I have spent a good deal of my life not being able to breathe. Asthma and its complications have been my companions since the age of two, so I take it personally when I daven the Shabbat service and read such phrases as "everything that breathes shall praise you" in Psalm 150 or "the breath of all that lives shall bless you" as we transition from the preliminary service to the morning service.
From the moment God breathes life into the first human in Genesis, our breath - our neshama - is never taken for granted in Judaism. Our siddur insists that we recognize what a gift our breath of life is, and our obligations both to appreciate its value and to use it in ways that are godly. Our Hebrew language and our Judaism link our respiration with our soul - the Hebrew root is the same. When we thank God upon arising, as we draw our first morning breath with the Modeh Ani prayer, we express our gratitude that our soul has been restored to us after the night of unconsciousness. In the Elohai prayer we acknowledge that the soul we have been given is pure. When we breathe we are fully alive; when we cannot catch our breath, we can feel our being and our soul slipping away.
I remember my bi-annual stays in the hospital, spring and fall, in an oxygen tent, trying to get air into my resistant lungs. I remember countless childhood nights at home (long before rescue inhalers were invented), unable to lie flat, being held upright against my mother's shoulder in the rocking chair while she would gently tell me to "just try to breathe." I think it is no accident that the medical community, from childbirth classes to anxiety treatment to pain management, has turned to focused breathing as a powerful and effective tool for healing. I find myself these days echoing my mother's words when I'm sitting on the bimah next to a nervous bar or bat mitzvah; I hear myself saying to them "just breathe - don't forget to breathe - breathing is good." They do, and it usually seems to help (if only temporarily).
Rabbi and author Paul Yedwab teaches that the breath of God within us can be found in our own breathing, and uses this imagery to describe our connection with God to young children. Just as God's breath in Adam gave him life, so our first divine breath makes each one of us a living soul. When we cease to breathe, we cease to live, and our divine breath goes back to its source. It is a powerful image and teaching tool. When we use our breath to sing, to pray, to say kind words, I think we feel it in our soul; when we use that breath to criticize or to blame or to gossip, our soul feels it as well, but in a very different sense.
My mother, of blessed memory, was given a breathing tube on the last day of her life to do the work that she suddenly could not do for herself. She took her last breath just as those of us who were present had finished singing the shema to her. I firmly believe that the timing was no coincidence. She spent her life doing godly acts with all her soul and all her might, and at the end, the breath of God within her returned to its source on the notes of a prayer.
I still have days when I cannot breathe, but modern pharmacology makes them easier to endure. Those days challenge me not to let my soul contract along with my airways, but to remain open in spirit and mindful that each breath is precious and godly - and to be used for good. Our sages knew these truths when they assembled the morning prayers to include such personal devotions. They recognized that the most natural of miracles - being able to draw breath each day - connects us with our creator at a level both basic and profound. I read their words and, letting out a sigh, know what it means to feel prayer.
