Bodyweight Strength Training

Paradoxically, the less identified I've become with my body as my true self, the more carefully I've come to treat it as I've become more and more aware that I as a divine soul borrow it as an aid for accomplishing my mission on this earth.

No less paradoxical is the impression I receive from many of the people I know who seem identified with their respective body to a greater or lessor extent - they don't seem to be taking care of it enough.

Since several years ago I've become a kind of missionary preaching the benefit of bodyweight strength training, or training your external and inner muscles with your own bodyweight. Having consulted a lot of both theoretical and practical books on physical workouts for many years, I came to a conclusion several years ago that strength training is the most important physical workout as a number of experts explain.

Every time I meet someone who (seems so identified with his body but) doesn't seem to be practicing any physical workout from the way his body looks, I explain to him that if we don't train our muscles regularly, we'll lose 1% of our muscles every year from the age of 30, so that by the time we reach 70, we'll have lost as much as 40% of our muscles.

I feel so sat every time I see someone who finds himself bed-ridden after falling down accidentally as he couldn't sustain his body by losing a lot of his muscles for lack of strength training, for he could prevent this by taking care of his body more consciously on a regular basis.

I'm even convinced that this is one of the most important self-investments we can make. We can start saving the strength of our muscles like money at any stage in life, but we have to continue training them unlike money regularly in order not to lose them.

One of the main obstacles for those who have realized the importance of regular strength training as a wise self-investment is self-discipline. Many people seem to be unable to continue this physical workout as they practice at a gym. They have to realize that there is a far more convenient gym and it's doesn't cost money unlike a conventional gym - our body itself!

Using our bodyweight for strength training has another important benefit. This gym is said to help us develop the so-called functional strength far more efficiently than at a conventional gym.

There is even a learned term for bodyweight strength training - calisthenics. This art has a long history since the ancient times. It's said to have developed and been transmitted in prison.

I've learned this physical workout from several books instead. My most favorite guidebook for calisthenics is You Are Your Own Body by Mark Lauren. There is a separate guidebook for women entitled Body by You. I practice "push ups", "pull ups", "squats", "crunch it ups", "swimmers" and "core stabilization" as explained on pages 58, 89, 102, 124, 130 and 131 in the first book. They only take about 15 minutes a day, and I practice them five times a week before I start running in the morning.

I've been volunteering to teach this physical workout (as well as running and stretching) to friends and acquaintances of mine here in Jerusalem. You can also benefit from mobile apps by the author of these books.

How to Relate to Those Who Are Spiritually Asleep

If someone is spiritually asleep, he is trapped in the prison of his egoic mind and identified with his physical body and life experiences. And if he is totally asleep, he isn't even aware that he is asleep.

I was such a person until about five years ago. As I started to wake up and gradually started to be identified less and less with the physical body my soul borrows and the life experiences my soul has been undergoing, I've come to encounter a very difficult challenge - how to relate to those who are spiritually asleep.

The toughest part of this very difficult challenge is that there seems to be no way to help them understand intellectually through language that they don't know what they don't know. If someone is unware of his problem, nobody else seems to be able to help him become aware of his problem.

Even after I started to wake up by sheer divine grace, I continued to use the typical language of the ego for years. But recently I decided to stop using it as much as possible as I felt I couldn't continue to deceive myself any more.

This means I have to pay the high price of damaging interpersonal relationships with those who are asleep. There must be a way to avoid this, but I haven't found any so far that I can implement in this difficult life challenge.

The process of waking up can also be explained as a shift from self-consciousness to divine consciousness. If you wake up, you start to feel that you come from Him/Home instead to thinking you are your body and/or your life experiences.

According to the teachings of Chabad Hasidism and other mystical traditions there is a sequel to this shift from self-consciousness to divine consciousness, or from (the illusions of) duality to nonduality. Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, the teacher of my ex-teachers of Chabad Hasidism, succinctly explains the fundamental problem of this divine consciousness as follows (and this is a precise description of my present situation!):

Divine consciousness is not the ultimate level. It results in the individual suppressing his human condition and losing himself in the Infinite. As such, his interactions with the mundane world may become objective and detached. He may be critical and judgmental of all that does not fit in with his holy perspective.

The third stage is called rectified consciousness, which is a combination of self-consciousness and divine consciousness just as true nonduality is a combination of duality and nonduality. My understanding of this rectified consciousness remains theoretical so far. I don't know yet how it looks like in practical terms and how I can implement it in my daily life, especially in relating to those who are spiritually asleep.

Where (Not) to Daven

I immigrated to Israel in August 2004 to assume a full-time position at one Israeli university, which I eventually left about two years ago without waiting for the official retirement. In my first year I didn't go to any shul (= synagogue). I spent my next year here at a neo-Hasidic shul here in Jerusalem. I also spent the last few months of my second year looking for an alternative, visiting abour 20 shuls in my neighborhood. I didn't check one shul on purpose until after checking all the other alternatives as I felt I would fall in love with it. And this is what happened. Since then I davened there for 16 years.

This second one is a "national-religious" (= modern Orthodox) shul. Since I was exposed to Chabad Chassidus about five years ago and started learning its teachings at a formal setting for three and a half years, I came to feel more and more connection, both intellectual and emotional, with Chabad and started davening in parallel at a nearby Chabad house, though only in Friday mornings.

About three weeks ago I participated for the first time in the Sabbath morning prayer at this Chabad house and was so fascinated. Everything was much better for me there than in the old shul. I tried again last Sabbath, and this feeling only intensified. I also realized that I lose a lot by not attending this Chabad minyan.

This week I made a very difficult decision to leave the shul where I davened for 16 years and switch completely to this Chabad minyan not only in Friday mornings [this is not a typo - yes, Friday mornings!] but also on Sabbaths and holidays. What made my decision so difficult is that by leaving this old shul I'll also lose opportunities to shmooze before and after davening with those I made friends with there in these 10 years.

Except for this loss I have nothing to lose, especially when it comes to davening per se. I've simply outgrown this previous style of davening, or to use a more neutral term, I've fundamentally changed through formal, then private study of Chabad Chassidus. I feel far more at home at my new, Chabad, minyan.

I've also realized the importance of having a community rabbi. In this Chabad house we even have two, whom I knw even before I started learning Chabad Chassidus, while in the shul where I davened for 16 years there is no community rabbi. Community rabbis add a lot to the community not only intellectually and emotionally but also spiritually by their mere presence.