However, this is not true of the soul enclothed in that body. The essence [of the soul] is the desire not to receive, but to give, which has flowed to us from the system of the four sacred worlds of ABYA (see chapter 11). It will exist eternally. For the form of this desire to give is equal in form to the Life-Force of the Living, and it is therefore not temporary. This shall be discussed more fully in chapter 32 and on.
Do not pay attention to those philosophers who claim that the essence of the soul is intellectual substance, that it [the soul] is actualized only through the knowledge that it acquires, that it [the soul] grows from knowledge, and knowledge is all of its being. [According to this theory,] the eternity of the soul after death depends entirely on the extent to which the soul has acquired knowledge, and in the absence of knowledge, nothing is left [of the soul] to remain. This is not the Torah’s view, and the heart rejects this opinion. Anyone who has ever acquired knowledge knows that it is an external acquisition, not the essence of the one who acquires it.