Shalom and thank you for your question! You wish to know if one’s soul can depart from one’s body during his/her lifetime?
According to Jewish belief, sourced in the Torah and Kabbalistic teachings, the physical world is actually just an interface for G-d. Just as when you open your computer you see a screen saver, as opposed to all the zeroes and ones that make the computer function. The entire universe is G-d, but G-d desires to have a place where His Divine will is carried out, so He created and recreates the world, meaning G-d hides Himself, so to speak, in physicality. There is an ecological chain, where plants are nurtured by earth and sun, air and water, then other organisms feed off the plants, the animal world lives from the aforementioned, and humans live from all the above. Spiritually also, intense G-dly energy is enclothed in the physical world, in order to sustain human life. What is human life? A soul in a body. What is a soul? A part of G-d above. What does it mean ‘above’? Although everything is actually a part of G-d, the soul is connected to G-d’s will and wisdom, like the Torah which is an expression of it. The soul when enclothed in the body has the ability to choose to carry out G-d’s will. At first glance, the moment the soul leaves the body, the body ceases to be alive. A person may be intubated and in a coma, but still alive. The soul in this case it still connected to the body, and sometimes there is a ‘clinical death’ experience. In many cases, people who recover their health afterwards report having been transported to a place of light, and eventually being told that they have been given another opportunity to fulfill G-d’s will in this world. In such an experience the soul did not totally leave the body. The Jewish soul has five levels:Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya and Yechida. Yechida is the highest level, which is manifested at times where extreme self-sacrifice is required, like risking one’s life to save another, or refusing to transgress the commandments of the Torah under threat of death. Until a person dies, the Nefesh is connected to the body, the higher levels are accessed by the mind according to how the person lives. After death, the nefesh ‘hovers’ in the place where his family mourns him, and then it hovers near the place where he is buried, for a certain amount of time.
Because the world is really a spiritual entity, which G-d created and constantly recreates in order that there be free choice to do His will, there exist forces of impurity, which are like a mirror image of holy energies reflected in a murky pond. One can access these energies, and have experiences like seances, where there can be communication with departed souls. This is an other worldly experience, but absolutely not recommended! It is forbidden by the Torah and can be very dangerous. If something is from a truly holy source, it brings us forward in a healthy way to fulfilling G-d’s will as expressed in Jewish law for Jews, and the seven Noahide laws for non-Jews.
You mention the word ‘astral.’ There are influences of the astral bodies on earthly life, but in a nut shell, when we choose to live according to G-d’s will, as mentioned above, we transcend the power and influence of those bodies, and are thus freed of connection to them. It is highly recommended to study G-d’s commandments in depth, for this is the highest connection to life!
