The Zakim Story & Prayer, Part 2

The Zakim Name

There are many variations of the name - Zak, Zakay, Sackhiem, Zakheim, meaning “They are of the Holy Seed” - הם קודש זרע    Zakim in Hebrew stands for “the seeds of holy people” and there is an interesting story behind this name.

The first people to call themselves Zakheim or “Zera Kodesh Heim” were the descendants of Rabbi Israel, one of the martyrs of Ruzhany who perished on the second day of Rosh Hashanah in September 9, 1659 or the year 5420 in the Jewish calendar. 

The Zakim Story & Zakim Prayer

The story started with a blood libel (עלילת דם) against the Jews which was very common during that period. The hatred towards Jews was very strong in those years. The Khmelnytsky pogroms killed thousands of Jews ten years earlier. 

The events leading to the martyrdom began in the spring of 1657 just before Passover in a small Lithuanian-Polish town of Belarus when the body of a murdered Christian child was discovered in the yard of one of the Jewish inhabitants. The entire Christian community rose up in anger and soon the story began to circulate that the Jewish needed the blood of the child in order to make matzos. A court was convened to find and punish the guilty person or persons. 

Since the perpetrators were unknown, the entire Jewish community was sentenced to death with the provison that the death sentence upon the community would be lifted if the guilty one or ones confessed. The Jewish community was in turmoil since they did not know who had committed the murder. What could they do? The community elders tried but not come up with a solution to their problem. There was no reasoning with the local Christian peasants who were led by religious fanatics.

In order to spare the Jewish community, the town's two rabbis, Israel and Tuvia, confessed to the deed and were sentenced to death. Grateful for the reprieve, the Jewish tried to think of a plan to save the two Rabbis. A committee was formed and sent to the king of Poland who had sovereignty over that area. The committee members hoped to plead their case and thus obtained a pardon for their leaders. The emissaries traveled for many weeks and months until they obtained an audience with the king. They pleaded their case and the king granted the pardon. 

With great joy they began their way back home. As they neared their destination, they realized that the next day was Rosh Hashanah. So they stopped in a nearby town to pray and wait after the holy day. On Friday September 9, 1659, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the death sentence was carried out. The emissaries arrived with the pardon one day too late.

Translated by Professor George Zakim, from Chicago, who dedicated his life to researching the roots of the Zakim family . Thirteen generations are known.

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”Scattered Seeds” by George I. Sackheim

The Zakim Prayer in memory of their sacrafice

According to the book “Daat Kedoshim” the prayer for forgiveness was written in Hebrew on a parchment and is stored in the Beit Midrash of Ruzhany. It was a donation of the leader Yosef the son of Tzvi of holy blessed memory in the year 5484 (1724) in Ruzhany formulated to be recited in the synagogues of Ruzhany annually on Yom Kippur. To this day, the residents of Ruzhany follow this custom in the Beit Midrash Lecha'k Gachsh'a and in the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Gershon.

“… Forgive us our Father
for we have erred through our great foolishness 
Pardon us our King, for our sins are many. 
Our G-d, you are slow to anger, and you have been called the Master of Mercy 
You have taught us path to repentance 
the greatness of your mercy and goodness 
you should remember this day and every day for the children of your close ones. 
Turn to us with mercy, for You are the Master of Mercy 
We have come before You with supplication and prayer 
As you have showed to the humble one (Moses) in times of yore. 
Recant your angry wrath 
as is written in Your Torah 
Let us dwell and be protected in the shade of your wings 
as on the day that G-d came down in a cloud. 
Overlook rebellion and wipe out our guilt 
as on the day that you stood with him there. 
Harken to our prayer and listen to our statements 
As on the day that You called out in the name of G-d, as is said there……”

For more go to The Martyrs Translated by Jerrold Landau

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Next week I will share with you the names of the honorees, as well as great pictures, from the Dana-Farber event I first mentioned last week. Keep reading!

And as always, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

The Zakim Story & Prayer, Part 1

The Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living at Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Every year, the Zakim Center for integrative therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has an annual event/fundraiser called “Music Heals the Soul” which honors Lenny Zakim. Each year, the event also recognizes special honorees of the year. This year, they chose individuals who have been in the center since the beginning (or very near the beginning!) to be the honorees.

Check out the short video from this year, May 1st, 2018, done by Laura Molta of Molta Media.

The event Music Heals the Soul is a fun filled night of musical performances and exciting auctions. Proceeds benefit integrative oncology research and help to provide educational programs to the cancer community at the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The evening also includes a cocktail hour, seated dinner, and complementary therapies from the Zakim Center, which offers integrative therapies such as massage, acupuncture, Tai Chi and qigong. This year we also added musical guest Erich Bergen from the movie “Jersey Boys”.

This year, the Zakim center honored some of the people who have been with the center for many years. Even some, such as me, your humble mind-body blogger, who have been working with these programs before the center was created, and were lucky enough to witness and be a part of history during the creation of the center.

I even had the opportunity and honor to work with Lenny and his son Josh and meet Lenny’s wife Joyce. 

The Zakim Bridge

Many people ask me, “Is the bridge in Boston, the Zakim bridge, named after Lenny?” Yes! It was named after Leonard Zakim, who was a civic leader and a civil right activist who championed “building bridges between peoples”.

For those of you that do not know, I am actually a Zakim as well, from my mother side by Professor Zichria Zakay-Rones.

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Lenny Zakim Family Tree

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Ramel Rones/ Zakay (Zakheim) Family Tree

Next week I will tell you the meaning of the Zakim name, as well as the story of how the name originated and the prayer that was specially created for the Zakim family. Make sure you are tuning in!

And as usual, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Cooling Down Exercise: Surfing the Breath

From my book, Sunset Tai Chi:

The breath is a tool to achieve our goals and needs. Sometimes we use slow and deep breaths and other times we use fast and shallow ones. We can use the lungs differently according to the different goals we have.

Breathing is the method we use to bring oxygen into our blood stream that nourishes every cell in our body, but the breath is also the banana we use to capture the monkey mind. The breathing in qigong is considered one of the tools to affect our ability to be 'watery' or 'fiery.'

Fast and hard exhalations lead us to be fire, and deep, long, quiet inhalation will lead us to be water. If you do too much of either for too long, you will lose balance, and it can have negative effects on a mental or physical level. But if you know how and when to use this principle, you will be able to benefit tremendously from it and achieve balance in both mind and body.

This first breathing exercise is the simple and safe way to start this journey into the science of breath. It will lead you to the first step of being relaxed or what Dr. Herbert Benson refers to as the relaxation response or what I consider a Buddhist path. But remember, this is just a first step or, as previously mentioned, the relaxation is a doorway to a palace full of other interesting rooms that I consider the Taoist path.

Surfing the breath is the simplest method of achieving deep relaxation. First, close your eyes. Sit in an erect posture with a straight spine. Do not collapse your spine. When the spine is collapsed, surfing the breath will still work on a mental level, but you will not get as much air because the lungs are compressed. Surfing the breath will help you calm the monkey mind. Follow the air through the nostrils down though the windpipe, deep into both lungs, in and out with long, quiet, and peaceful inhalation. Your inhalation and exhalation should be, eventually, equal in length, unless you have other specific goals.

After a few minutes, you will be able to determine which of your nostrils is wider. Our bodies are not symmetrical. One of our nostrils is more open than the other. Move down, with your mind, into the lungs and try to determine which lung is longer and which lung is wider. One lung has three lobes and the other lung has two.

I really enjoy the moment when my students tell me they do not know which lung has three lobes and which has two. Not knowing this fact allows them to experience the air moving into the nostrils and the sensation of air moving into the lungs, and then to determine from the sensation, not from looking at an anatomy book, which lung has the three lobes and which lung has the two.

Sometimes the lung that is wider has the two lobes, which makes some people think that it is the longer lung. This 'wide' sensation that the mind experiences throws them off, and they will swear that one is the lung that has the three lobes. But really it is just a stronger sensation in that lung that confuses them and makes them think that one is the longer lung--feel as opposed to real.

As long as you follow the air in and out of your lungs, that is, surf the breath, you will be able to quiet the mind from excess thoughts. Remember we have, on average, eighteen thoughts per second. Relax, reduce the number of thoughts, and bring the mind to the brain activity level between being awake and asleep.

Until next time, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Correct Alignment in the Standing Posture

Welcome back, mind-body students!

This week, we continue our discussion of achieving correct alignment with a video about upper body alignment while standing.

I call this technique "Crane Flies." As I show in the video, you can practice this standing against the wall first in order to get a good feel for what the correct alignment of the spine and neck is. Then, when you feel like you have the posture committed to memory, you can step away from the wall and practice while free-standing.

Remember to touch the wall with your heels, sacrum, shoulder blades, and back of the head. Your lumbar spine (lower back above your hips) should not be touching the wall. You should be able to pass your hand between your lower back and the wall.

The great thing about this exercise is that you can feel, as you do the movement, which parts of your back are tightest. That way you can determine what to stretch next to release your skeleton from being a prisoner of soft tissue.

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Correct Alignment in the Sitting Posture

Welcome back mind-body students!

This week, I want to share a video with you about correct alignment. Correct alignment is so important to a successful mind-body practice. In a similar way to how isolating the joints allows you to achieve better health outcomes during your tai chi and exercise, correct alignment allows you to achieve better health outcomes both during your mind-body practice, and when you are sitting at your desk, driving your car, walking, or doing anything really!

The first thing you need to study is this: there is a difference between what your body is designed to do, and what it probably tends to do. Things like your head craning forward, your shoulders staying shrugged, your chest and back slumping down and so on are all examples of bad tendencies our body has.

Once you learn to recognize when your body is doing those bad tendencies, you can practice correcting them. A great way to practice that is by focusing on what I call the "Major Up and Down Forces".

The three "Up" forces, which are areas of your body that should feel like they are lifting up when you are in correct alignment, are the lumbar spine (lower back), thoracic spine (middle/upper back), and the top of your head.

The three "Down" forces, which are areas of your body that should feel as relaxed as possible (without drooping!) when you are in correct alignment. They are the abdominal muscles, the shoulders, and the face.

Ideally, through practice with this video and my face meditation video, you get to the point where you can experience all six major forces at the same time and achieve correct alignment.

I have even more advice in the video, so don't miss it!

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Isolating the Joints: During Your Tai Chi and Qi Gong Movements

Hello mind-body students!

If you haven't read last week's blog about isolating the joints, you can read that here.

We are back to isolating the joints this week, with another short video. In this one, I show you how to think about isolating the joints while you are doing the techniques of your Tai Chi and Qi Gong practice.

Specifically, I explain how to think about joint isolation: alternating between expansion, or gentle pulsing or pumping, to contraction, or relaxation.

I even explain how this can be used to practice your rooting! But you will have to watch the video to hear that part :)

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!