Rosh Chodesh Avodah - 008 MarChesvan: Breathing

PDF- Bilvavi On Breathing

Cheshvan – The “Smell” Left Behind From Yomim Noraim

We are now in the month of Cheshvan, heading into the winter, after all the festivals of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, and Succos. We are taught by our Sages that every month contains a special ability which we can use to serve Hashem. In the sefarim hakedoshim, our Sages tell us that the power of the month of Cheshvan is the sense of reiach, smell.[1]

Smell is unique from the rest of the senses in that it continues to linger with us even after what we already smelled isn’t in front of us anymore. The senses of sight, hearing, taste, and touch can only be sensed when you’re sensing it in front of you. You can’t see, hear, taste or touch something if it’s not in front of you. But you can continue to smell something even when it isn’t in front of you anymore. For example, when a person smells flowers, he can remember how it smelled long after the flowers aren’t there anymore.

This is why the month of Cheshvan is connected with “smell." During Cheshvan, we are left with the spiritual ‘smell’ of the Yomim Noraim, long after they are gone. What is this sense of smell that we remain with from the Yomim Noraim, and how we can use it?

Having Quiet Time Every Day to Reflect

Firstly, before we continue, we must know that if a person wishes to serve Hashem in a true and inner way, one needs to have quiet “heart time” every day.

In every month, our goal is the same: to live a more inner kind of life. This can only be done with our “heart time” that we must set aside every day. We need this heart time in order to internalize any avodah we do.

If someone doesn’t set aside time every day for heart time, it is not possible to really understand any of the coming ways of avodas Hashem which we will speak about. We must have times of quiet every day in order to think and reflect into our inner world. Without this “heart time," we will we be prevented from actualizing any of avodah. We won’t even understand any of the methods of avodah at all!

The purpose here is to open up our pnimiyus (inner world) and reveal a more inner kind of life. We must seclude ourselves a little from the world, in order to open up the internal world within us.

We have repeated this point several times, because it must be very clear. We must set aside time every day for “heart time." There is nothing to be gained from these words unless we have this time every day.

Smell Helps Us Sense Our Inner World

Having understood that, now we can start the avodah of this month: using our sense of smell (the chush ha-rei’ach).

When used in an inner way, the sense of smell helps us feel beyond the external dimension of things. When we smell something, we are sensing something more internal than what it appears to be.

Every Jew’s soul wants to know of the inner world of the soul, but we cannot sense it with the other four senses. The sense of smell is the only sense that is able to sense any pnimiyus (inner, spiritual layer of reality) in our life. The Sages say that the only physical sense which our soul has pleasure from is the sense of smell[2] which is the most spiritual kind of sense of all the senses. It is beyond the physical senses - it can “smell” spirituality. The external, superficial layer of our sense of smell can only smell the physical, but there is an inner use of our sense of smell, which can ‘smell’ the spiritual.

Our sense of smell has two layers: the external, superficial layer of smell is when we smell the physical, such as smelling the scent of a flower, and the inner layer of smell, which can smell the spirituality even in the physical. Our sense of smell is able to reach deep into the physical and ‘smell’ something spiritual in it. ‘Smelling’ spirituality can show us how something which looks only physical can really be spiritual.

The Power of Breath

Our nose has two functions: smelling and breathing. The power of breath^[3] in us is essentially the nishmas chaim (the “breathe of life”) that was breathed into us from Hashem.

It is written, “Every soul praises Hashem,”[4] and the Sages explain this to mean that “for every breath a person breathes, a person must praise Hashem."[5] Thus, the avodah based upon this statement is that one should become aware that his every breath comes from Hashem. If one is not aware of their breathing, they are not able to thank Hashem for it, because if one does not feel it, they cannot appreciate it. If a person is unaware of his breathing, maybe they will be able to express their gratitude to Hashem after every ten times that they breathe in and out, but will not be able to feel grateful to Hashem for every single breath. Only when one becomes aware of their breathing can they come to thank Hashem for every single breath that they breathe.

Beginning To Become Aware of Your Breathing

How does one begin to feel and become aware of their breathing? One needs to set aside time for this and sit quietly, and start exhaling and inhaling, with calmness. Pay attention to the breathing, and listen, slowly, to the breathing. Then you will begin to feel the breathing.

Quiet time is necessary for this. If, a person is harried (either by being mentally anxious or physically bombarded by something) then there is no chance that they will be able to feel their breathing and become aware of it. But, if a person sets aside just 5 minutes a day, or even 3 minutes a day, and tries to become aware of each breath that they breathe during this time, then not only when will they become aware of their breathing, but they will begin to feel a more inward kind of feeling as they are exhaling and inhaling.

Without having this quiet time to feel your breathing, your breathing is only being experienced superficially, as if it is one of the many various functions of the body. But when a person makes sure to have this quiet time during the day to feel his breathing and to pay attention to his breathing, he will begin to uncover the p’nimiyus (the inner depth) that is contained in every breath.

Inhaling and Exhaling To Reach Our P’nimiyus (Inner Essence)

Today people are borrowing secular ideas that come from the gentile world. Many people are practicing a method of breathing where a person imagines that they are releasing any negativity from their body upon exhaling, and upon inhaling, the person imagines that they are breathing in new energy that will invigorate their body. However, this is just an external use of breathing. Our Sages revealed to us the inner way to use the power of breathing, which goes much deeper than this.

When we speak here of setting aside quiet time during the day to feel your breathing, we are not intending to copy the gentile approach. Our intention here is to tread the path that our previous Sages took when it came to this power which they taught us.[6]

When we became aware of our breathing, we are essentially becoming aware that there is a nishmas chaim, a “breath of life," that was breathed into us by Hashem; and thereby become closer to Hashem from this depth that we reach. Our breathing, which is sustained by Hashem’s breath, is thus our very life. We can find the very source of our life contained in our breathing. When we begin to become aware of our breathing, quietly and calmly, by listening to our breath, we begin to recognize and feel an entirely different and inner perspective towards life.

Let’s explain what is meant here. In whatever action we perform, whether we use our sense of sight, hearing, speech, or anything else that we do, most of the time we are unaware of these actions. These actions are usually not connected to our awareness. Most of the time we are far from our own selves, and surely that will mean that we are far from Hashem – because most of the time, we are distanced from our own inner world.

Therefore, when we begin to take deep breaths and we are listening deeply to the breathing, we need to bring the breath into a deeper place in ourselves. Then we exhale that breathe and we go deeper from the deeper place that we have already reached. Slowly as we keep doing this, we can keep penetrating further and further into ourselves, deeper and deeper into ourselves.

From all of the senses, the sense of smell (which our breathing is enabled by) is the deepest and most inner kind of sense. When we see something, sometimes it can have a deep effect on us, and sometimes it does not. When we hear something, sometimes we are deeply affected, but sometimes we are not. When we touch something, we are feeling the physicality of something, and we are not feeling anything deep in this. But when we inhale the scent of something, using our sense of smell, we can sense it deeply. We can keep taking in the scent of something, where we continue to smell it more deeply.

In the same way, we can also deepen our breathing. We need to try this in the actual sense. For every breath that you exhale and inhale, you can take the breath deeper and deeper into yourself. Train yourself to slowly deepen your breathing, deepening your breathe each time.

This is an amazing ability which Hashem has given to His creations. It is a physical act of exhaling and inhaling, yet it is a use of the sense of smell, which is the only physical sense that our neshamah enjoys, as our Sages taught. It is the sense which we can use to penetrate deeply into ourselves. When a person gets used to this, sitting quietly and calmly, taking in deep breaths and listening to them, it can open up before him a great opening that will help him get to deeper places in his soul.

Entering Our Inner World

The avodah of a person is to enter into their inner world, and live an internal life, a life of the heart, a life of living the depth of the neshamah. The power of breathing which Hashem has given to man is one of the amazing powers which man can use to enter into his inner world.

Of course, the main avodah of a man is to learn Torah and to keep the mitzvos, and the main avodah of a woman is to keep the mitzvah of modesty. And the common denominator between all men and women is that we all have to work on our middos, so that our hearts can become more purified and so that the barriers between us and Hashem will be removed. Then we can enter into the inner depth contained in our heart. But there is also another way for us to enter into our inner world, which works in tandem with keeping the mitzvos (and it is not independent of learning Torah and keeping mitzvos, chas v’shalom): the power of breathing can help us enter more inward into ourselves.

At first, getting used to it will feel like a mere breathing exercise, and you will only feel it in the physical sense. But if you get used to deeply listening to your breathing as you take the deep breaths, concentrating deeply into this, you will suddenly feel that you have entered deeper places which you never knew about until now that were inside of you.

This is one of the powers that help us serve Hashem, but it is not necessarily meant to be the path that every person must take. Some people are more inclined to this avodah, and some people are less inclined to take this path. But for those who do feel inclined towards this path, this avodah can be a great key for them to enter their inner world.

It begins from a mere physical act of exhaling and inhaling, and at first it will not feel very inward or spiritual at all, but as you get used to deeply listening to the breathing, the breathing will first enter deeper into the physical heart, and eventually as you keep doing it, it will enter into the deeper and more spiritual parts. (This is the “ruach chaim," the “spirit of life," which penetrates into the “Ruach” that is found in the heart).

A Word of Caution Before Beginning The Breathing Exercise

We must emphasize that this avodah must be done calmly, slowly, and patiently. A person should not accelerate the process by taking in many deep breaths in quick succession of each other and anxiously trying to get inward with each breath. This is physically dangerous, and it is spiritually harmful as well. It must be done quietly and calmly, pleasantly, and not with pressure to get anywhere.

You need to strongly want to enter deeper into your inner world, of course, but it must not be forced and make you anxious. You need to want to get there calmly with serenity. You are calmly trying to get to get deeper into yourself.

We have had to give special caution about this, because it is very possible for one to harm himself if one is ignorant of these rules. Now we can begin, with Hashem’s help, how to make this more practical. Although these are very subtle matters, we will try to explain it as much as Hashem allows us to, and to explain as precisely as we can.

Step 1: Becoming Aware of Your Normal Breathing

The first step is to begin with your normal breathing. Become aware of your breathing, and don’t try to manipulate your breathing in any way that you are not used to. Simply become aware of your normal breathing. This is the first step: sit with yourself each day for a few minutes, breathe normally, and just pay attention to the breaths.

Step 2: Deep Breaths

After you feel that you have become more aware of your normal breathing and that this awareness has become more natural to you and that you’re not straining yourself, now comes the next step. Try to deepen your breathing a bit more. Sit and take slightly deeper breaths than your normal breathing. The first time you do this, take a deep breath, and keep repeating this for a few times, with the very same kind of deep breath.

After you feel that you have reached a certain depth which is natural and you are not straining yourself to feel it, try to deepen the breathing a bit more. Concentrate a bit more deeply on the breathing, and breathe in more deeply than before, and keep repeating.

We need to keep doing this until we can do it easily without concentrating too deeply on it. Do not try to accelerate the process of trying to reaching a deeper place in yourself each time. Just go slowly in this process. Breathe in a bit deeper after a number of breaths, keep deepening the breathing this way, and slowly, you will see that you have reached a deeper place in yourself, but without concentrating so hard to get there.

Step 3: Sudden Inner Recognition

When you have reached a deeper place in yourself, at some point, you will suddenly recognize that you have the reached a deeper place in yourself. This might not happen to you right away as soon as you reach the deeper place in yourself. You might feel it sometime after you have slowly gotten there, where it will suddenly dawn upon your awareness.

This does not mean that you have simply learned how to take deeper breaths. If you have done it correctly and have gotten further into yourself with the breathing, it is like entering into a new room in yourself, where you see what is inside of it. When you deepen your breathing and you have truly reached a deeper place into yourself, you will know that you are there. You will begin to recognize a deeper place in yourself that you were not aware of until now. If you do not feel that you’ve reached a deeper place in yourself, it must be that all of the deep breathing was done superficially, with not enough genuine intent to go deeper into yourself.

When you have reached a deeper place in yourself, you are now activating what Chazal refer to when they said, “For every breath, praise Hashem.” The meaning of this statement is not that each breath is like the breath before it and that you must praise Hashem for the same kind of each of these breaths. Rather, it means that each new breath that we breathe can help us enter deeper into ourselves, which gives us greater inner recognition of ourselves. Thus, there is new reason to praise Hashem for each of these breaths.

The power of deep breathing can provide a person with a great opening, a key, to a greater depth of feeling and inner recognition, because it takes you to a deeper place in yourself. Therefore, we must emphasize that it needs to be done slowly, and to keep repeating the process described until you are calm enabling you to act from a deeper place in yourself.

Hashem says, “My son, give your heart to me.”[7] Hashem wants our hearts, and the kind of heart that Hashem wants us to give to Him is, that we should give Him the very depth that we reach in ourselves. Reaching a deeper place in our heart, which we can reach through the power of deep breathing, enables us to daven to Hashem from a deeper and more genuine place in ourselves. It enables us to be kind to others from a deeper place in ourselves. It enables us to really use our hearts for Hashem; “Hashem wants the heart” (Rachmana liba ba’ee).[8] 

There are many ways of how we can reach the depth of the heart: through exertion in Torah learning, through tefillah, through fixing our middos, and other ways as well. But an additional way to get to our heart, as we explained here, is to use the power of breathing- to get used to breathing deeply and to reach a deeper place in oneself from breathing.

When we reach deeper into ourselves, we are able to act from a more genuine place in ourselves, from our heart. When one gets used to this power and is regularly reaching a deeper place in oneself via the act of deep breathing, one will see a transformation in their life, where their actions will be emanating from their heart.

Step 4: Reaching the Self

Let’s try to continue explaining this avodah, although it’s a matter that is very deep, subtle, and hidden.

After a person feels that they has reached a deeper place in themselves and they feel they have reached the deepest possible place in their self that they are aware of, now comes the next stage, where a person can slowly penetrate even further than this [as he continues the deep breathing]. One will eventually feel that they have reached the very essence of their “I” – the deepest possible place in oneself. One can reach it by continuing to breathe deeply, feeling that they are getting deeper and deeper into themself, until he eventually reaches his “I."

At that point, their breathing is helping them touch upon their very “I." Their breathing has brought them into the deepest possible place in oneself. It takes a lot of hard work before this in order to reach such a place and to be able to breathe deeply to get there. It will take a lot of time and effort to get there, and again, it needs to be done calmly and peacefully. It will mainly require a lot of purity and holiness in one’s life, which opens the heart more and makes it easier to get there. The more a person has purified himself internally, the more he has softened his heart, and his heart goes from being a “heart of stone” into a “heart of flesh." It will then become much easier for their breathing to get further into themselves, where one can penetrate into the deepest part of their self.

Step 5: Sensing Hashem’s Existence in the Self

Finally, there is one more step to reach. Let us explain it, with siyata d’shmaya, although it is a very, very deep and subtle matter.

The final step is for one to deepen the breathing to the point that he senses the reality of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

It is written, “I will dwell amongst them,”[9] and the Sages explain this to mean, “It does not say “in him,” but “in them” – in the hearts of each person.”[10] Thus, we are taught that Hashem dwells in the heart of each Jew. This point is the deepest place to reach through breathing, and it is the true meaning of the nishmas chaim that was breathed into us by Hashem. When Hashem breathed into us a spirit of life, He breathed into us a breath of Himself, so to speak. That means that we are breathing due to Hashem’s own breath that was placed in us.

When one accesses this kind of deep breathing, he is touching upon the revelation of G-dliness that is found deep in the heart. This is the deepest possible kind of breathing that a Jew can ever breathe.

In Conclusion

Part of the reason why we have had to explain this exercise very specifically is because there are many “breathing exercises” which have been gleaned from modern, gentile sources. We have tried to present here one of the paths explained by our Sages that describes how to use the power of breathing in a way that helps us reach a purer place in ourselves. The power of breathing is a way for us to reach the “I” in us, the pure soul which Hashem creates us with. Even the more so, breathing can help us feel Hashem’s breath as the source of our own breathing. 

The words here were not ideas. They are about a way to reach an inner kind of life, of how to reach the depth of the neshamah, and of how to reach the Creator. But these are matters which require a lot of effort and training and getting used to, as well as holiness and purity and Heavenly assistance, in order for us to be successful.

May we merit from Hashem to have a desire to enter into our inner world, and to at least choose one of the paths that help us get there, even if is not necessarily through the power of breathing.

Let us stress one last point. The power of breathing is just one of the ways of how to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. There are many other ways to serve Hashem as well which are proper and valid, and each person needs to choose one of the paths that are mentioned by our Sages. One should choose the path that speaks the most to their heart. The words here do not mean to imply that everyone must take this path [of using the power of breathing]; chas v’shalom. A person should only use this path of serving Hashem if it is close to their heart.

The common denominator with all people is that all of us need to enter our inner world, in order to live a more inner kind of life, so that we can reach our essence and reach a more complete recognition of our Creator.

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