Embodied Judaism is a spiritual and physical practice that is grounded in traditional Jewish teachings about the sanctity of the physical body and the natural world. Created by Ari Weller, developer of Integrative Movement Conditioning based on pilates and gyrotonic, and Jay Michaelson, a lifelong teacher of Jewish mysticism and environmental education, Embodied Judaism is about experiencing God in the body and in the natural world. It is a practice taught on weeklong retreats and one-day seminars, with text study and full-body movement, in caves and on retreat.

Next scheduled retreat:
TBD
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Participants in an Embodied Judaism summer class gain experiential knowledge of one of Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism's core ideas: that our bodies and nature are points of contact with the ayin, the mystical nothingness that underlies all Being. From rock scrambles to mindful pilates movements, exploring caves to learning to be aware of our breath, Embodied Judaism is meant to be experiential, active, and engaged. It is appropriate for people of all ages and levels of Jewish background, for those who have rock climbed on mountainsides, and people who have never been to a national park.

About Embodied Judaism

Judaism is a religion of the body. From our pre-Hellenistic Biblical roots — in which our ancestors saw the material world as the holy creation of God — to the new paradigm of Neo-Hasidism, in which contemporary seekers see it as God Itself, Judaism has long had within it a strong environmental and body consciousness. While the importation of Greek dualism and the contact with body-negative Christianity have left their indelible marks on the Jewish tradition, there remain within Judaism important ideas and practices for experiencing God in the body and in the natural world.

The human body, as well as the soul, is understood in our mystical tradition to exist b'tzelem elokim, in the image of God. The Kabbalah teaches that we exist in constant dynamism between the poles of hesed (extension) and gevurah (contraction), always coming back to our spine, the "central pillar" on the tree of the divine emanations (sometimes called the 'tree of life'). We can experience this oscillation in our bodies, paying close attention to our breath, feeling expansion and contraction (ratzo v'shuv) as a primary modality of the created universe. The Kabbalah does not stop there, however; it goes into great detail, with the firmness of netzach and supple yielding of hod, mapping psychological and spiritual realities onto our physical bodies. Jewish prayer life includes movement practices designed to reorient our consciousness, blessings that thank God for the functioning of our physical selves, and countless opportunities to be present, now, in the Jewish-Integral model of the four worlds: body, heart, mind and spirit.

Jewish tradition also emphasizes the importance of the material world beyond our bodies. For example, using the Kabbalistic doctrine of the four worlds — asiyah, yetzirah, briyah, and atzilut — "nature" has significance in each of these four realms: in asiyah, Jewish law sets up numerous statutes regarding environmental preservation; in yetzirah, nature's many songs and abundant diversity is the site of creativity ("Trees and plants have a language of their own" said the Baal Shem Tov); in briyah, it is a portal to consciousness of the Divine (in gematria, Elohim = HaTeva [nature]); and in atzilut, it is seen as nothing more than a garment worn by the Infinite light of ein sof. Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav teaches of the importance of retreat in nature, and the beauty of the song of the grass. Abraham Joshua Heschel writes of the centrality of nature in cultivating radical amazement. And halacha, from its Talmudic roots to Renewal teachings of eco-kashrut, is insistent that we not waste or destroy any of God's precious creation.

Embodied Judaism is about exploring these and many other precious Torahs. We learn about the complexities of Jewish body image across time: stereotype of ‘carnal Israel’ on the one hand but also of disembodied diaspora Jews on the other; how Jews have seen the body, positively and negatively, across the centuries. We learn about Jewish ‘care of the body’ mitzvot regarding health and hygiene. We will also look at the many anti-body themes within the Jewish tradition, including ascetic practices and beliefs that the body is the place of sin; rather than try to syncretize these teachings with the more ‘pro-body’ elements, we want to honestly engage with our ambivalent tradition and try to understand its complexity. We hope to gain an authentic embodied Judaism, experience the interrelationship of body, spirit and nature; feel the presence of God in natural world; and know directly the environmental and physical context of core Jewish spiritual teachings. Embodied Judaism experiences Judaism as tied to the physical body and world, locates our souls in our bodies, and cultivates a sense of amazement grounded in the present.

Call (917) 576 6683 or email Ari for an appointment.

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