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Feb. 22, 2008
Bible animated by the body
Rabbi mixes kabbalah study with the Indian practice of yoga.
KELLEY KORBIN
Kabbalah refers to a series of mystical teachings and interpretations of the Torah and Jewish practice. At first glance, it might seem that kabbalah and the ancient Indian practice of yoga are an unlikely match. Not so, according to Audi Gozlan, who will be coming to Vancouver at the end of the month to present his alef-bet yoga technique.
Gozlan, a Montreal lawyer and an Orthodox Chassidic Jew with an interest in kabbalah, began to develop his uniquely Jewish yoga technique five years ago, after he had been practising traditional yoga for many years.
He told the Independent that he had a revelation one day while he was doing the Warrior II pose, or Virabhadrasana II, that he was actually shaping into the Hebrew letter aleph. From that point, he said, he began to see other Hebrew letters in the poses and, eventually, over a long period of time, he developed a full set of poses that formed the entire Hebrew alphabet.
In alef-bet yoga, participants use yoga positions and the traditional yoga focus of breathing, meditation and posture to express specific Hebrew letters or words.
"Not just the Hebrew letters, but we do a sequence of meaningful words; for example, we'll do the words lech lech'a, [which] means 'discover yourself inside out.' I saw the letters that spelled lech lech'a in the yoga salutations," he said.
This is where the kabbalistic aspect of the practice comes in – because, as Gozlan explained, "the Hebrew letters, this 5,000 year old tradition, is not just for reading, writing or learning, but it is something that can physically heal us. And we know this about the Hebrew letters – kabbalah tells us that the Hebrew letters are the energy channels that created the world and that these letters are constantly creating and animating everything out of nothing.
"According to kabbalah, the way the world was created was by God pronouncing these words like mantras and the letters themselves became the existence of everything in heaven and earth. So kabbalah says that these letters are energetic and kabbalah yoga teaches that when you do yoga according to the Hebrew letters you are energizing your body with the power of the Hebrew letters."
Although the concept is different from usual yoga practices, anyone familiar with some of the more than 1,000 yoga postures will recognize many of Gozlan's poses – some of which have slight variations from their Indian forms.
So how does Gozlan reconcile ancient Jewish beliefs with the Indian traditions? He has done a lot of research and even penned a book, entitled Gifts of Abraham: The Untold Story of Brahma, where he details the theory that, after Sarah died, when Abraham sent his six children away from Isaac, he sent them to the east, to India, and that Abraham was actually Brahma, the Indian god of creation and the father of the Brahmans. Brahma, by the way, had a wife called Sarasvati which, you have to admit, sounds a lot like Sarah.
Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu of Vancouver's Ohel Ya'akov Community Kollel, who is bringing Gozlan to Vancouver, said that when Abraham sent off the six children, he sent them with a gift – the gift of wisdom.
"The Zohar explained that Abraham was teaching them a lot of the kabbalist secrets, like meditation and wisdom," said Yeshayahu. "We know that a lot of the eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism have a lot of parallels with Judaism, like meditation. We know through the sources that all the prophets reach prophecy through meditation ... if you want to be a holy man, if you want to be in touch with yourself and you want to have communication with the holy power, you need to know how to meditate."
Yeshayahu explained that in ancient times these mediation techniques and secrets were known only to certain holy people: "Now, for the last 500 years and, especially, the last 40 or 50 years, kabbalah is being known to more people because today we understand that the Western world is so challenging we need meditation in order to remember who we are and to get some kind of peaceful moment in our lives." That's where yoga comes in.
As Gozlan explained, "It's a great way to rediscover your roots as a Jewish person because you're learning the Hebrew letters as you flow into exercise. I think at the end of the day really what the Torah is about is not just a wisdom for the mind but a way of living.... Through kabbalah yoga, you're actually becoming - physically – everything that the Torah is in theory."
Gozlan travels and gives workshops to groups around North America. Many of his groups include men and women, a situation that he says took a while for him to get used to as an Orthodox Jew.
"It took me years to just gain the courage and the focus [to teach men and women together].... I look at my work as something that needs to be done and that it's healing and when it comes to healing I think a doctor, a physiotherapist, these people, whether they're Orthodox or not, will fulfil their work. Yoga is a healing of the body; it's not just a social activity."
To learn more about alef-bet yoga visit Gozlan's website at kabalahyoga.com.
Kelley Korbin is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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