The Source of the Soul (Tikkun Series Book 1)

Book summary

Hannah Snyder's journey through time and souls reveals her family's profound connection to the divine, exploring the tension between free will and destiny. As the Snyder family rises from Poland to New York, their story intertwines with Kabbalistic mysticism and spiritual purpose, inviting readers to reflect on the eternal battle between good and evil.

THE SOURCE OF THE SOUL is a mystical journey through family legacy and divine purpose, blending historical fiction with spiritual exploration.

Excerpt from The Source of the Soul (Tikkun Series Book 1)

Buddha

The evening stroll was going well, and my usually rambunctious three-year-old quietly walked by my side, holding my hand. The sun was setting behind the rows of corn on the farm road where we walked every evening after dinner during the Summer so we could watch the lightning bugs illuminating conversation with each other.

My son tightened his grip on my hand looking up at me. "I have a question," he said. “Go ahead, honey," I answered, fully expecting a request for ice cream before bed.

Ezra’s facial expression turned serious. "Is it ok for me to believe in Buddha? Aren't we Jewish?" he asked.

Ezra's words startled me. Up to that point, his interests ran the usual gamut of a three-year-old: children's books, Sesame Street, Barney the Purple Dinosaur, and following his step brothers everywhere they went during their visits on alternating weekends. "Why do you think you believe in Buddha? I asked. Ezra stopped walking and let go of my hand. He looked down and kicked at the rocks on the dirt road.

We stood there facing each other as if that moment had been long coming.

"I am afraid you will be mad at me," he said, his big brown eyes welling up with tears.

I kneeled down and hugged my worried little boy. He threw his hands around my neck, holding onto me. His little body shuddered as I waited for him to calm down.

"What is the matter, Ezra? Did you get scared by something?" I thought about all the Asian-themed cartoons and video games his stepbrothers enjoyed watching and playing. Ezra was allowed to watch as long as they were E-rating. That must be it, I thought, relieved to have found a simple explanation for my little boy's strange question.

Ezra took a deep breath, stepping away from me. He spoke tiredly and matter-of-factly. "When I was an emperor, I believed in Buddha. I wasn't a good person, Mom. I hurt and killed many people, and one day, my soldiers killed me in an alley." Ok, that caught me by surprise.

"Ezra… were you watching a grown-up movie?" I asked.

Ezra looked at me. He held my hand and pulled me along to start walking again. "No, Momma, I keep remembering my life before I was your son."

“What?” I asked, stopping to look at Ezra’s serious expression.

"Mommie, are you mad?" he asked.

"No, honey, I am not mad. Did either one of your brothers tell you this?" I asked.

I had been aware of my husband's son from his first marriage relentlessly teasing of Ezra whenever I or the nanny wasn’t around. My husband never intervened, even when Ezra was brought to tears by Nathan's latest prank or tease. Ezra would seek refuge with my son from my first marriage, Adam, who would bring a crying Ezra to me. Adam was a typical five-year-old, uninterested in babysitting his little half-brother, but unlike Nathan, Adam was kind and nurturing to Ezra.

On one occasion, Adam ran to my room and pulled me by the arm into the basement where Ezra had followed Nathan, who had lured him by telling him he had a surprise. Nathan had lit a candle telling Ezra to touch the flame. I came in time to stop Nathan, who pulling Ezra's hand towards the flame.

I screamed and Nathan let go of Ezra's hand. He looked at me expressionless and turned to Ezra to say, "See, you are a baby. Now you can't watch movies or play with me.” Nathan ran upstairs as I held Ezra until he calmed down. Adam stayed and comforted Ezra, telling him that he could watch movies in his room whenever he wanted to, and that was enough to get Ezra to stop crying.

I spoke with my husband that night about the incident in the basement. Ira went into Nathan's room and told him to stay away from fire and matches, that he could have accidentally set the house on fire. Nothing was said about Nathan's disturbing behavior towards Ezra.

In another incident, Nathan pushed the barely ambling Ezra into traffic as we walked home one Summer night after getting ice cream at a local shop. My husband told Nathan "to be more careful with his baby brother." After that incident, I insisted on being present at all the outings that my husband would take Nathan and Ezra together. My son Adam stayed away from Ira since the incident that had led to a change in custody. Adam went to live with his father and visited me on alternate weekends.

Ezra and I walked up the long driveway. Antique lamp posts illuminated the way to the estate built by Ezra's grandparents on the highest hill on the Abington property.

Ezra stopped and lifted his arms, asking me to carry him. I picked him up, kissing his chubby cheeks. He put his head on my shoulder and twirled a lock of my hair as we walked home.

I found out I was pregnant with Ezra one week before my husband and I left for a vacation to Egypt and Israel. My husband was appalled by the news. His facial expression hardened his chest, heaving from a sudden coughing fit that turned into an intermittent cough every few seconds, as it always happened when Ira was stressed. "Not this again,” he said. “We were being so careful." He stood up and left for his study, slamming the door behind him.

The news of my pregnancy shattered Ira's plans for his future as the father of one. His statement "not this again" referred to the "surprise" pregnancy during our first months of courtship. The pregnancy was terminated after a family meeting where Ira's father demanded the "issue be resolved" to avoid a scandal and embarrassment in their prominent social circles. Before leaving on our scheduled trip to Egypt and Israel, Ira told me in no uncertain terms that I was to terminate the pregnancy as soon as we returned home.

On that trip, startling events changed the courses of our lives. It was the beginning of the extraordinary and, at times, heartbreaking and horrifying events I memorialized in these pages.

I remember thinking as I walked with Ezra back home that his comments about being a "bad person who hurt people" had to do with the cellular memory that Ezra had retained from his father's rejection of him and my desperate fight for his survival. Ezra had been very consistent regarding his personal preferences from the time he was an infant. He would nurse while holding a lock of my long hair. After he was done nursing, he would suck his thumb with a piece of my hair wrapped around it, preventing me from leaving without kicking up a major fuss.

Ira called Ezra's bond to me "enerving." Ira began to spend time with Ezra by the time he started to walk. Ira was uninterested in Ezra as an infant and was often irritated by his cry.

Ira started to spend time with Ezra when he would sit on the sofa quietly watching his favorite shows on TV. I had to remain seated on the sofa during my husband's parallel interactions with little Ezra, like a perpetual referee between two rivals for my attention. Ezra seemed perfectly content until I attempted to leave the room.

Ezra would run after me. His little face had a panicked look that would disappear as soon as I entered his field of vision.

I made an appointment with Ezra's pediatrician to discuss his clingy behavior; the doctor dismissed my concerns and told me, "Ezra is a bright child who prefers your company at this time in his development." I wanted to tell the doctor how Ira and Ezra's interactions were awkward and appeared steeped in mutual mistrust. However, I knew the pediatrician wouldn't have an answer and would

probably think I was overprotective of my youngest son.

Ira had arranged our lives to be organized and predictable, dictated by his needs and interests.

Ira was approaching 40 when I fell pregnant with Ezra. Ira was enraged. He wanted his freedom. Having a child meant disruption, noise, and neediness of my time, which meant less attention to Ira's needs.

My role in our marriage was to keep myself as thin as possible to fit the standards of beauty of his ultra-rich and influential social circle and to quench the fat phobia he had inherited from his father. I was also in charge of the social calendar, where I had to keep detailed planning for the weekends when we would go on double dates with couples from his social circle, as well as attend the many social and business functions we were invited to throughout the year.

Ira was as strict with his weight as he was with mine. He ate a diet of meat and fish boiled or grilled without a vestige of fat or condiments, boiled vegetables, and salad with dressing on the side.

Another one of my responsibilities was to ensure that Ira was served the "right foods only" at all functions we attended and at home. I would start the day sitting with Ira at the breakfast table where I would read the proposed menu for the day as well as my plans for the day as Ira insisted that every second be accounted for with activities he felt were worthwhile.

Ira worked out daily three times a week. He had a very muscular personal trainer come to our home. I was expected to participate in the training sessions and later join Ira for a massage and sauna, followed by a shower and brisk lovemaking.

Ira would leave for his office around 11:00 AM and would return home in the evening. Adam, my five-year-old son from my first marriage, and Nathan, Ira's four-year-old son from his first marriage, would join us at the dinner table during their alternating weekend visits to our home.

Ira was happy with this arrangement and would exchange a few words with my son at dinner before giving the boys the ok to leave the table, wishing both good night. They would disappear into their separate but interconnected bedrooms, where they had a great variety of books, toys, and train sets, and as they grew, their beloved TV sets and the latest in video game systems.

When they were little, Adam and Nathan would wait for me to tuck them in with story time and cuddles after Ira had gone to his study, where he enjoyed solitude and a cigar. I could hear Adam and Nathan talking to each other through the open door that connected their rooms once they were sure that Ira had fallen asleep and they were free to chat without having Ira charge into their rooms demanding that they stop “fooling around” and go to sleep.

I was expected to be in bed by Ira's side as soon as he lay down for the night. He made love to me three times a week aside from the massage and sauna occasions. He hurried through the act, looking at the wall or at the ceiling unless he was angry. Anger and my fearful expression were his aphrodisiac. This side of Ira was not known to me while we dated. He was assertive and a bit demanding, which I interpreted as a sign of his interest in me.

I would wait by his side every night until he was fast asleep, and I would then get up quietly and leave the room for my studio at the back of the mansion. I would draw, paint, and dance to classical music or Rock and Roll. The night would pass quickly, and I would return to bed at the first signs of the sun rising, sleeping a few hours before getting up with Ira to eat breakfast together when he would give me the list of tasks he expected me to accomplish and give listen with perpetual disapproval of my plans for the day.