3 words. T’shuvah, Neshima, Neshama
return, breath and soul
return, breath and soul
The following is a teaching I offered to our 3rd-6th Grade students in preparation for the High Holy days.
One of the big themes this time of year is t’shuvah. Some people interpret this word to mean repentance…
What does that mean to you?
T’shuvah also means return. What/Who are we returning to?
How do you do t’shuvah?
Here’s another way I’d like to share with you.
Lets look at the next two words on my little list.
Neshima and Neshama come from the same Hebrew root: Nun Shin Mem. This is really cool because if you go back to the beginning of the Torah (which will be doing in a couple of weeks there’s the story of the first human being.
Adam.
How does God bring Adam to life? God “breathes into his nostrils the breath of life”…nishmat Chayyim…nishmat…neshimah, neshamah do you hear that the words are intertwined?
Any ideas about why I might be connecting the words breath and soul to t’shuvah…return?
Because…our breath is a perfect reminder that in order to reconnect to return to God all we have to do is pay attention to our own breath…
No matter what you do, or I do…as long as we are living beings. We have to breathe.
Breath seems to disappear as we exhale…but it always returns when we inhale.
Try it. Empty your lungs completely and see what happens.
No matter what we do in our lives…no matter how badly we misbehave or treat other people or even treat our selves…we are never really disconnected from God because God’s Presence resides within us…God’s breath filled adam and brought him to life…God’s breath in my way of understand this story became adams soul.
It’s the same for you and me. Our breath is a path to t’shuvah… to returning to God…It’s the same breath that God breathed into adam…the same breath that brought him to life and filled him with a soul is the breath we are sharing right now.
Everybody exhale….inhale…this is pretty amazing…the same breath being passed around forever.
Knowing this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t apologize to people when we hurt them. We still have to make amends in some way….but this understanding of how close God really is to us…right inside of us...helps us to know that we can do the right thing. We can return to being kind and compassionate no matter how bad our mistakes have been…the path back… the return to God will happen…just like the next breath…but we need to pay attention to how we act and think…we need to pay attention to God in other people, in all of Creation around us…nishmat Chayyim…the breath of life is everywhere! Paying attention to our breath reminds us that t’shuvah is always possible…and in a sense…just a breath away.
I want to teach you a prayer we can say everyday…
The prayer is this:
Elohai neshama, shenatata bi, tehora hi
God, the soul/breath you placed in me is pure.
Breath awareness exercise-one hand on heart, one on the belly.
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