Shalom meets namaste

For most people, the word "Hanukkah" evokes images of candles burning on a menorah, Adam Sandler's song or a pile of enough presents to cover eight nights. Images of yoga? Not so much.

But tying Hanukkah - or Judaism, for that matter - to yoga isn't such a stretch. They're both steeped in rituals that aim to center practitioners while promoting an inner sense of community, said Ayelet Krieger, owner of Oasis Therapy Center in Washington, D.C. This week Krieger will lead a bring-your-own-menorah Hanukkah yoga class at a synagogue in Washington.

She'll start by lighting a menorah (others are welcome to join in with their own) to "have that as a beacon throughout the class," Krieger said. It represents not only the holiday, but also the light of consciousness and your internal spark.

Then Krieger, who is certified in the Prana Flow yoga practice, will lead the class of up to 50 participants in a series of warrior poses to pay homage to the small group of Jews who triumphed over the Syrian-Greek people who ruled the land we know now as Israel more than 2,100 years ago. To celebrate their victory and reclamation of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews lit a menorah using a day's worth of oil. It stayed lit for eight days. Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates that miracle.

Hanukkah isn't the only time yoga meshes with Judaism. The Jewish Mindfulness Center of Washington offers three types of yoga twice a week and a weekly meditation class, using mussar, a form started by Jews in 19th-century Eastern Europe. Instead of using Sanskrit names for the poses, instructors use Hebrew terms.

But the connections go further back.

"In the Talmud, the rabbis used to go into the fields and they used to meditate for an hour, sometimes longer, over psalms, and they would use this practice in order to ready themselves for prayer, because they felt like they couldn't just jump in," said Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt from JMCW.

Movement, too, has long been a part of Jewish prayer, as exemplified by the way some Jews sway, or shokel, as they pray.

Judaism has a long history of intertwining movement and prayer," said Alesandra Zsiba, yoga coordinator for JCMW. "Whether it's through Israeli dance or davening or walking through the desert for 40 years, I think that connection with body and spirit and mind is something that is really valued."

Because yoga's roots are in Hinduism and Buddhism, efforts to incorporate it into the religion have encountered some opposition.

"In the beginning people were skeptical: 'Why are you bringing this into the synagogue?'" Holtzblatt said. But Judaism has historically picked up practices from other cultures, she argues, and yoga is no different.

"Even though it's not a Jewish practice, it is a practice that can open people to a deeper experience of themselves, of their community, of access to God through breath, through stopping, through meditation, through holding certain poses," she said. "They are a reflection of what it means to live in the world. It feels difficult to hold a particular pose, but then you let it go and you release. It's actually a metaphor for living life."