Judaism is 5,000 years old. So is yoga.

It's time they started dating.

Let there be Bibliyoga. Freed's website describes a hybrid form of devotion/exercise that "engages your body, mind and spirit through a combination of dynamic movement and engaging in sacred texts."

Freed, a 35-year-old Londoner, has been developing his system over the last eight years. He's on a promotional tour that brings Bibliyoga to Montreal this weekend, beginning with what Freed describes as a "jazzed-up shabbat service" at McGill University's Hillel House this evening.

Freed is a graduate of the Universities of Birmingham and London. While doing post-grad at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts, Freed studied with yoga guru Edward Clark, who was teaching acting and movement. Freed has also spent a year studying the Talmud, Judaism's sacred texts, in Israel.

As a stubborn non-practitioner of either religion or exercise, I was a bit skeptical of Bibliyoga.

I mean really, what next? Qurapilates?

But Freed is an affable fellow (who'll be moving soon to, big surprise, Los Angeles), and we had a pleasant chat when I reached him in transit, between Toronto and Kingston.

"The whole idea," he said, "is that Judaism lacks any clear system for accessing body and soul in a way that is authentic. There is no method of physical worship, accessing God through the body.

"Bibliyoga is a method whereby you can have this spiritual kick through the body."

Freed says yoga studios in the western hemisphere attract "spiritual seekers" to a practice that's rooted in Hindu religion and philosophy.

He went back to the roots of yoga, before it was associated with religious practice, and combined the ancient body movements with Jewish wisdom.

Bibliyoga, he says, provides "tools for improving a life." He cites as examples the achievement of inner peace, banishing depression, increasing emotional strength and the capacity for love.

Each class Freed teaches is based on a "Kosher Sutra": a biblical text to which Freed weds a yoga exercise. Among several examples that are archived at Freed's website, www.bibliyoga.com:

"Kosher Sutra: 'Shout for Joy, all of you who are straight of heart' (Psalms 32: 11); Body Benefit: Healthy Heart; Soul Solution: Abundant Joy; Perfect Posture: Handstand."

Those of us for whom handstands are occasions less for joyful shouts than anguished cries may choose more traditional forms of worship. But Bibliyoga is an attempt to make Talmudic wisdom more interesting and accessible for young people of all religions.

Yacov Fruchter, who is director of campus outreach for the United Israel Appeal of Canada and booked Freed's college tour, describes Bibliyoga as "the perfect activity for anyone who is searching for a way to couple traditional Jewish concepts with a fresh way of thinking and living."

And while contorting the body in devotion, one may recall Rabbi Hillel. The Talmudic scholar was approached by a young cynic who asked the great sage whether he could teach him all of Jewish law while standing on one leg.

Hillel raised one foot off the ground and said: "Treat other people the way you'd like to be treated. Everything else is commentary.

"Now go and study."

Marcus Freed brings Bibliyoga to Hillel House, 3460 Stanley St., tonight at 6:30. He'll also be at the Ghetto Shul, 3458 Park. Ave., tomorrow at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. On the Web: www.bibliyoga.com

mboone@thegazette.canwest.com