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Section 5. I will clarify that the soul and body have a single moral agent — as is stated at the beginning of creation: 'The Lord God formed the human from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life' (Gen 2:7). Likewise both together — one is rewarded and another is punished.
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This is what perplexes many people in this matter. Some think reward and punishment fall on the soul only; others consider it on the body only; and others — Benjamin alone — imagined it on the bones only.
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All were misled by limited insight into language. One group found that language says: 'a nefesh that sins,' 'a nefesh that commits a trespass,' 'the nefesh that sins shall die' (Ezek 18:20) — and concluded that actions belong to the soul exclusively.
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They did not notice that Scripture says 'a nefesh that touches any impure thing,' 'the nefesh that eats meat' — and these actions are the body's.
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Another group found that language says 'all flesh will come to bow before Me,' 'all flesh will bless His holy name,' and the like — and concluded that actions belong to the body; without noticing that speech and articulation belong to the soul.
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And Benjamin found: 'their iniquity is upon their bones' (Ezek 32:27), and also 'all my bones will say: Lord, who is like You?' (Ps 35:10) — and concluded
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— that all actions depend on the bones. In truth, anatomy books do say that the human frame is the bones and that flesh, veins, nerves, and muscle serve and preserve the bones.
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But I know he did not say this through that reasoning but from limited insight — since every discipline has its own starting point, distinct from other disciplines; the discipline of religious law has nothing to do with anatomy.
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He also did not notice that 'Lord, who is like You?' does not specifically come from bones. And to compound the matter, he added that the bodies of Saul and his sons were burned by the people of Jabesh — as it says: 'They came to Jabesh and burned them there' (1 Sam 31:12).
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— and that their bones alone were buried — as it says: 'They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh' (1 Sam 31:13).
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Yet Scripture says 'Moses took the bones of Joseph with him' (Exod 13:19) — but who would have burned his body? And what shall we make of the man of God from Judah who said: 'Lay my bones beside his bones' (2 Kgs 13:21) — after his body had been buried?
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In fact, 'they burned them there' means 'they burned over them there' — as in: 'As they burned incense for your fathers, the kings... so they will burn for you' (Jer 34:5); and as language uses 'his father wept him' to mean 'his father wept over him.'
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In sum, those who attributed actions to the soul alone, to the body alone, or to the bones alone — none of them understood the convention and custom of language.
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For language's custom is: when an action is performed by three or four or five things, it sometimes attributes it to the first alone, sometimes to the second alone, sometimes to the third alone.
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Just as we know that speech is accomplished by five instruments — mouth, tongue, lip, palate, and throat — yet language says: 'My mouth declares Your righteousness' (Ps 71:15); 'my tongue expresses Your righteousness' (Ps 35:28); 'my lips praise You' (Ps 63:4); 'your palate is sweet' (Song 5:16); 'call out with the throat, hold back not' (Isa 58:1).
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— whichever of the five it mentions, the other four are implied with it.
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So too here: when it mentions soul alone, or body, or bones, or skin — it means all of them.
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Indeed, language sometimes attributes to a single limb alone an action that belongs to the body and soul together: 'Her feet do not dwell in her house' (Prov 7:11); 'she works with willing hands' (Prov 31:13); 'my eyes have lodged among their rebellions' (Lam 3:51); 'will my palate not discern iniquity?' (Job 6:30) — and the like.
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We have thus clarified through reason and Scripture that the two are a single moral agent. We add to this from tradition what the sages said: 'If a man comes to say, "Body and soul can excuse themselves from judgment" — to what may the matter be compared? To a king who had an orchard and stationed two watchmen, one lame and one blind...' — and the rest of the story.