אַאַמוּ"ר אָמַר: קוֹדֶם רְחִיצַת הַפֶּה שַׁחֲרִית, אֵין לְבָרֵךְ מִלְבַד בִּימֵי הַתַּעֲנִיוֹת — בִּרְכוֹת הַשַּׁחַר.

My revered father, the Rebbe [Rashab], said that with the exception of fast days, one should not recite the morning blessings before rinsing one’s mouth.1

To Fill In the Background

In the letter from which this teaching is taken, the Rebbe Rayatz placed great emphasis on personal hygiene. He quotes the Rebbe Rashab as saying that when a person prays with bad breath, he creates angels that are foul-smelling. On one occasion, the Rebbe Rashab told the Rebbe Rayatz to threaten a certain yeshivah student with expulsion, unless he improved his dental hygiene.

From this approach, we can derive a principle regarding prayer. Though praying is primarily a spiritual activity — an effort of the mind, heart, and soul — it cannot be carried out by a disembodied mind, heart, or soul. Prayer requires the cooperation, so to speak, of a physical body. Accordingly, entire sections of the Shulchan Aruch2 are devoted to defining the physical prerequisites for prayer. These include giving due attention to seemingly external considerations — that one’s clothes should be appropriate to the occasion; that one’s stance should reflect humility and reverence; that the air and the environment in which one is about to pray are clean and respectable; and that the body itself should be clean within and without — before one embarks on his prayers.