Advice for young Jewish professionals: Find your balance By Chloe Goldstein Special to HAKOL After eight-hour work days or eighthour class days, and it can be challenging to squeeze in a mindless activity while compartmentalizing doctors appointments, going to shul, calling grandparents and cooking a bountiful dinner. So what do you do before tossing an already prepared salad from Wegmans and kicking off work shoes that are making your feet hurt? Find an activity you enjoy instead of vegging out on the same episode of “The Office” that you’ve already watched three times. Remember that a healthy activity is one that is mind-relieving but also stimulating. This should act as a brain bite between the work day and jam-packed night. How about choosing yoga or fitness? Looking deeper, I believe that yoga can be connected to Judaism. Prayer is a form of mediation just as yoga is a way to meditate. As we prepare for the High Holidays and the subsequent holidays, it is important to sit in that chair pose to feel all the weight of the past year or stretch your arms as far as they can reach in a warrior pose
to feel empowered and ready to leap into the New Year. Yoga is important for young professionals because it represents stability, restoration and, most significantly, balance. This practice releases energy from the day but also provides new vitality to carry home. Muhlenberg student, Maayan Malomet, class of 2021, perceives how the yoga studio functions in relation to Jewish values. Malomet said, “being Jewish has all the same components. Just like Shabbat when you put your phone away, doing yoga is the same experience. It’s not often you have the time to reflect and be in the moment. For me, yoga put things aside. I also enjoy watching sunsets, these are the two times I can put other things away.” Malomet also sees yoga as guided lesson that is a special moment in time. “It’s the most important hour of my day,” she said. Muhlenberg Hillel also hosts yoga sessions which embodies yoga as a spiritual and religious element. On a dreary Sunday evening, I attended a sports yoga class at the West End yoga studio in Allentown to mentally prepare for the week. Heather Walka, the sports yoga instructor, has
worked at West End for nine years. has upcoming events highlighted in Her advice for millennials is: “find the corners. However, when I left the something to replenish and renew space, I felt invigorated. Strange new yourself with because our world is energy seemed to make me feel whole moving faster and faster. Studies and my spirits high. show that when you do yoga, you By self-exploring and reflecting actually perform better in the work through yoga, fitness or prayer, everyplace.” When I entered the new yet thing else can be put on pause just for homey-looking studio, I felt exhausta moment. It is through this balance Hakol.pdf 1 8/30/18 10:42 PM ed, picturing my planner that already that you can actually achieve more.
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