This took my breath away….but returned it better than ever

This Sicha was a real breakthrough for me. “The truth is buried in plain sight” really rang true on this one.

I will explain. But first a drop of Chassidus from A Shabbos Parshas Shoftim Farbrengen, in 1969.

The Rebbe was doing what he often did in those summer talks, analyzing segments from the Alter Rebbe’s Iggeret Hatshuva, “letters regarding Teshuva,” the section always studied during that time of the year.

In the beginning of chapter five he quotes the verse from the narrative of the creation of man in Genesis; “and he breathed into him the breath of life” using it as a metaphor to describe being disconnected from G-d.

Small background on this Metaphor.

It’s generally the authors go to example to help illustrate our CONNECTEDNESS to G-d. It goes something like this. Humanity comes from the breath of G-d, a more primal energy source than “speaking” which “uses up” breath, though not nearly as much as the “act of breathing” itself. This helps explain why G-d “talked” the rest of creation into existence, “let there be light.” etc, a Biblical way of establishing a conceptual hierarchy of importance. That humanity issues forth from a “deeper place” doesn’t suggest a greater closeness to G-d in terms of proximity to him, at least not outwardly, but rather proximity to his raison d’être of creation. The intention behind all of existence then from This Kabalistic reading of Torah is to serve as an elaborate set, the stage upon which our human drama can be enacted.

Thats all from the beginning of Tanya where the parameters of our capacity for connectedness are established.

The section that we study over the summer however is grounded in the actual reality of how tenuous this connection to a G-dly awareness can be, based on our penchant to be distracted incessantly by our decidedly human consciousness.

Here is how the The Alter Rebbe, in discussing the process of spiritual renewal, or Teshuvah uses this same metaphor, albeit in a different way, to illustrate the dynamics of our BREACH with G-d.

Just as if a person were to blow on something, say if they were blowing on some hot food to cool it down, and there was some barrier between the persons mouth that prevented it from reaching the food then it would be useless, so too, the barriers that we set up behaviorally, dull our sensitivity to all sacredness, leading to recurring instances of spiritual shutdown.

The Rebbe continues to analyze the way the Alter Rebbe documents the anatomy of a spiritual meltdown. He points out how the Tanya repeats the same thing again, presumably to really drive the point home. This time however instead of attributing the breach to something blocking the “breath” he goes a different way and attributes it to man losing sight of g-ds “will” or “Ratzon.”

The Rebbe is bothered by the way the beginning of the thought uses the metaphor of breathing, considered a lower level of consciousness in these particular Kabbalah schematics, represented by the letter Hay, the last letter of G-ds name, and finishes the idea using Ratzon/Desire, representing the highest and most sublime level, so intense that it is barely even captured symbolically by the tip of the Yud, the first letter of the holy name, the place where the fiery flames of G-ds inner desire for this world burn brightly.

Why should the lower level description using breathing as a metaphor precede the higher level description of desire/will. If we are trying to describe the place where the breach takes place, wouldn’t a break that occurs at a more fundamental level resonate more, driving the point home with greater clarity?

The question might make more sense if we see it at a human level. There are different ways that we are able to hurt each other as humans, and there is a hierarchy in this sphere of human betrayal as well. So if we wanted a clear understanding of the anatomy of the way we betray one another it would make sense to use the betrayals that wound us at our core, the ones that rattle the very foundations of a relationship, rather than the “small time” ways we wound one another that might sting in the short term, but are seemingly (relatively) easily and quickly tossed into the emotional “forgive and forget” bins of our lives without any long term scarring.

As always the Rebbe presumes nothing, and pursues a stream of truth found at the depths of this thought, he does so as a gift to us, sharing an idea that speaks to us precisely we where are, in language that stirs our soul and moves us. A Chassidus that fits us perfectly.

The Rebbe points out that the metaphor of G-ds breathing itself registers at many levels including the lowest level, where we imagine only a minute amount of “divine” breathing expended in the process of speaking. The speaking that we talk of here is the “ten divine utterances” of creation: “let there be light etc…” In doing so it becomes clear how uncomplicated it is to trace the “lower” G-d energy concealed in G-ds speech, where the world whose purpose in creation is secondary to the real purpose of the creation of a human soul come into play; up to the place of the “higher” g-d energy of desire, where the soul of man comes into play.

The connection established here between the lowest levels of awareness and the highest can be imagined simply as a cosmic deeper breath!

I think at the surface the Rebbe is using the human experience to teach us about the way that G-d works, but in doing so is really leaving us with a profound insight into the reverse, shedding light on the delicate workings of our humanity and exposing the moral flaws inherent in much of our conventionally accepted social norms.

We tend to put so much stock on the “big ticket” places, those places we would never go, priding ourselves, justifiably so, on the adulterous lines we would never cross in protecting our relationships.

What we often dont realize is how the damage we cause in failing to have each others back on a day to day basis, in the ways we can be oblivious to each others pain, can be equally disastrous. The places that we give freely of our love to the things that we do, withholding that love from the people who need us the most, from those that count on us, are the crime scenes for the mini adulteries that we commit at each others expense. We mistakenly assume that the virtue of our faithfulness grants us some kind of license to commit acts of thoughtlessness.

The lower places are bound up to the higher places as well. The “mini breath” that seems unconnected to who we are at our core, is the very same breath that IS our life breath, our “Hevel Elyon” (“higher breath) that is synonymous with our Ratzon, the center of our being.

The way we relate to one another in all of our human interactions at the most pedestrian levels says so much more about who we are than the way we relate to each other when we are confronted with those unusual rare moments where we are faced with a high stakes kind of moral challenge.

The truth is that ultimately they are connected in the same way that small and deep breaths both draw from the very same place. They are actually the same breath!

This might explain why it is that the serial small scale back stabbers, those who feel justified in committing subtle emotional acts of violence, the ones who don’t realize how laughing at a joke made at the expense of their wife for example, is ALSO an act of infidelity, usually end up being the ones capable of committing the large scale nuclear infidelities as well.

Here is what I am getting to with all of this. Our primary Kabbalah texts BEGIN with metaphors of breathing. They abound with this metaphor. Our very first prayer that we are taught as children and that we ourselves in turn teach our own children is MODEH ANI, the prayer that reminds us how G-d breathes a new soul into us each morning. We learn everything about breathing, all the while forgetting the most important detail of all.

We forget to breathe ourselves!

All too often we overlook how the fact that the most powerful life tool we will ever need comes built in, standard — straight from the factory! We forget that when we talk about G-d breathing a soul into us, its merely a reminder for us to continue that process, to mimic it by learning to breath deeply ourselves.

The Rebbe is helping us understand the mechanics of the path of Teshuvah/repentance taught by the Alter Rebbe. (Thankfully the Kabbalah opens up new vistas, allowing for deeper ways of understanding this intimidating word, repentance; The word Teshuvah here is broken up into two words. Tashuv — HAY, meaning restore the letter HAY.) By breathing deeply and meditatively, we are connecting the dots between our lower selves, the lower HEY, and journeying up into the higher recesses of our soul. There we connect with our Ratzon, the tip of the letter YUD, our core selves, where we resonate with full authenticity. The breathing takes us to the place our mind tells us we need to get to feel whole again! Then we exhale that breath, framed by our truthfulness, right back down into whatever life complexities we might be mired in, wherever it is that we might happen to be standing, knee deep in the prosaic often messy reality of our existence.

This brings an awareness and connectedness of our highest truth to bear down even in our Chutzah, in the darker places, enabling us to resonate with TRUE faithfulness, by vibrating with the same truth in EVERY frequency of our experience.

Breathtaking…..?

Much Love Rabbi Yossi