à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Religion
Is Yoga My New Pork?!
When I found Feldenkrais nearly three years ago and stopped doing yoga, I thought I’d released yoga gracefully with a deep bow and a final namaste, as a good yogi would. Apparently not. A few weeks ago a friend showed me one of the yoga studios where she teaches. The beatific faces of the two men behind … Continue reading
Do Cars Have Souls? Cars and Karma, Revisited
My family of origin has a habit of driving cars until the final death rattle, even patched together with duct tape. When, a few years ago, a brother asked me if I was still driving the same car, I found the question odd. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to get a different vehicle simply because I … Continue reading
Prelude to My Essay on Hevria
Mine is a complicated if not convoluted soul. Sometimes it reveals a side of itself that has been hidden so long I’ve forgotten about it, or assumed it no longer existed. In recent years, I’ve experimented with further loosening my already weak and ambivalent ties to Judaism, my birth religion, whose wisdom teachings and sacred chanting … Continue reading
What’s Crazy? Who’s Crazy? On Feldenkrais, Israel, Self-Image
How would you protect yourself if a crazy person attacked you with a knife? It’s a question many of us have never needed to consider. But it was a question Moshe Feldenkrais had to answer when, as an early settler in what was then Palestine, Arabs frequently attacked Jews, who were forbidden by the British Mandate from carrying weapons. … Continue reading
My Spiritual Nemesis? Glatt Kosher Restaurants
Nothing can dismantle my sense – or illusion? – of spiritual progress faster than eating at glatt kosher restaurants. In recent weeks I’ve been to three. Two in Montreal, where I visited an elderly Hassidic relative, and one in San Francisco, where I had dinner with my oldest, modern Orthodox nephew. Because strictly observant Jews cannot eat in non-kosher restaurants, … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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