à la carte spirit by ilona fried
jerusalem
Ponderings: Passover in Two Places
I spent Passover’s first half in Israel. The day of the Seder, I traveled by bus to Jerusalem’s Malcha Mall with my oldest niece. She was meeting a friend, and I was on the hunt for comfortable shoes. At the entrance we went our separate ways. While I failed to find footwear, I wandered around, … Continue reading
Jerusalem from the Inside of a Pool
My Zen teacher likes to say, “How we do anything is how we do everything.” If the same can be said of a society, would the workings of a single pool reflect the culture at large? Last week I loosely considered this question while swimming almost every day at the Jerusalem Pool (it was closed … Continue reading
God as Fashion Director?
“Religion is just a costume party,” argues the formidable mystic and author Caroline Myss. The first time I heard her take-no-prisoners tone in one of her recorded lectures, I was stunned by her sheer irreverence. How could she trivialize or reduce hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition and customs to the garb worn … Continue reading
Counting Cats in Jerusalem
“I’ve counted 78 cats so far,” my niece, who recently became Bat Mitzvah, told me a few days ago. Three of us, the Bat Mitzvah gal, her eight year old cousin and I were walking back to our temporary Jerusalem “home” from an impromptu swim at the pool. “Look! There’s more!” she said, her face … Continue reading
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