Ruah
A meditation on breath as spirit, this playlist is my attempt at a personal theology. Each song circles the mystery of ruah—the breath that animates us, the grace that indwells us, the force that gives strength to grow and to love.
In Jewish tradition, the very name of God is said to be ineffable. The Tetragrammaton—YHWH—appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible, yet it is composed of letters that are more breath than speech, more exhalation than word. The kabbalists taught that to utter this Name is to breathe it, to encounter God not as a figure fixed in time but as the living current of spirit itself. Nachmanides pointed to God’s self-revelation as Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh—“I Am That I Am”—not a label, but a presence unfolding.
In most English Bibles, this ineffable Name is rendered as LORD (in small caps). What looks like a title of authority is, at its heart, a breath—a reminder that the Divine cannot be contained, only experienced.
To name God too tightly is to mistake the wind for something solid. To try to capture the breath is to lose it. These songs are reminders to breathe, to release control, and to let spirit move freely through us.
May these songs steady your breath, quiet your heart, and remind you that the wind of spirit is always here, closer than your next inhale.