Editor’s note: Elisa gave this drash (commentary) at the yoga practice for Passover Splash on Sunday March 7, 2021

Usually I don’t begin a Jewish yoga practice discussing yoga, but instead, start with a drash or commentary on the parsha or theme of the morning.

Today, I’m discussing yoga.

Decades ago when I first began practicing, I started with Ashtanga Yoga, a very precise form of yoga that is composed of six series, each of which has a set order of prescribed poses. The first series (I never made it much beyond the first, and not sure I ever really “nailed it”–more on that phrase in a moment–even at that) has about 40 poses.      (more…)

Editor’s note: Elisa gave this drash at the yoga practice on Saturday Ocober 28, 2017

Thoughts to begin and guide our yoga practice:

First, with thanks to Rabbi Aaron Panken, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute (HUC-JIR), who wrote the commentary upon which this short drash and our yoga session today is based.

We begin with: God told Abram in this Shabbat’s parsha, Lech L’cha, “go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you…”

So, when Abram received this instruction, he was just hanging out, comfortable, secure, in the land where he was born, in his father’s home. Then, presto, God asked him to uproot himself. Move on.

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Thoughts to begin and guide our yoga practice:

I just returned from my first trip to Japan, a country not without its problems, to be sure, but at least on the surface, a place epitomized by its extraordinary civility. With every bow I received (constant), and every bow I returned (one learns quickly), the contrast between the respect shown to the “other” in Japan and the seeming lack of it all too often demonstrated in our country grew starker. (more…)

Thoughts to begin and guide our yoga practice:

Let’s talk about the famous story of the prophet Ezekiel and the dry bones, the Haftarah for Shabbat Chol HaMoed. Ezekiel was taken by God and “set down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” (37:1) Probably the bones of slain Jews, struck down by Nebuchadnezzar’s army, bones left to bake in the sun. God instructed Ezekiel to declare to those bones: “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live again” (37:5). Despite the obvious preposterous request, Ezekiel complied, and “the bones came together, bone to matching bone . . .” (37:8), but the reassembled bodies still did not have breath. God instructed Ezekiel to call to the ruach (spirit,/wind/breath) and say: “Come, O ruach, from the four winds, and breathe into those slain, that they may live again.” And it happened.

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Thoughts to begin and guide our yoga practice:

I sit in front of my laptop, encircled by a moat of paper, on my floor, on my desk. Stacks of unopened envelopes, to-do lists not done, sticky notes telling me I have to call/email/set up appointments with such and such person. And that’s before I even turn on my MacBook Pro to face an Inbox with 55,000 unread messages. Ok, many are Bed, Bath and Beyond ads but many are not. The sheer volume of my life makes my body slump in a most un-yogic way. (more…)