Reflections on where wisdom lives in the body.
There’s a moment in zhan zhuang — standing meditation — where the legs begin to tremble. The mind screams quit. But something deeper holds. That something is what the Torah calls emunah.
TeachingThe Chinese concept of song 松 — deep, conscious relaxation without collapse — maps almost perfectly onto the Jewish middah of anavah, true humility. Both describe a structure that yields without losing itself.
ReflectionFor years I thought rest meant stopping. Then I started practicing tai chi on Shabbat morning — not the martial forms, but the standing. And I understood: Shabbat isn’t absence of movement.
ReflectionThere is a particular softening of the jaw that happens before a wise response. Both the Sages and the tai chi masters have been pointing at it for millennia, in different languages.
TeachingAbraham stood. Isaac stood. Jacob stood. In each case the Torah uses a verb that does not only mean upright — it means rooted, sunk, present at the feet. The internal arts would recognize this posture instantly.
ReflectionThe word neshama — soul — shares its root with breath. Long before language, before thought, before prayer, there is the inhale. It may be the oldest teaching either tradition carries.
EssayPush hands teaches a distinction the dominant culture keeps missing: the difference between giving way and giving up. The parsha of Vayishlach carries the same teaching, held in Jacob’s hip.
TeachingAt Sinai the people said we will do, and then we will hear. The sequence is strange unless you have practiced a form for years. The body learns first. The understanding arrives after.