by Reisha Golden

Yoga means to yoke onto the spirit – How does this relate to Judaism? In Judaism, unity is translated into Yichud or Yechidah – the bringing together of that which is transcendent (beyond time and space) into that which is immanent (within time and space). In yoga, the unity we refer to is mind – body connection, or soul-body connection.

Similarly, Ha-tha means sun-moon, sun – transcendent, moon – immanent, so too Jewish mystics would explain God and man with transcendent and immanent qualities. Just as God’s initial creation of the universe was twofold – “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” — so did he create man and woman in a twofold manner, body and soul. As it says Genesis 1:27, “And God (Elohim) said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” We are made in the image of God, both with imminent qualities (physical) and transcendent (spiritual) qualities.

In man, this “heavenly” part, the soul, brings forth its “earthly” part, the body, that they appear to be one entity. Jewish mystics teach that your soul is what created the body, or that the physical body perfectly mirrors the spiritual soul within it. This is why Kabbalah views that our physical health often reflects our spiritual health.

What is the soul? The soul is what calls out for love. According to Sfat Emet, the “soul” refers to desire; it is the innermost soul that constantly draws forth life. Kabbalah or receiving, simply put, is about the heart, about knowing how to be balanced from within, in our receiving God’s light and love and, in turn, emanating that light and love to others in a balanced way. And by giving light and love, it does not diminish, but we become an open vessel to receive more. The premise of Kabbalah is that we open ourselves as spiritual vessels for receiving God and fulfilling divine will and our individual purpose on Earth. This is the purpose of Jewish Life.

How do we accomplish this lofty task? -by connecting to our deeper selves.

Mystical Judaism says that we can attain knowledge of God through experience of the self. Kabbalah or receiving is an experiential process. So too yoga.
​
Yoga is about this mind-body or soul-body connection. We, in effect, are connecting to the body to connect to our consciousness or to our souls. Like the brain sends and receives neural impulses to and from every part of the body, yoga too opens us to the energy centers of our body – be it chakras, or sephirot . And by opening ourselves to our deeper consciousness, to our soul, we can, in turn, be open vessels to receive and give to others the universal love and light that surrounds us.

by Steve Gold
On a recent visit to the Pike Market in Seattle, I was attracted to a booth selling crafted tiles featuring symbols from various world spiritual/religious traditions. They were all very beautifully done, but what particularly caught my eye was a depiction of the burning bush in the Judaica collection. All of a sudden the deep significance of this particular image hit me in a way it never had before. Certainly, the other Judaica images displayed, the menorah and the Star of David, are much more well-known and more often utilized in depicting Judaism, but when I saw the burning bush, I realized what a spiritually powerful image it is. The menorah came later, and the star later still (and is not unique to Judaism), but the burning bush is more primordial and in some aspects more quintessential.

It came to me in a flash of insight that what was so special was generally overlooked by traditional sources discussing this event and symbol, partly due to the emphasis on the bush. The focus has generally been on the fact that there was something special about the bush, because it was burning, but not being consumed. So that was some special bush! It was burning, but it really wasn’t burning, because it wasn’t being consumed. I did a little bit of quick Internet research, and found that some strains in Eastern Orthodoxy espouse a significance similar to my revelation, referring to this as the event of “The Unburnt Bush”.

In the revelation of the unburnt bush, the bush in some sense is incidental. The real significance concerns the nature of the flame, the fire, not the bush. What is extraordinary about this flame/fire is that it is not dependent on fuel (why the bush was not consumed), but rather depicts the foundational source of fuel and all existence. The first word in the Rig Veda, the oldest of all of the Vedas, is Agni, which means fire, which to me is what is depicted in the burning bush, the same Divine primordial fire from which emanates both Divine Light and Divine Sound, the source materials for creation.

There is nothing extraordinary about the bush. It is not the source for the fire, but just a contrast background for its appearance. I began pondering about why have the bush at all? The fire could have appeared independently, and the event would have become known as the event of The Eternal Flame or Holy Fire or something like that. So why the bush? Why the bush? What purpose does it serve in this depiction? Hmm…And then it came to me. If the flame/fire appeared independently, then those hearing the story might still have assumed that it was more or less like any other flame/fire, even if it appeared that its source was supernatural or miraculous, as it appeared to have no normal fuel. The bush was utilized to illustrate that not only was the source of the flame other-worldly, but also the very nature of the flame was other-worldly. This was no ordinary fire, for it was the fire of creation, not of destruction. It did not require fuel as its origin, and it did not consume fuel for its sustenance. The Hebrew word used for it in the Torah describing the event of the burning bush in Exodus is “eish”. A derivative is earlier used in describing man and woman in Genesis as “ish” and “isha”. Even earlier in Genesis, another derivative of “eish/fire” is used in combination with the word for water (mayim) to form the word for heaven and the firmament dividing heaven from earth (shamayim). So this creating, sustaining, non-consuming Divine Fire that appears in the burning bush also exists as a core element in Human Being and in Heaven. There is nothing unusual about the bush itself, other than that it helped to illustrate the unusual nature of the fire, and that it could coexist with the fire, just as heaven, earth and life coexist with the fire.

[The above is an excerpt from the book, IVRI: The Essence of Hebrew Spirituality; 21st Century Perspectives on an Ancient Tradition, by Steven J. Gold, with contributions from Shirley Chambers, Seyh M. I. Baha’uddin, Marcus J. Feed, and Bill Heilbronn. Available at www.lulu.com/spotlight/zorach and online retailers]
​
Steve J. Gold is the founder of the Yoga and Judaism Center.