Last Sunday night I had my second class of the Zen Shiatsu course I’m enrolled in. Of course you might be thinking, “Zen Shiatsu? What kind of a subject is that for a nice religious guy like yourself!”

While I’d be lying to say that such sentiment has never crossed my mind as well, I do feel a sense of purpose in doing this. I am mostly just doing it for myself. I want to feel more at home in my body- I want to be able to move with my heart. I am a very intuitive person and I can feel a lot from other people when I open myself to it; I want to develop that and see where it takes me. I have always wanted, in the larger picture of my life, to be a healer, though that doesn’t need to fit into any specific context. This is a very direct expression of that, the most so I’ve ever had. I was drawn specifically to Zen Shiatsu because it’s so much an extension of one’s self- the whole concept of the movement, and the power of the treatment comes is deeply rooted in the essence of the giver. All the movements are based in the belly. It feels very familiar to me. I am generally in a process of learning to open up and experience more in my life, to express myself and be more emotionally honest and alive- I need to shake off many years of fear and feeling stifle to just be.

So here I am, to paint the scene, sitting in the course-room with a bunch of other Israelis, there are a handful of other observant Jews in the room, most not. Some people who have been to India, or other places, into eastern religions, etc. I am the only one in the class in black pants and a white shirt for sure (everyone remembers my name .

I actually find the whole clothing thing to be mostly irrelevant, though there are obviously reasons I dress the way I do. I don’t generally think very highly of the unfortunately pervasive “chitzonius”, or superficiality that exists in this country between the “religious” and “non-religious”, and within their subgroups. But that is another post maybe for the future. There are some great people in my class.

I felt a vague uneasiness after the class, even though I felt phenomenal after we practiced on each other. It wasn’t until a full day later with the help of a perceptive friend that I realized what was bothering me.

In the first half of the class, the teacher lectured on the concept of Yin and Yang, the 2 basic polarities found in everything in the universe in chinese thought. Now this concept has great value and truth to it. This relativity does exist between so many things, and it really is possible to see it almost anywhere. In practice it has amazing benefits for a person’s health, and for finding balance in life in general.

What was difficult for me was that everything she was saying was so obviously rooted in the Torah, but that there was no awareness of this (apparently) amongst anyone else in the class. The Torah includes all of these things. Which is not to say that everything in any given world philosophy is included in the Torah, G-d forbid. But rather that there are points of truth can be and are found scattered across different cultures and civilizations, and these points of truth are ultimately rooted in and included in the Torah.

With Yin and Yang, it is right there in Ma’aseh Breishis, the Torah’s account of creation.
ברישית ברה אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ

“In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth”.

If you pay attention, Hashem creates opposites. Heavens and Earth. Land and ocean. Day and Night. It goes on. Furthermore, according to the Ran, a medieval commentator on the Talmud and one of the great lights of Jewish history, originally Hashem created an initial basic matter. From that matter He proceeded to split into divisions.

Initially, the most drastic division is made- the total separation between heaven and earth. We don’t always realize it, but for us today these are relative poles- but there is great connection, influence and movement between them. At this point in the creation, though, it was an utter separation. Then, the division between “tohu vavohu”, total desolation, emptiness and chaos, and the “spirit of G-d” that hovered above the waters. As the creation process continues, these extreme opposites slowly draw nearer to each other again. Throughout the creation, Hashem takes these opposing poles and slowly brings the opposites closer together, though the polarity remains.

Ultimately, only a small distance remains between the two aspects. At that point, Hashem creates Adam. Then Adam is split into Male and Female. This final remaining space- the space between them- is what was entrusted to humankind in Gan Eden as our share in completing the creation. Even after the fact, this is the sod(secret) of the Cherubim, and of the various midrashim that describe Hashem and the Jewish people in terms of masculine and feminine.

Of course, Adam and Eve failed their test. So what would have been right then a complete tikkun, instead became a lot more chaos in the world. There was a shattering of the vessels, and we are trying to put the pieces back together to this day. And sometimes we may even find one of them, say, in Chinese philosophy. But the purpose remains, that the ultimate context of all of this is to finally bind all opposites together and complete the bridge, which is when there will be a wondrous peace in the world. It is ultimately through the mitzvos of the Torah, now, that that connection is made. Human beings stand between heaven and earth, and have in our hands to create peace and unity between them or G-d forbid to drive them further apart. But the essence is restoring balance to all the disharmony and chaos in the creation.

So when I am learning Shiatsu, I see it as contributing to this. While it is not a mitzvah, per se, nonetheless the process of finding harmony and balance in oneself and facilitating that process in others is part of the tikkun.

This is the most profound context of Judaism. So how sad it is to see these beautiful Jewish kids sitting here hearing about Yin and Yang and being totally enthralled by it, thrilled by this foreign wisdom tradition while remaining totally ignorant of the incredible profundity that is their birthright and is sealed in their soul.

That aspect of it is really sad. It’s also that dissonance that left me with a subtly unclean feeling after the class. But I hope that my presence will still have a good effect. I am hoping maybe I’ll have a chance to speak a little (in Hebrew) about some of this stuff with people in the class, but we’ll see. I continue to love what I am learning for myself- with the peel dealt with the fruit is very sweet.

There is more that could be said, but it’s enough for now. It’s getting late, and I have a falafel to buy and a bus to catch.