Kotzer ruach – “shortness of spirit or “shortness of breath” is the gift given to our ancestors by 400 years of bondage. G-d tells Moses to tells the Israelites that they would be delivered. They were too tired of body and spirit to understand what freedom meant, much less even think about what they might do as a free people.

In her d’var Torah “Shortness of Breath, Shortness of Spirit, Rabbi Sarah Bassin of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills talks about the meaning an impact of kotzer ruach and challenges us to look inside, find that which oppresses each of us, and to dispel it so that we experience orech ruach, “expansion of spirit.”