "You breathed it into me." The Talmud says the World to Come was formed with the yud, the smallest of the letters, and Kabbalah ties the soul's two highest levels to it: chayah to the yud itself, yechidah to the point at its tip. Five levels — nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah:

• Nefesh — the resting soul; the life in the blood, where the soul becomes aware of the body.
• Ruach — wind, spirit; the part that rises and falls, the emotions that move us.
• Neshamah — breath; the mind that understands.
• Chayah — life itself; it lives on even when the limbs die.
• Yechidah — the single one; the soul's essence, never separated from its source.

The design, from the top down:

• A point of white light at the tip, and one wisp of smoke rising above it — yechidah, the soul's single point, beyond every world.
• The cream-gold body of the letter, its light swirling within — chayah, life itself.
• Teal and violet wind, rising above the tip and falling around the letter — ruach: the wind of G-d sweeping over the water, the breath G-d puts into the dry bones so they live, the spirit that rises and falls.
• A white wisp thinning from the letter's leg to the figure's head — neshamah: G-d blowing into the nostrils of the first human, and the breath given to the people upon the earth. It arrives at the head because the Midrash names neshamah the intellect.
• The figure, drawn only in a line of light — the human made in the divine image (tzelem), as the spiritual mold linking body and soul, glowing from within: "A mortal's lifebreath is G-d's lamp, revealing all their inmost parts."
• The gold rings, and the dark stillness inside them — nefesh, the soul that rests. The Torah's word for G-d's rest on the seventh day, vayinafash, is tied by Rashi to the word nefesh itself. Here the soul becomes aware of the body as a vessel for the spiritual, and begins to notice the levels above.

Ancient. Living. Ours.