Out Of Breath, Out Of Spirit

We recently read a verse in the Torah that describes how the enslaved Jews in Egypt did not relate to the encouraging words of Moshe because they were short of breath from doing hard work. There was an avodah kashah (hard labor) and kotzer ruach (shortness of breath). There are several ways to interpret that verse. We certainly understand that hard work can lead to shortness of breath. We can also understand that preoccupation with demanding labor can distract a person from focusing on anything else, even from hearing a hopeful message. In Hebrew, the word ruach (which is used in that verse e.g. kotzer ruach) can actually mean four things. It can refer to the wind, it can refer to the breath, it can refer to the desire or will, and it can refer to the spirit. In fact, in many languages, there is a similarity between the words used to refer to those things. Even in English, we see a similarity between the word aspire which is to will or desire, aspirate which is to breathe, respiration which is to revive, and spirit, which can mean both life energy, emotional energy, and the soul. It is no surprise then that some of the early Torah commentaries suggest that our verse above means something other than labor and being out of breath. It can refer to the reality that living with stress can reduce a person’s spiritual fervor. In Egypt, the oppressive slavery at times made people less in touch with spiritual experience. While it is often said that “there are no atheists in a foxhole,” which means that under frightening circumstances, even a non-believer will seek out a higher power to pray to for help, it is common for people who have faced trauma to feel a drain of the spirit and an overall numbness that might impede their will to turn to Heaven, to pray, to feel faith and security, or to have the motivation and energy to engage in acts of worship and religious practice. The verse presents to us that the demanding labor curtailed their accepting solace and interfered with feeling faithful.

I teach my graduate students and colleagues who seek to learn trauma treatment that we can react to threat and crisis in different internal dimensions. Our thinking can be affected as well as our feelings, physical sensations, behavior, and at times our spiritual functioning and experience. I add that whereas some people react to a traumatic event with a surge of faith and turn to Hashem for protection and later with expressions of thanksgiving, we must work very carefully and tenderly when, following trauma, a victim, survivor, or witness to that shocking event is only focusing on their invigorated spiritual sense. We are human, and we have other faculties within the brain and body which absorb shock and horror. As tempting as it is to breathe a sigh of relief when a survivor is responding with deep faith and religiosity, their other faculties must also be examined. A person must also scan their internal self and become aware of what else percolates within. In fact, there is a sort of hierarchy or what I would term a “lowerarchy,” which must be worked on. I prompt those patients to work first on the most “primitive” or lower dimensions of reactivity. In severe trauma, the cognitive faculties are quite compromised and are seldom the starting point for working on traumatic reactions. Feelings are stronger than thoughts, and physical reactions are stronger than both feelings and thoughts. I train colleagues to focus on physical distress first, becoming aware of what is taking place in the body. A person must be aware of bodily sensations and identify where those sensations are and what they are. When the body begins to relax, and its tension or pain has been discharged or processed, they then might be ready to develop an awareness and sense of what is going on emotionally within, identifying the range of feelings which have appeared during and following the trauma. They then might be equipped to access the thoughts, ideas, and cognitive layer of reactivity once they feel more at ease with body and emotions. Focusing prematurely on the thoughts, however, can shut down the process of recovery because it ignores those deeper body sensations and emotions.

For most of us, our spiritual activity is part of—or an extension of—our thoughts. Our religious experience is made of our ideas, concepts, and formal assumptions and beliefs about a higher dimension of experience. It is true that some individuals have a more ascendant or transcendent sense when they are in their spiritual experience, so it is not all about cognitive experience. Even so, the body may still hold distress, the feelings may still be overwhelming, and the thoughts may still be troubled. It is for this reason that I almost always suggest that we save our spiritual faculties for last. Once the brain and body are regulated and stabilized, it may be safe and hopefully productive for one to be aware of how their spiritual self has reacted to the traumatizing reality. This is often hard and difficult work. But is begins with the consideration that before one does therapeutic work, the avodah kashah, they may well be experiencing kotzer ruach. When the spirit is out of breath, the body, mind, and brain must be revived first. 

Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at ChaiLifeline.org/crisis.