When Moshe came to the Israelites with the good news of God’s redemption, they could not hear him because of kotzer ruah and avodah kashah, because of “shortness of breath” and “hard work” (Exodus 6:9) I want to explore our own shortness of breath and hard work.
Our Shallow Breath
We do tend to breathe in a shallow way most of the time. Amidst the urgent pace of our lives and all of its pressures, the schedule and the stress and the expectations and obligations, amidst all of that, it is natural that we develop a tendency to breathe quickly, as if breathing quickly will get things done faster.
Keeps Us Small
There is something else here which I think is important about shallow, short breath: the way that it keeps us small. Literally, physically, we are smaller when we breathe shallowly; our bellies don’t have an opportunity to expand and enlarge to their full potential, like a child cramped in a box that doesn’t allow her to grow to her full height. And I think that is true spiritually and emotionally as well. Like the Israelites in Egypt, we are enslaved to something outside of us, to productivity or efficiency or performance or something, and this disempowers us, keeps us small, does not allow us to truly step into our full divine potential as humans, to stand up tall in our full stature. We are all running around more like ants than like the fine upright divine creatures we were made to be. This is a kind of mitzrayim, the narrow straits that keep us small and disempowered.
Narrow Perspective
The narrow straits of our breath also lead to a narrowness of perspective. In this state of quick shallow breath, we are indeed like ants running around on the ground, never looking up, only seeing the tiny bit of ground ahead of us, or perhaps the back of the ant directly in front of us, or to use the Israelite metaphor, the next brick we need to lay on the pyramid. From the perspective of this shallow breath, we often can’t even see the pyramid or the project as a whole, and certainly not the possibility of another project, another lifestyle entirely. Our tightness of breath parallels a narrowness of vision; we look around and see ourselves stuck in a narrow tunnel, when in fact we exist in a wide open playing field. We can’t see the truth of our freedom.
Pharaoh or God?
But there is another way. The question that the exodus story asks again and again is – who is in charge– Pharaoh or God? Who is in charge inside you – Pharaoh or God? Our shortness of breath is a symptom of Pharaoh’s continued reign in our individual and collective psyches. What would it mean to let God in instead?
Breathing God In
What if we practiced expanding our breath and breathing God into our systems, enlarging ourselves and our perspectives by breathing in divine spaciousness? God took Avraham outdoors and showed him the vastness of the sky above with all the stars. What if we breathe into ourselves all of that vastness? I invite you to imagine that on your next in-breath you are breathing in that much space, a whole sky’s worth, letting God’s infinite spaciousness enter your body and open it up. Maybe feeling yourself like an expanding balloon. If you want, placing a hand on your belly to feel the expanded breath from the outside. Opening on the inhale, and on the exhale, letting go of some of the constraints, undoing some of the chains and the narrow boxes that keep you small, letting the power of God’s might knock them down for you, like a hurricane washing through you, like the plagues raging through Egypt, clearing space inside for some fresh air, for some room to grow and breathe and stand up from your cramped hiding place. So on the inhale, opening up, letting in divine spaciousness, and on the exhale, releasing all the traps and confines, relaxing, unwinding, clearing space. On the inhale, breathing in divine spaciousness, and on the exhale, releasing Pharaoh’s burdens and chains. On the inhale, choosing God. On the exhale, letting go of Pharaoh’s tight grip on you.
Min hametzar karati yah, anani bamerchav yah. From the narrow straits I call out to God. God responds to me with God’s merchav, divine expansiveness. We can feel the narrow straits of our breaths and bodies in our current mindframe, the stress and tightness all through our bodies, and ask for God’s great spaciousness, merchav yah, to open us up, to untie our knots, relieve us of our burdens, and lead us out into a wide open field. There is room now inside you, plenty of room for you to grow.
Slowing Down
And there is time. It’s also about time. We are so rushed, so much urgency, so much to get done. Where are we running to that is more important than this moment with God and ourselves? How has the Pharaoh inside and outside us enslaved us, convincing us that we must rush, must work till we drop, that the most important thing is how many bricks we lay? What is more important than living into this moment fully? When we slow down our breath, we come back to our soul’s pace, we allow God to catch up with us, as it were. It’s as if we have been running away from God, getting ahead of grace. Slowing down, we allow God back in.
Our Intrinsic Value
When we slow down, we come into awareness, too, of our intrinsic value. Under Pharaoh’s rule inside us, all is utilitarian. We are only useful for our productivity, mere cogs in a wheel. We have to earn our keep. But from the divine perspective, as we breathe deeply and relax, we remember that we need do nothing to earn our value and we rest in that divine birthright, to know our own inherent mattering. The idol of work robs us of this knowledge and confuses us, but breathing God back into ourselves, we remember and feel calm and whole.
Entering God’s Time
I invite you to slow way down, to enter God’s time, eternal and slow, patient, so patient, no urgency or agenda or need to prove or earn something, just presence in this moment, shabbat time, restful and complete. If you like, becoming conscious of your breath and slowing it down a notch, a long deep inhale, perhaps to a count of 4 and then an even longer slower exhale, perhaps to a count of 8, allowing that rhythm to slow your body down. Feeling how it calms your nervous system, bringing divine time into your system, bringing in a sense of patience and non urgency. Letting that calm divine energy wash over all the tight, anxious, urgent parts of you. It’s ok. Rest here with God.
Slowing down and taking in the full perspective of the infinite, as if before you had been running around like an ant on the ground and now you are Avraham pausing to look up at the sky and to remember that you are like that sky, you have that divine infinity inside you. You are not an ant, but a vast sky of stars.
Coming Out of Egypt
How does that divine perspective shift things inside? What happens to the tightness when you breathe shabbat in around it? No longer trapped or stuck, it can wiggle out of that cramped place like the Israelites came out of Egypt; it can come out of its tight quarters into the open air and see the butterflies and know that it, too, can fly. Standing in this divine perspective, everything opens up for us and we can see there are a thousand possibilities where before there were none. We open our eyes wide in wonder. There is so much more freedom and possibility than we imagined. This is the redemption Moshe was pointing to, the freedom not to be stuck. Let your cramped parts taste that redemption, that opening, that sense of possibility.
Our Power
From this divine perspective, we also have more power than we thought. Not our own small human power, but our Higher Power. We can do things we thought were impossible like leave Pharaoh and our enslavement and move toward a land flowing with milk and honey. We are not as disempowered as the world has led us to believe. We felt so small before, but now, when we breathe in and enlarge our internal space, we are like a peacock showing off its brilliant colors. We are proud and beautiful and confident and powerful. We are not under someone else’s thumb. We can open the door and step out now into the sunshine of our own magnificence, breathe into our own largeness. Feel that largeness in your body as you breathe yourself larger, like a peacock puffing up. This too is the redemption Moshe spoke of, the redemption of our own selves, the claiming of our full divine potential, the ability to stand tall and take up space, to take giant gulps of air, to fill up our lungs completely and with leisure and abandon.
Keep Offering that Spaciousness
Maybe you can offer that power and that breath and that spaciousness to whoever needs it inside you right now. Taking a deep breath, breathing God into your system and offering it to the hurt places and the tight ones and the pressured ones, the ones that are still working under Pharaoh’s regime. Maybe those parts won’t be able to hear you right away, as the Israelites couldn’t, but staying with the message, offering it again and again, with each slow breath letting them know there is another way. We can slow down and rest in God. We can slow down and breathe ourselves larger. We can take back our power and our freedom from Pharaoh. We don’t have to be a slave to running. We can sit here in this moment and breathe deeply and feel God inside us.
Image by shu-lei at Pexels
This is beautiful and useful. Breathing can stop panic, is mindful, and is a way to visualize another part of you. Than you!