The greatest spiritual achievement is not transcending the body but joining body and spirit together. To do this, you must break through assumptions that draw boundaries around the Infinite and wake up to the body as the site of holiness itself. This groundbreaking guidebook is the first comprehensive treatment of the body in Jewish spiritual practice and an essential guide to the sacred. With this indispensable resource to embodied spirituality, readers will learn how to experience God rather than just engage God as an idea. And, through physical exercises, meditation practices, and visualization activities, readers will unite the sacred with the secular, the mystical with the mundane, by using their bodies as vehicles for prayer. Tapping the wisdom of Kabbalah, traditional Judaism, and Western Buddhism, readers will defy the myths that religion is only practiced in the sanctuary and that spiritual bodywork is only performed on a yoga mat. By cultivating an embodied spiritual practice, everyday activities?eating, walking, breathing, washing?will be transformed into moments of spiritual realization.

"With the gentle authority of a good yoga master, Michaelson, chief editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, offers not so much a mind/body lesson in Kabbalah as a map to a mindful, spiritually rich lifestyle. Having 'chosen to emphasize those aspects of the Jewish and world wisdom that treat the body as a sacred site for contemplative practice,' he uses a combination of simple meditations, prayers, Talmudic excerpts and wisdom from historic rabbis to guide those seeking to embrace the 'God in your body.' While most journeys begin with a single step, this one begins with a single breath. Throughout, he reminds us that 'a practice is done 'no matter what' not for strictness's sake, but so it can be a prism which casts light upon the mind' — whether that practice be one of breathing, eating, walking or even using the bathroom. Yet, the calls to practice are balanced with a fascinating cache of tidbits. For example, the Amidah, or Standing Prayer, is sometimes called 'The Eighteen,' referring to the 18 blessings within it that are believed to correspond to the body's 18 vertebrae. This book belongs as much on a shelf with other meditative, mind/body titles as it does among Judaica." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)