Breath. It is something seemingly so simple. And yet, so complex.
The Hebrew verb to breathe, linshom, shares its root with the word for one of the levels of our soul, neshamah. In mystical Judaism, the neshamah is the third of five levels of the soul. It is the level of the soul associated with our creativity, consciousness, and our higher awareness and aspirations. It is through the neshamah that we express our character, and our emotions, such as fear, love, anger, happiness, surprise, disgust, and sadness.
Every day in the morning we acknowledge our neshamah as God given, and pure. In the Siddur, in the daily prayer book, we find the morning meditation, “My God, the soul (neshamah) that you planted within me is pure”.
This breath (neshimah, in Hebrew), and this level of our soul, this neshamah that God created and carefully placed within us, is precious and pure. How meaningful is the intertwining of breathing and the soul!
The connection of our neshimah (breath) and our neshamah (soul) brings out the awareness of what is happening around us, and the ways in which we aspire to act on this awareness, enabling us to process our emotions and express our creativity, as well as our consciousness.
For many years now I have been meditating and focusing on my breath and identifying the emotions that are surfacing at each moment. I feel I have made great strides in my ability to have gratitude for the miracles that happen every day in my life. I am more in touch with the profound pleasure of eating a fig that has grown in my front yard. I enjoy the sweetness of familiar smiles, the thrill of talking with friends across the globe through zoom, the pride in my family’s accomplishments. I have also grown in understanding where my anger is coming from, why I am feeling sadness, and what is making me afraid. The comprehension of these emotions is connected to getting in touch with my breath and, therefore, with my soul. I am grateful to God for my neshamah (soul) and for my neshimah (breath), for the ability to be aware, conscious, and in touch with my feelings. I say the sentence in the Siddur full of kavvanah, full of spiritual focus. This is the reason why this past year breathing, and its connection with the soul, became such a fraught act.
In mid-March, our world changed in a profound way. I will not lie — I was not paying much attention to the pandemic. I concerned myself with my niece’s Bat Mitzvah, and with my professional transition. Suddenly, there was no way I could hide; I was confronted with this very frightening and deadly virus, one that interfered with breath. Breath had been a source of centering for me, and since March the issues we are having with breathing are knocking me off -balance. More than a million people, all over the world, died, and many more will undoubtedly experience lasting consequences, because of this virus. A virus that attacks breathing. This literal struggle many had with breathing took my metaphorical breath away when I faced the level of misinformation propagated by political maneuvering. It pains me to read about the things that can be and could have been done, and were not done, for political reasons. I am troubled by the lack of care and concern for human life. The difficulties with the neshimah, with the breath, are hurting my neshamah, my soul.
The breath this year also became emblematic of environmental issues. Watching the fires raging in California, Oregon, and Washington, we witnessed the difficulties that people experienced in trying to draw a breath. The fears and the insecurity of breathing was stamped in people’s faces. The pollution of the air, the existence of heavy metals in the water, the slow erosion of our soil because of pesticides all factor in the difficulties with breathing. We are having difficulties with our breath, with our neshimah, and this is hurting our neshamah, our soul.
My issues with breathing are also affected by the images we saw in the beginning of the summer, when a human being kept saying he could not breathe, pinned to the ground, an officer’s knee on his neck. The images of George Floyd’s death keep haunting my neshamah. They are complicated by another death, in 2014. The final words of Eric Garner were also “I can’t breathe.” My breath gets caught again in the unfairness of racism, and the brutality of their death. The brutality of Mr. Floyd’s death unleashed more brutality, a vicious cycle that holds a mirror to the indignities and disparities of our society.
Nowadays when I close my eyes and follow my breath, I am overwhelmed by the losses that we experience due to inequality, economic disparity, sexism, racism, and the destruction of our environment. These losses affect us as individuals, as families, as communities, and as inhabitants of this world. The complications with our nehimah mar our neshamah. The Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria, a 16th century kabbalist, taught that a person who had a bad dream is more affected, in an emotionally negative way, than a person who has a fearful thought while awake. This happens because when one is awake, the soul is enveloped and shielded from harm by the armor of the body. When one is asleep, the soul roams freely, without a shield, and is therefore more vulnerable. According to the Ari, nightmares attack the soul when it is most helpless.
Not even the shield provided by our bodies can protect our souls, our neshamot, from the constant attack we are experiencing in these nightmarish times. Aryeh Kaplan, the great teacher of Jewish meditation, gives us a way to protect our souls. We are supposed to recite the Shemah twice each day. In those moments we focus on our closeness to the Divine (when we say Eloheinu, our God), on unity (when we affirm that God is Ehad, God is One), and on love (when we continue with the affirmation v’ahavtah,” and you shall love”). In Hebrew, the word for love, Ahavah, and the word for One, Ehad, have the same numerical value, thirteen.
Arye Kaplan writes: “Love is the power that breaks down barriers and unifies opposites.”
When we focus our spiritual focus on reciting the Shemah with our neshimah energizing our neshamah we affirm love and unity through our breath and through our souls. We insist that we can fix the world when we succeed in seeing the interconnection of things in this world, lovingly created by God. We can channel this unity and love into this world because we are created in God’s image, infusing every breath we take with love, a sense of justice, and a deep responsibility for the betterment of our world. We take one neshimah, one breath, at a time. We refuel our neshamah, our soul, one neshimah at a time. With our souls protected by love and unity we go back in this world, partnering with God in the work of creation.
May we feel the power of unity that comes from love. May we be able to breathe in love and unity and exhale the toxic results of individualistic thoughts and modern day plagues. May we feel that every neshimah, every breath we take can infuse our neshamah, our souls, with what we need to raise awareness, to be conscious of what needs to change, and to be creative in order to fulfill our aspirations for the betterment of our world. May we follow our breath and live fully, with an ever-increasing capacity to understand that we have the power to break down barriers in order to create a healthier world through love and unity.