An empty yoga mat sat front and center of a room Saturday night where more than 30 people gathered at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan to honor Carmel Gat, who remains captive in Gaza.
Carmel's picture lay at the front of the mat, which was surrounded by members of Carmel's family and friends.
Maya Roman is the cousin of Carmel's sister-in-law, Yarden Roman-Gat, who was also taken hostage and released by Hamas on Nov. 29. Maya said they learned from hostages who were held with Carmel that she helped them cope by practicing yoga and teaching them meditation.
According to Maya, everyone in Carmel's life talks about how much she cares for other people through her work as an occupational therapist and in her daily life.
Since learning about how Carmel helped the other hostages, her friends organized a weekly yoga class in Tel Aviv in her honor, Maya said.
"It's not just an empty mat, it's a space that we're holding"
Mindy Bacharach, one of the yoga instructors Saturday night, said she was honored when asked to help teach the class.
"When we were asked to guide this class, what I thought of was a very poignant phrase one of my teachers taught me, which is the only difference between the sacred and the mundane is how we choose to pay attention," Bacharach said. "And that when we go into a room like this, and we see empty mats, we don't always think about it. But when we hold a mat, and we put a Carmel's picture on that mat and we say to ourselves, our intention is to hold space for them."
"That is when connection becomes more safe," Bacharach said. "It's not just an empty mat, it is a space that we're holding."
Bacharach told The Post that holding space for the hostage families is "excruciatingly difficult."
"It's not an easy place to sit in, in the struggle. And you want to fix, and you want to make it better, but you can't. Nobody can," Bacharach said. "So it's very difficult. But I think one of the things I've learned from a yoga practice is to say, I don't know. And so we hold that space too."
Maya told the Post it's unbearable to think about the difference of where Carmel has been practicing yoga as a hostage compared to this supportive community space. Maya said those are the moments when she starts to doubt why they're doing this. "Is it working? Is it helping? Like it seems so hard to get anything moving right now? And all this time there are people there in terrible conditions going through God knows what. And are we doing enough? I don't know," Maya said. "There's a million thoughts."
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But Maya said the yoga classes do feel important.
"I feel like really at a certain point, you're just like, I have said all the words that I can say, I have told the story so many times. There's something about just being quiet and being present that feels so powerful, and at the same time, it's so hard because you stop," Maya said.
"I really think that doing and interviewing and meeting all the people we've been meeting, it really helps us in a way because it's something to do. And you hope it really helps, but I'm not always sure it helps as much as I know it helps us just to keep moving, because what else are you gonna do?" Maya said.
Maya and Yarden's brother Gili are on their second trip to the US since Oct. 7. They're in the States for almost a month this time, which will include spending more than a week in Washington, D.C. to talk with lawmakers and diplomats about another hostage deal.
"The stopping of it that is involved with the yoga, that's really hard. Because it's the first time in a long time that I've stopped and had like an hour to just be quiet," Maya said. "Not on my phone or sending emails, and thinking about all the terrible things that my cousin's family is going through."