This is when I came across a beautiful teaching in the Babylonian Talmud that seemed to make perfect sense. According to this medieval Jewish text, the angel Lailah lives in the womb and watches over the embryo until it is time to be born. The angel teaches the unborn child everything there is to know about the mysteries of life and his or her own soul. When the time comes for the child to be born, the angel Lailah puts her finger in front of her own mouth as if to say, "shhh," and then presses the upper lip of the child so all the memories are forgotten. According to the mouth, the light touch on the child's lip leaves a small indentation above the lip called a philtrum, which is something we all have. I started to think that perhaps the angel Lailah just hadn't pressed quite hard enough on some children's lip's, and this is why they had come into their current life bearing soul memories.
