I would like to start with apologizing to the guy at seat A2 on flight CO648 on Thursday night. I know you were strong and healthy when you got on the flight and coughing and sneezing by the time we landed in SFO. Sorry.
It was getting to a point that I was fighting with anyone that was willing to talk to me. So I needed a break and, as I am on a low budget, I went on Craig’s List and found a couple that wanted to swap apartments, San Francisco for New York. Go West. Actually this is as west as I have ever gone without crossing the International Date Line.
This was the view I got up to on the first morning (not really)
This is what I got up to on the second morning (really)
It is very hilly! Reminds me of home!
Robb recommended I try out “The Rocket.” A Yoga Sequence based on the Ashtanga Yoga Series thought by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Most of my friends know me as a very liberal and progressive person, but there are some areas of my life where I am still a very “traditional” person. I was taught by my teachers that there are traditional schools of yoga which came from Sri Krishnamacharya who is considered the father of modern yoga as we know it. He thought Sri BKS Iyengar who is the founder of Iyengar Yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois the founder of Ashtanga Yoga and his son T.K.V. Desikachar who teaches a form that sometimes is referred to as “Vini Yoga” but is really is a personalized therapeutic vinyasa yoga. What I am saying here is wrong, flawed and simplified but a good starting point. Vinyasa Yoga is an even more modern yoga practice that combines and draws from all the traditional ones. Anything that is not traditional yoga is Vinyasa. When you teach Vinyasa you can teach almost whatever you want, when you teach traditional yoga, you must stick to the original teachings. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been practicing Ashtanga for a while and I think that it is just not suited for a 200 pound Western man like me, but that is the teaching, and I believe that there is great value to sticking to the tradition. So when someone as smart and creative as can be “coins” a new style of yoga, I'd rather he just calls it what it is, Vinyasa. In any case, The Rocket was a REALLY fun Vinyasa class and It’s Yoga is a beautiful studio.
It was Friday, and my next stop was at the Shabbat services at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, a very cool synagogue in the Mission district of San Francisco. Though there is a well-known church that became a dance club in New York, I think that a Christian funeral home that became a Jewish synagogue would win the extreme make-over competition.
I was not exactly sure why I decided to go to Shabbat service this week of all weeks; I thought maybe it was being away from home or not working on Friday which just gave me the chance to get to service on time, but then the Rabbi reminded me. He started his drash with something that sounded like this: “This is a weird time of the year for our people, a lot of Holidays around this time that are not ours.” I have become so submerged in the American Culture that I forgot that just seven years ago Christmas and the (Christian) New Year were things I only saw in movies and on television, and now I shop for gifts wrapped in green and red and make plans for the drop of the ball as if it was second nature to me. “TRADITION!” Chaim Topol was singing in my head for the second time that day.
But Congregation Sha'ar Zahav is not traditional for me. It is unfortunate that the synagogue that accepts me as I am is also the synagogue where I feel out of place. It is the unknown tunes to the prayers, and the additions to the Siddur, but above all it is this phenomenon:
It was getting to a point that I was fighting with anyone that was willing to talk to me. So I needed a break and, as I am on a low budget, I went on Craig’s List and found a couple that wanted to swap apartments, San Francisco for New York. Go West. Actually this is as west as I have ever gone without crossing the International Date Line.
This was the view I got up to on the first morning (not really)
This is what I got up to on the second morning (really)
It is very hilly! Reminds me of home!
Robb recommended I try out “The Rocket.” A Yoga Sequence based on the Ashtanga Yoga Series thought by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Most of my friends know me as a very liberal and progressive person, but there are some areas of my life where I am still a very “traditional” person. I was taught by my teachers that there are traditional schools of yoga which came from Sri Krishnamacharya who is considered the father of modern yoga as we know it. He thought Sri BKS Iyengar who is the founder of Iyengar Yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois the founder of Ashtanga Yoga and his son T.K.V. Desikachar who teaches a form that sometimes is referred to as “Vini Yoga” but is really is a personalized therapeutic vinyasa yoga. What I am saying here is wrong, flawed and simplified but a good starting point. Vinyasa Yoga is an even more modern yoga practice that combines and draws from all the traditional ones. Anything that is not traditional yoga is Vinyasa. When you teach Vinyasa you can teach almost whatever you want, when you teach traditional yoga, you must stick to the original teachings. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been practicing Ashtanga for a while and I think that it is just not suited for a 200 pound Western man like me, but that is the teaching, and I believe that there is great value to sticking to the tradition. So when someone as smart and creative as can be “coins” a new style of yoga, I'd rather he just calls it what it is, Vinyasa. In any case, The Rocket was a REALLY fun Vinyasa class and It’s Yoga is a beautiful studio.
It was Friday, and my next stop was at the Shabbat services at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, a very cool synagogue in the Mission district of San Francisco. Though there is a well-known church that became a dance club in New York, I think that a Christian funeral home that became a Jewish synagogue would win the extreme make-over competition.
I was not exactly sure why I decided to go to Shabbat service this week of all weeks; I thought maybe it was being away from home or not working on Friday which just gave me the chance to get to service on time, but then the Rabbi reminded me. He started his drash with something that sounded like this: “This is a weird time of the year for our people, a lot of Holidays around this time that are not ours.” I have become so submerged in the American Culture that I forgot that just seven years ago Christmas and the (Christian) New Year were things I only saw in movies and on television, and now I shop for gifts wrapped in green and red and make plans for the drop of the ball as if it was second nature to me. “TRADITION!” Chaim Topol was singing in my head for the second time that day.
But Congregation Sha'ar Zahav is not traditional for me. It is unfortunate that the synagogue that accepts me as I am is also the synagogue where I feel out of place. It is the unknown tunes to the prayers, and the additions to the Siddur, but above all it is this phenomenon:
וְהָיוּ הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם--עַל-לְבָבֶךָ.
וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶיך (ולבנותיך), וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם, בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ וּבְקוּמֶךָ.
…and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy sons (and daughters) etc.
Every place that has the masculine noun, the “new prayer book” adds the feminine. It drives me berserk! I too understand the effect of the spoken word on our thoughts especially based on the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, but the Torah was given in Hebrew, which has the masculine and feminine, and yes, not fair, but it was mostly written in the masculine, and for the sake of tradition I ask that you keep it that way. The Shema Yisrael is considered the most important prayer in the Jewish tradition (according to Wikipedia! which is always right) it is ancient, traditional and should be unchanged.
Some things that are traditional in one part of the world but very new to us is feeding babies with chop sticks, a task that I got to do this week and found (especially because זאב is just so cute) to be one of the most enjoyable parts of my short trip so far. So I guess that adopting a tradition is fine by my book.
This is an optical illusion! I don't really have an arrow stuck in my head!
