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Moshe Feldenkrais refers to the humility of learning, when he is endorsing the textbook on Functional Integration

 “I know this man; I know where he comes from,
I know his intelligence, I know his knowledge
and I think it is an important book for you to read.”
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Modified: 02 May 2025

Endorsement of one of the two textbooks in basic theory of the Feldenkrais Method

In the early summer of 1973, in a lecture for theater director Peter Brook and Teatro Campesino, Moshe Feldenkrais is making a point through telling a story. He is talking about the humility of learning and about knowing one’s place in society in this respect.

To clarify, he explains about the master/pupil relationship in the rabbinic world. He tells how a master, a rabbi, is conducting himself when his pupil presents a book to him that he has written and asks of his approval respectfully.
The rabbi then give his haskama (הסכמה), [MF says Asmachta (אסמכתא). However, it is not the correct term for what he intends to explain (EL 250502)]

Haskama is an approbation or endorsement. The rabbi/teacher does not write a lengthy introduction, thus not diminishing the content of the book.

The historical context of the tradition of haskamas dates back centuries and has been a way to maintain the integrity and quality of Jewish literature. It also helps prevent the spread of incorrect or misleading information.

The rabbi/teacher is not writing a lengthy introduction, thus outranking the content of the very book. No, Moshe Feldenkrais explains, he only writes: 

 “I know this man; I know where he comes from,
I know his intelligence, I know his knowledge
and I think it is an important book for you to read.”

 

10 years later Moshe Feldenkrais gave his very own haskama (הסכמה) to a long term scholar of his own, Yochanan Rywerant from the first Tel Aviv training, who has written the first book about Functional Integration and the Feldenkrais Method.
 
MF does not write a lengthy foreword. This apparently was opposed to his deeper understanding of humility, learning and knowledge. He plainly writes exactly how he explained it in the lecture.

MF writes only the essential, nothing less, nothing more!

Extract from the lecture where Dr Feldenkrais speak about humility and his ancestor Pinchas from Koretz.

In the early 2000, Helen Workman, a teacher in Canada, sent me the clip from the lecture and asked me to use it to explain its meaning and relevance to the foreword of the book The Feldenkrias Method, Teaching by Handling.
She told me she was concerned because Y.R.'s book was not regularly introduced to students of the Feldenkrais Method in North America. Being familiar with my contributions to Feldyforum, a discussion forum for Feldenkrais teachers, she thought I might have some thoughts to contribute on this matter.

The book in front of you
should be reread several times.

- Moshe Feldenkrais
"Yochanan was a teacher of physics in one of the best schools of Israel. He was at that twenty-eight years running. Later he joined the Feldenkrais School. He worked thirteen and a half years within close quarters in the same room in which I worked.

He has his own "handwriting" like all the others. Everyone learns the method without imitating his teacher. Yochanan is not imitating anybody.
The book in front of you should be reread several times. That way you are likely to get most of the goodness of the book. Good Luck."
Foreword by Moshe Feldenkrais 1983

The Feldenkrais Method, Teaching by Handling

by Yochanan Rywerant
Read More

On the meaning of handwriting and imitation

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It is known that Moshe Feldenkrais did not conduct any training after the publication of the book. We can speculate how he might would have used it, but on the other hand - and with certainty - the book is a cornerstone of classical Feldenkrais.

There is no reason to think that MF's praise and endorsement of the book is an indirect call indicative neglect and nor that it should marginalize the book and it's content for the future.

I have made many inquiries over many years among influential trainers and others, asking how it is that the call by Moshe Feldenkrais has never been integrated into the curricula decided upon by the TABs.

I have never received any motivating explanations or substantiated arguments, only silence.

One of the motivations for writing the book in the first place was to create a common language to train skilled independent practitioners more effectively and to facilitate meaningful research and description of the elusive Functional Integration, FI, non-verbal instruction.
Thomas Hanna (1928-1990) met Yochanan Rywerant in Berkley.
Later he organized the San Francisco training, the only complete training by Moshe Feldenkrais in USA.
Yochanan Rywerant was MF's assistant on both occasions.
A deep friendship developed between the two men. He encouraged the book to be written and wrote a preface. If I can not make my points clear enough with my writings , this preface will broaden your view.

Extracts from the preface

"In The Feldenkrais Method: Teaching by Handling, Yochanan Rywerant has devised a framework for understanding an immensely subtle and elusive technique for human change.

Rywerant has successfully created the architectonics for understanding a major area of human cybernetic functioning and, in so doing, has effectively established the vocabulary for a new area in the field of nonverbal communication. Feldenkrais, the inventor of this new area of Functional Integration, is also its most brilliant practitioner, as well as its most inspirational and intuitive teacher. What Rywerant has accomplished is to have taken this intuitive clarity and worked it into an ingenious intellectual framework that makes sense of the technique's elusive subtleties. He has succeeded in removing the mystery from a method that creates impressive improvements in the motor system with a remarkable economy of means."

"Through his work at the Feldenkrais Institute, as well as his own private practice, Yochanan Rywerant has become thoroughly experienced in the theory, practice, and neurophysiological foundations of Functional Integration. Thirty years of acquaintance with Feldenkrais have imbued him with a lucid vision of the precision and care necessary for the successful practice of Functional Integration. It is this same vision that informs the pages of this book and offers the reader an authoritative account of the Feldenkrais system with all of the exactitude and subtlety that Feldenkrais demands."

The whole preface by Thomas Hanna

Published by the consent of  Eleanor Criswell Hanna
PDF

"Rywerant's conception of the "manipulon" as a basic unit of nonverbal communication is at the heart of this cybernetic theory. And his discussion of the different types of manipulons gives a comprehensive description of the discrete ways in which "handling" can communicate information to the brain. His discussion of the functions of the brain and the central nervous system are clear and very much to the point; this clarity allows us to understand how the manipulatory sessions prescribed form and way of proceeding."

Pinchas from Koretz

An article in Jewish Gen about Pinchas from Koretz, Moshe Feldenkrais' ancestor, Baal Shem Tov's disciple.
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