Customer Reviews

Aleph-Bet Yoga Aleph-Bet Yoga: Embodying the Hebrew Letters for Physical and Spiritual Wellembodying the Hebrew Letters for Physical and Spiritual We

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The postures and letters didn't match the cross over, in my opinion. I perfer the meaning of the letter combined with the pose, a blending of the physical action to the spiritual meaning. I find if I set my Kavanah prior to the yoga I get this blend throughout. So I found this book a bit lacking, not a bad book but I enjoyed the Torah Yoga better. The meditations within are much more helpful to me personally.

I have mild MS and can't move very strenuously. I wanted to try yoga but had some reservations about getting into eastern spiritual practices. My husband who is not at all into exercise found this to be a great way to start. The pictures of the poses make it easy and by describing a workout in specifics. It's easy to put together a routine even without a teacher. I would however prefer a video of the poses because it is hard to try to read instructions from a book as you're trying to do the poses.
This book however, is overall what I was looking for. Just an instruction manual not necessarily one that got into all the philosophy as does "Torah Yoga." That is a good companion for "Aleph-Bet Yoga" but Aleph-Bet is for those who are looking for a workout first and foremost.

I am enjoying the book and it meets up fine with the description in my opinion. There are unfortunate format issues involving the Hebrew pointings on a Kindle (DX or PC for sure) and this is, for me, a serious flaw. On the plus side is that the main table of contents (indicating major chapters) is properly hyperlinked for the Kindle. On the negative side, however, is that the book employs content pages at the start of each chapter and these aren't hyperlinked. :(

Presumably aimed at an audience of observant Jews afraid that hatha yoga is the pork of exercise, which will steal their souls from Yahweh and deliver them to Shiva and Shakti, this Romper Room approach tries to coax reluctant couch latkes onto the mat by showing just how much the yoga poses resemble Hebrew letters. (Look Ma! I made an Aleph!)

One can practice hatha yoga without adopting the beliefs of Vedanta or Hinduism, just as a Hindu can eat a piece of gefilte fish without feeling an overwhelming urge to put on tefillin.

Anyone who wants to try to learn hatha yoga from a book instead of a class would be well advised to buy one of the texts written by a specialist. Any of the Iyengar books, for example, or Donna Farhi's excellent work, or Erich Schiffman's. There are also superb DVDs that will help one learn in the privacy of one's shtetl.