Since we had one article about the issues surrounding death and the BT this morning, we thought it might be a good opportunity to point to this great article at Aish titled: Taharah A Personal Look at the Jewish Way of Death and Burial.
The writer discusses how an opportunity to participate in Taharahs early in her teshuva process gave her a deeper understanding of the soul in this world and the next. Here is an excerpt:
My conception of the neshamah, the soul changed radically after my first taharah, when I actually sensed the existence of the soul independent of the body. I observed how the body houses the soul but is in no way identical with the soul. At the taharah, I witnessed with my own eyes how the soul had departed, leaving the body an empty shell.