This is a discussion about yoga.

Why are we talking about yoga?

What relevance does it have for Jewish ideas and Jewish life?

Well, here's how the author of a recent essay at Mosaic introduces the subject.

Yoga represents a $16 billion industry in the U.S., reaching an estimated 36.7 million people in 2016 alone. On the basis of much anecdotal evidence,

one would be safe in saying that among these dozens of millions are many members of the American Jewish community,

and also that among the latter are substantial numbers of traditionalist or Orthodox Jews.

Indeed, one hears of synagogue-sponsored yoga programs and yoga quorums, even a right-wing

Orthodox educational organization like Eschatora, has seen fit to repost on its website

an item titled How Orthodox Jews Taught Me Yoga. So one reason is that it is a pervasive form of exercise.

But exercise doesn't really capture the role that yoga plays in the lives of its devotees. It is more

than exercise. It's a more comprehensive

form of wellness, and it has a spiritual aspect. And that, the fact that it has a spiritual aspect,

is what intrigued today's guest to think Jewishly about yoga, and to wonder if the practice

of yoga involves the transference of characteristics

that Jews believe belong solely and uniquely to God, the creator of the universe, to something

other than God, that is relating to not God as if it was God, or to put it another way, to

engage in idolatry.

Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. My guest today is

Monachim Wecker, and the focus of our conversation is an essay called Shibboleths and Sun Salutations

Should Religious Jews Practice Yoga, It was published on March 9th, 2020 in Mosaic.

If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher,

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