from phillie

greetings from philadelphia. i'm spending the weekend visiting my friend michael, a lawyer-turned baker who is part of the extended Elat Chayyim family. he's got on underground (in all senses) organic bakery going in the basement of his co-op house here in west philly. he makes hand-milled, organic sourdough breads, runs bread making workshops, sends out weekly emails to his customers and hosts a bread-blog. its a pretty cool mission, building community through bread baking. west philly feels good, friendly, relaxed and very community oriented.

before coming here, i was in nyc soaking up the jew vibe. thursday night i hung out at a weekly jew party for religious jews on the edge, yiddish speakers, israeli's, and anyone else who feels like showing up. its called chulent, jewish stew, and folks come and hang out, talk, eat, smoke cigarettes and pot and play music all night and into the wee hours of the morning. friday i went to some very hippied out renewal services on the upper west side. the chairs were all in a circle, with the rabbi mixed in with everyone else. there was a woman in the back, doing yoga barefoot. i felt right at home, singing, dancing, and getting into that awesome state of religous/spiritual ecstacy. after, i went over to someone's house for shabbat dinner potluck, turned out they were connected with isabella freedman. most of the kids there taught at teva, a jewish enironmental education program for kids. a very laid back atmosphere with delicious food and nice folks.