Soul Mazal: In the beginning

Little is spoken of, and hardly remembered, concerning Shem, son of Noah. Yet is from him, in the Academy of Shem and Ever, that "Kabbalah Kadmonim" − Wisdoms of the Ancients, from Adam, Seth, and Enoch − passed down to the well-known patriarchs of the Jewish People. We ask what those wisdoms were…and we find them echoing through the ages, from Creation to the End of Days, still alive and vital for all generations of souls, for… Shem was a great tzadik, who entered Gan Eden (while still on the Ark) and ate from the Tree of Life…so that he never tasted death. And from his descendants would come the stump of Jesse − the Mashiach, who would ultimately “swallow death forever.”