our memories the memories we have of others are faulty things inconsistent, disjointed, warped by emotion which ones carry on? which are stored safe  and which are discarded? when we open the chamber of our memories are we greeted with gratitude or pain? our memories the memories others have of us are faulty things inconsistent, disjointed, warped by emotion which ones carry on? which are stored safe and which are discarded? when they open the chamber of our memories are they greeted with gratitude or pain? to create good memories we must cherish what is sacred and let go of what haunts us to create good memories we must be builders of goodness and repairers of pain I pray to be remembered for good knowing that I alone  can make it happen

It is not enough to protect trans kids if we are not empowering and honoring trans adults. Much of the transgender rights movement has been focused on children. And for good reason: trans children are under attack in our country. Schools have weaponized trans identity against children to prevent them from participating in sports or having access to public restrooms. States have criminalized trans healthcare for children, some going so far to accuse supportive parents of child abuse. Families with trans children disproportionally face displacement, as many have had to leave their homes in search of a more supportive community. As children, these young trans people represent the most innocent and most vulnerable members of our community. As minors, they already have limited rights in this country, and so it makes perfect sense for us as activists and lovers of freedom to come to their aid. But our activism is not complete if we end our efforts with trans children. Trans people everywhere need our help. What is the use of protecting trans children if we don’t also create a society for them to grow up into healthy, safe, thriving trans adults? Is our protection of them only because they are helpless children, or is it because they are human beings worthy of fulfillment? Why would our support of them stop at the age of 18? Trans adults are significantly more likely to be unemployed, unhoused, uninsured, and unpartnered. Many trans adults are struggling to survive, and many of those surviving are struggling to thrive. Many feel left to the wolves since they have passed the age of innocence and are now forced to fend for themselves. Many are forced to engage in dangerous or demeaning work as a result of difficulty finding fulfilling employment. 1 out of 3 trans adults has been turned away from a job due to their transgender identity. 3 out of 4 trans adults have experienced discrimination or harassment in their workplace due to their trans identity. I have been in Jewish spaces which have proclaimed the importance of “protecting trans kids.” As a trans adult hearing those words, my heart did not jump with joy. Instead, it fell into a pit in my stomach. I was never a “trans kid.” I came out as an adult at 23 years old. I’ve lived these past 12 years as my full self, and I am proud of my journey. But these same institutions that are now “protecting trans children” have never protected me. Many, if not most communities which see the humanity in young trans people continue to overlook the real needs of trans adults. Trans adults are told we not only have to be excellent at what we do in order to succeed, we have to be the best. We have to be so far beyond anyone else that we give our others (including employers) no possible reason to reject us. If we have just one perceived flaw, it will be used as justification for our discrimination. I’ve spoken with several trans adults who have hit this barrier of required perfection in employment. One said to me mournfully, “I should have waited to transition. I know I would’ve gotten this job as a cis person. Maybe if I had only waited to come out until after I got hired.” We should not have to put our lives on hold to be able to thrive in our society. We should not have to hide who we are in order to be accepted by others. In one of my own searches for employment, a community I was interviewing with seemed enamored by me. “You’re a wonderful sermonizer,” they said, “you have a kind, pastoral presence, and your experience is impressive. But... our community is not ready for a trans rabbi. I tried to convince them that they were being prejudiced. They didn’t care. Don’t take it personally... it has nothing to do with you or your qualifications.” I was so shocked I couldn’t find the words to respond. Transphobia is so normalized in our society that they felt comfortable sharing with me their bias. They did not realize they were admitting to illegal employment discrimination. How could I not take that personally? “It has nothing to do with you, only who you are.” I know the discrimination we as trans people face says more about those prejudiced against us than it does about us. And yet we are the ones who bear the burden of the prejudice and discrimination. Others’ shortcomings become our struggles. I’ve thought a lot about this discrimination, and how well-meaning progressive people can so blatantly betray their progressive values. Why would a place which “protects trans children” discriminate against trans adults? I think the answer is fear. Fear rules so many of our decisions. Fear is the guiding factor in protecting trans children – fear that harm may come to them. Fear is also the guiding factor in the anti-trans legislation – fear that one’s children may live their life in a way that is incongruent with one’s religious values. I believe fear is also the prevailing emotion when progressive-minded people discriminate against trans individuals. I have heard several times throughout my adult trans life, “We’re afraid we might do or say something to offend you.” This has always been a surprising statement to me. Shouldn’t I be the one who is afraid? Why are they afraid? The truth is, there is always the possibility that someone may say or do something offensive. At any point in time, one of us may say something wrong and inadvertently hurt another person’s feelings. This happens regardless of identity, but the likelihood is increased when someone comes from a different background or experience than we do. So while the fear of offending is ever present, it becomes heightened when interacting with those who may be marginalized by society. But we cannot let that fear of offending others be what keeps us siloed and separated. Yes, possibility of offense is a risk that comes with introducing diversity to our communities. And, at the same time, I guarantee you that the one in the position to be offended has been offended before, and is fully aware of the risk of being offended again. If we are willing to take the chance of possibly being offended, we should be allowed to take that risk for ourselves. Let me share another example. I was at a small community in a farming town. I was teaching a lunch and learn on gender beyond the binary in Judaism as a way of coming out to the community. An older member approached me. “Why are you teaching this?” she wanted to know. “It’s important to me personally,” I said, “because I’m transgender.” She thought for a moment, clearly troubled by this information. “I’m not sure I agree with that,” she said. Not the ideal response, but at least she’s honest. “You don’t have to agree,” I said. “But will you still come to the lunch and learn? We’d love to have you.” She came to the lunch and learn where we read texts from the ancient rabbis about different genders in Judaism beyond male and female. For a while she was silent, taking it all in. After a while, some of the other learners in the class began a debate. One learner said, “I don’t know that I agree with all these different genders. I’m a feminist, and this doesn’t seem very feminist to me.” My initial dissenter finally spoke up. “Why would the rabbis write this if it weren’t true?” she questioned. “They knew what they were doing. Who are we to argue with them?” The woman who told me she didn’t believe in transgender identity was now the one defending it to others. All this happened in the span of one hour. I’m not saying I expect this type of 180 turn around every time someone makes an offensive comment. But rather to illustrate that human beings are complex individuals who are able to change their ways of thinking if only given the chance. If the community had tried to “protect” me from people like her by never hiring me to begin with, not only would I have never had the pleasure of meeting her (we ended up having a very special relationship), but she would have never had the opportunity to grow and evolve in her thinking. It isn’t pleasant to be offended. And I’m not even saying it’s okay. What I am saying is that it is natural, and to a certain degree, unavoidable. Offensive comments will be made. Individuals will be offended by those offensive comments. But how can we use them as a starting point to move forward? How can we use them as an impetus to learn and grow? It’s always hard to make that first step toward change. Any action which shakes up the status quo has the possibility of disrupting the community culture as a whole. Anyone in a position of being a “first” knows intimately what it’s like to be a trailblazer and a pioneer on a path that was not paved for them. We know the risks and we have accepted the responsibility. We know that includes the inevitability of offensive comments and remarks. And throughout years of experience with offensive comments and remarks, most of us have perfected our respectful responses which invite conversation and connection without condoning the offensive statement itself. We should not be afraid of offending people. Not because we shouldn’t be mindful of avoiding offense – we should, as much as possible. But because in reality it is impossible to completely avoid offense. We shouldn’t be afraid of something we ultimately have no control over. We should be afraid of discrimination. We should be afraid of our communities becoming siloed because we’d prefer to be with others exactly like us rather than run the risk of offending someone who is different. We should be afraid of this new wave of progressive segregation which masks itself as safety and protection for the ones we may inadvertently offend. Those of us on the margins are not safer as a result of being excluded from your “unsafe” communities. We understand it will shake things up to include us. We understand those in our new community may not always say the right thing. But we need places to go, communities to belong to. If you let us in, you may be surprised at how much we have to teach you. You may be surprised at how much Torah we have in our hearts. And who knows. It may not be perfect for us as the firsts, but perhaps sometime down the line, we’ll forget that the fear was ever there... we’ll forget that we ever even had the capacity to exclude others out of fear.c

From a young age I understood what it was like to love those who are different from you. I can’t even remember it being a lesson I learned; it was something I always knew. My family is not the typical interfaith family since both my parents were raised Jewish. But most of my cousins were not raised Jewish and never identified with that label. I have vivid memories as a child going to my grandfather’s house for Christmas Eve, and my aunt and uncle’s house for Christmas. I remember hearing, “We don’t celebrate Christmas because we aren’t Christian. But our extended family does because they are. And we celebrate with them because we are family.” Growing up in the ‘90s, “diversity” was all the rage. There was representation of different races, religions, and abilities in the TV shows I watched. And I thought absolutely nothing of it. It was not “pandering to a woke audience,” it was simply the world as kids such as myself saw it. I thought about differences and similarities a lot as a child. I thought about how most of my cousins were blonde, but my hair was black like my cousin who is Korean. I thought about how we sang Christmas songs at school, but the girl who celebrated Kwanza lit a candelabra like my family did. I thought about the time I said my best friend and I were “twins” and my teachers laughed because her skin was brown, but we had the exact same haircut and giggled in tandem. I thought about how most of my friends’ parents pronounced my name like the Little Mermaid, except for my friend whose parents were from Mexico: “We have that name in our culture too.” It wasn’t that I didn’t see color. I saw it all the time. I saw it on TV, with my family, with my friends. And it wasn’t that I didn’t think about it either. I thought about it when my aunt made kimchi, I thought about it when my friends spoke to their parents in languages I didn’t understand, I thought about it when celebrating Christmas with my cousins. But I thought about it the way I thought about all similarities and differences: they all blend together to make the fullness of who we are. I distinctly remember the first time I seriously thought about race. I had just started middle school which took students from several different elementary schools. In elementary school, I did not have a “friend group” that I belonged to. I had three best friends over the course of the six years: the first was Armenian, the second was Mexican, and the third was white. When I started middle school, I did not have any classes with my former friends. I met entirely new people. For the first time in my life I did not have a best friend; I was a member of a friend group, one of seven, and we did everything together. I remember one day I told my mom I was going to hang out with my friends, and she asked who I was seeing. When I told her, she thought for a second and then responded, “Do you have any white friends?” I knew all my friends were Asian. But I had honestly never thought of myself as different from them based on my race. We were all in honors classes. We were all rule-followers. We all loved anime. On top of that, even though they were all Asian, most of their families came from different countries. They were Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, and Indian. And even though there were two Chinese kids, their families spoke different languages. I didn’t see myself as different, I saw us all as different. I remember feeling defensive in response to my mom’s question. I had never considered that maybe I was an odd one out. It was uncomfortable to feel different and alone in my difference. Looking back on this now, I know it was an immense privilege to never feel singled out due to my race until I was twelve/thirteen years old. I do not share this story to say anything negative about my mother. She loved those friends of mine and that I finally had a friend group. My mother will come up a couple times in my reflections. Firstly, because she is the person I have spoken the most with in my life. I tell my mom almost everything. We have probably had more conversations than I have had with anyone else. Many of my memories include her, which says more of our relationship than of her as a person. Secondly, my mom comes up because I have lived a life she could never have imagined. That is as true with regard to my queerness and transness as it is with my diverse friend group. She lived in a world full of social rules and separations where stepping out of line was dangerous. She was not at all antagonistic toward my world. She simply was surprised by it. This singling out did not happen for me again until I was seventeen. I was dating a Mormon, and occasionally I would join him and his family for church. I distinctly remember the first time I went. There was a room full of people, somewhere between fifty and a hundred. As I looked around, it struck me that I had never been around so many blonde people in my entire life. There were some brunettes as well, but only ones with chestnut-colored hair. Though we were all white, I felt myself stick out like a sore thumb. There was only one other person in the whole church with dark hair like mine. I pointed him out to my boyfriend, who said cheerfully, “Oh yes, he’s Jewish too!” I couldn’t understand why a Jew was attending a Mormon church. Maybe he was like me, a Jew in an interfaith relationship, even though that was frowned upon in the Mormon religion. He ended up approaching me after services, as many others did, to welcome me to their community. I asked him about his Judaism. He was immediately flustered. “Oh, I’m not Jewish,” he stammered. “My parents were Jewish. But they became Mormon long before I was born. I don’t know anything about Judaism.” My blood ran cold. Here was a Mormon through and through being identified as “Jewish” by other Mormons. He did not identify as Jewish, but his black hair identified him as such to others. I tasted metal in my mouth. Were these the white friends I was expected to have, people who would label me as Other even against my wishes? The next singling out experience was when I was in grad school studying creative writing. I had just moved back home and started the program. I no longer lived near any of my college friends, and all of my high school friends had left the area. I knew I needed to find my people in my grad program. It took me a couple weeks before I made a friend. Some people were much older than me and not looking for friends. Some I had nothing in common with and conversation was strained. Finally, I met someone and we clicked. She was one of the only other people in our whole program who was not Christian. She was passionate about politics and social justice. And she was a poet like me. I went home and told my mom, “I made a friend!” “Oh yeah?” my mom said. “What’s her name?” “Laila,” I responded. “Laila? Where’s she from?” “Palestine,” I said. My mom has come a long way in her beliefs and understanding of differences. I know she would not respond this way today. But again, she grew up unable to envision the world I lived in. Confused by my response, she asked, “What could you possibly have in common with someone from Palestine?” Again defensive, I listed off everything we had in common. I had not considered us the “Odd Couple.” I knew she was different from me. But we saw the similarities in each other. At this time I was still identifying as a woman. Before long, she and I were calling each other “sister.” At the end of our two-year program, our program director made a remark how our friendship was proof that poetry can unite people. “A Palestinian and a Jew become friends through poetry.” If only we could create world peace through poetry. As Laila was preparing to move back to Palestine, I went to her apartment to visit. She made me a traditional Palestinian flat bread covered in zaatar and tea made from fresh spearmint, flavors that also reminded me of home. I asked her how she felt about our professor’s remarks. She crinkled her nose. “On the one hand, I get it,” she said, clicking her tongue like the old women in my synagogue. “I had never been friends with a Jewish person before. I could not have imagined myself what it would be like. When I first saw your star on your neck, I felt afraid. That is the symbol the soldiers wear when they harass my people. I did not know how to feel. But I did not want to be your friend simply because I wanted a Jewish friend. I wanted to be your friend because I saw who you are. I saw your heart.” She grasped my hands. “Can I show you something?” “Of course,” I said, not sure what to expect. “First of all,” she said slyly, “What color do you think my hair is?” I instinctively looked to her headscarf, her “veil” as she called it, wrapped tightly around her head an inch below her hairline, securing any possible stragglers. “I don’t know,” I said. “Dark. Like mine.” “Everyone thinks that,” she responded. Her hands went to her forehead and she began pulling out pins. “I wanted you to come here because I wanted to show you my hair. In my culture, we only show our hair at our own homes, among our closest friends and family. I want you to see my hair because you are among my closest friends and family.” She pulled back the veil and revealed straight brown hair the color of pine bark. Cool brown with auburn highlights. “Now you fully see me,” she said. When I came out as trans a few years later, she was back in Palestine, teaching at the university in Ramallah. I told her I was afraid to come out to her because it meant so much to me to be her sister. I did not want to lose that relationship. Without hesitation she responded, “My brother. There is no change. I love you.” It came up again a few weeks later. “Brother,” she wrote to me on WhatsApp, “I have already shown you my hair. If, inshallah, we are together in person again, I want to know if I should show you my hair or not. We do not do this with men in my culture. I wanted to ask you if that would be offensive to you. I want to respect you.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I want you to be comfortable,” I said. “If you don’t show your hair to men, you don’t have to show it to me. But it would not offend me if you did.” “Well,” she said, “I can show my hair to close male family members. You are my brother. That is how I think of you. If we can be together again, I would be comfortable taking off my veil around you.” What could I possibly have in common with a Palestinian? Love. Respect. Compassion. A couple years later my life shifted again. I moved to Minneapolis where I knew almost no one. I soon made a close friend. He was looking for a synagogue to join and I invited him to mine. As soon as we met, we talked for hours as if we were already close. I felt a soul connection with him that I had felt with few others. Again, I called my mom. “I made a new friend,” I told her. “We only met a few weeks ago and he’s already asked me to help him move. That’s an activity that takes a couple hours which means he really must like me!” Let me tell you, my mom thought I was such a freier. “You only just became friends and you’re already helping him move? You sure he didn’t just want to avoid having to pay someone to do that?” It was my turn to click my tongue. “It’s not like that,” I said. “He enjoys my company. I enjoy his company. It’s going to be fun.” And we did have fun. We got to know each other better and after that, we were attached at the hip. We did everything together. Every Shabbat we went to services together, and when I would drop him off at his apartment, we would sit and chat till the early hours in the morning, neither one of us wishing to say goodbye. A couple months later we celebrated Passover together. I was telling my mom how beautiful the seder was. She saw some pictures on facebook. “Is that Gabriel on the right?” she asked me. “Yep, that’s him,” I responded. “You didn’t tell me he was Black,” she said. “I wasn’t hiding it,” I responded. “It just never came up.” My mom now loves Gabriel. He was the best man at my wedding, and my mom gave him a big kiss on his face. “Thank you for always taking care of my Ariel,” she said to him. Her questions never came from a place of discrimination or bigotry; they came from a place of curiosity and confusion. I have lived my life in a way that was not possible for her. The initial confusion upon seeing our friendship did not only come from white people. On one occasion Gabriel and I were walking together in a May Day parade. Black Lives Matter had their own group of marchers, but we were marching alone. As we were walking, a group of Black people saw us and approached us. Or rather, they approached him. “Why are you marching with him?” they asked, pointing to me without looking me in the eye. “You should be with your own people,” they scolded. “I am with my people,” he shot back. “He is not your people. You are not white. Why do you hate that you’re Black?” “I know I’m not white. I don’t hate being Black. You know nothing about us. I have more in common with him than I have with any of you. He is my brother. Leave me alone.” He turned away from them and we continued walking. I could feel him shaking beside me. After we put some distance between us, he released some of his frustrations. “They only see our skin color,” he said. “We’re both trans. We’re both Jewish. You are my best friend. They are probably Christian and cisgender. But they think I’m the same as them and different from you. They only see our differences. Is this really the future we want? More segregation? More division? And why does my life affect them? How do my decisions of who I hang out with have anything to do with them?” I obviously could not answer any of his questions. But I felt his pain. His frustration that race could be a significant part of his life and identity without being the only important identifier. Like me, being trans and Jewish are some of the most important aspects of his identity. While he sought out Jewish spaces for community, it was not always easy for him there either. Even in our diverse and progressive community, racism would rear its ugly head. In addition to constantly being asked either when he converted or if he was Ethiopian, he was regularly faced with other racist questions and assumptions. People would assume his politics based on his race. Others would assume he was related to every other Black Jew. At one point someone asked him about his “child”: a Black kid in the community with no relation to him. He and I were able to laugh about these racist interactions because we had built trust and understanding, and because he desperately needed to laugh about these things to not let them pierce his heart. I remember my white girlfriend at the time was really awkward about race. She desperately wanted to be his friend, because he was my best friend. But I had a nagging worry in my heart. So I explicitly told her not to talk to him about race out of fear that she might say the wrong thing. “But you talk to him about race,” she said. “It’s different,” I told her. “We’re already friends.” She did not take my advice. Having heard the story about assumed parenthood, she wanted to be in on the joke. The first time meeting him, she snagged her opportunity when she saw a small Black child. She pointed to the kid and said to him, “Is that your son?” My mouth dropped. His eyes narrowed. “Why would you say that?” he asked her. “It’s a joke,” she said sheepishly. “Because that one time...” “I remember,” he interrupted. “I was there. And it isn’t funny.” In no way do I wish to convey that other white people are racist and I am not. We all have implicit biases against people who are different from us. What makes our implicit biases so dangerous is the fact that they are implicit. The vast majority of the time, we experience them without ever being aware they are there. Sometimes they aren’t even what we would consider a bias, but simply ignorance. But even simple ignorance can cut to the core. I am sure there are uncountable examples of my own transgressions of implicit bias and ignorance. Because they are unknown to us, I am only aware of the ones that had reactions or consequences, just the tip of my own iceberg of ignorance and implicit bias. A couple examples stand out in my mind. The first time I offended someone beyond repair I was in third grade. My friend wore a necklace with a golden locket. I asked her what was in the locket, and she opened it up to show me a picture of a white woman. It looked like an ordinary person, so I asked her who it was. “It’s Mother Mary,” she responded. I had heard of Jesus, but never of Mother Mary. “Who’s that?” I asked. Innocent and ignorant. “Mother Mary is the mother of God!” “God has a mother?” At this point she ran away in tears. “What did I say?” I asked our other friends. “How do you not know who Mother Mary is?” they questioned me. “The mother of Jesus?” “Oh,” I said. “I know about Jesus. You didn’t say Jesus, you said God.” I knew Christians believed in Jesus, but I did not yet understand that they also referred to Jesus as God. And I had not yet learned about Mary. My friend would not speak to me the rest of the day. I tried again the following day. Our other friends prevented me from approaching her. “Can’t I even say sorry?” I asked. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to.” “It doesn’t matter,” they responded. “She doesn’t want to be your friend anymore.” That was my first lesson that intent does not always affect impact. Even without malice or awareness, we have immense power to hurt people. My most recent lesson is only from a couple years ago. I was studying pastoral education in a multi-faith group at a hospital. While the program as a whole skewed Christian, our cohort was majority Jewish. The only Evangelical Christian was also the only person of color. He approached our cohort a couple of times about feeling like the group did not respect his religion. We responded with confusion and desire for clarity. What had we said, what had we done? He struggled to come up with examples. “Well, one time you said Jesus was just a man to you...” And our defense: “That is the way he is seen in our religion. We were clarifying to others, since they thought we saw him as a prophet but not a messiah.” “Well, you had said he was a heretic...” he tried again. “At the time he was considered heretical, which is why he was sentenced to death.” He shook his head. “You know what, forget it.” We dropped it and moved on. But it kept coming up again. He felt that we were not respecting his faith. The other Christian member of our cohort, a Catholic, was just as confused as us Jews. She had not seen any disrespect from us and could not imagine what our colleague was referring to. Finally, it came out: our colleague expressed that he felt we did not respect his faith specifically because of his race. He felt that we accepted white people’s Christianity, but doubted his. He felt some unspoken feeling that we thought he should not be Christian based on his race and nationality, that it was a foreign religion that did not belong to him, that he was a product of colonialism rather than a believer with faith. “The Bible says that with faith in Christ we are all one body, one flesh, one spirit. Regardless of our external differences, we are one. Faith in Jesus as the messiah is not about nationality or race. It has always transcended that. You think I should be Hindu or Muslim because I’m Indian. But Jesus would say we are one, we are united. I am not a victim. My faith gives me strength.” Whatever our legitimate criticisms of colonialism and Christian proselytizing, he was right. He did not deserve to be a scapegoat for our feelings. We couldn’t understand how he felt disrespected when our other Christian colleagues did not. We felt it might be because he was Evangelical – none of us even considered it was because he was brown. We had not heard the ways he had been questioned in his faith his whole life because of his race. We had not seen the ways his fellow Christians treated him as Other. We had not experienced his feelings when he was told his religion did not belong to him. It was not actually about what we had or hadn’t said – it was glazed eyes, lack of interest, absence of validation, unspoken dismissal. He knew it was true because he felt it. Because he lived it. But for us? Our first response was to demand proof. These vignettes stand out in my mind not as examples of bad people with bad beliefs, but as illustrations of ignorance, implicit bias, and assumptions. We must combat the assumption that what we don’t know is not important. The assumption that our race affects each of us to the degree that we could not have anything in common with someone of a different race. The assumption that if we don’t experience something it cannot be real. In addition to these stories I’ve shared, I remember another recent encounter where I felt incapacitated by my ignorance. I was at the hospital working as a chaplain. I was the only on-call chaplain of the day, the designated responder to emergencies. I had my first code blue: a death. I approached the hospital room and saw the doctor speaking to a nurse outside. The patient had a DNR, so there was no attempt to resuscitate him. He had been sick in the hospital for a while, but his death was completely unexpected. He had been getting better. They had expected to discharge him the following day. They didn’t know what happened, and wouldn’t know until an autopsy. He was alone in the room when he died. I told the doctor I was the chaplain. She told me his wife was on her way. “They’re Egyptian... I believe Christian or Catholic. I’m not sure. But I’m sure she would still appreciate you being there with her even though you’re Jewish. Just give her a few minutes with him alone, would you? Thank you for what you do.” The doctor waited for his wife to arrive and let her into the hospital room. His wife, already in tears, began wailing as soon as she entered the room. The doctor closed the door behind her which did nothing to drown out her screams. Heart-wrenching, guttural, whole-body weeping. The doctor gave me a nod of acknowledgement and left. I waited a few minutes, minutes which felt like hours. I gave a small knock on the door to acknowledge my presence and I entered. The wife was laid out on her husband’s chest. She had wrapped one of his arms around her and was nuzzling his cold gray hand. She petted his hair. “No more pain. No more pain.” She sobbed between her words, gasping for breath. But she couldn’t stop her mantra. “No more pain. No more pain.” Sometimes her words were soft, barely audible, and sometimes she shouted them with full voice. “No more pain. No more pain.” In all of my education for times like these, I had received a very Western worldview. I was taught that people often struggled to express their sadness in times of grief. I was trained to ask about the deceased to trigger memories and help the bereaved feel and emote. This woman did not need help feeling and emoting. And I did not know how to respond to the openness of her grief. I tried to ask her questions about what she needed. Did she want a prayer? Did she want to talk about him? With each question she looked at me straight in the eye, her expression lost and far away. She seemed to contemplate my question before abandoning the distraction and returning to her love. “No more pain.” Her son came rushing in. He went to the other side of his father’s hospital bed. Like his mother, he grasped his father’s hand. He brought it up to his own face and nuzzled it in a loving gesture. He then went to his father’s feet, uncovered them, and rubbed them. He went back to the side of the bed to caress his father’s face. His mother added a new sentence to her mantra. “My love. No more pain. My love. No more pain.” Suddenly, the son saw me. His eyes conveyed confusion and suspicion. I was not sure if the color of my skin or my kippah made him wary, or if it was simply that I was a stranger present during an incredibly intimate moment. I told him I was a chaplain and I was there to help in any way I could. His expression relaxed slightly, but only slightly. “Can you get us some water?” he asked. “And some blankets.” “Absolutely,” I responded. I ran out to get the items, pleased to have a task. When I returned, there was another son there and some cousins. They spoke to each other in Arabic, and to me in English. I was told there were more on the way. I asked if they would want me to say a prayer. “No, our priest is on his way. He will be here any minute.” Not knowing what else to do, I stood in the corner, a silent witness, waiting for an opportunity to help. I stood for a very long, watching the mother weep, watching the children stroke their father’s face, watching a cousin or two talking on the phone to notify others. I tried to shift my weight inconspicuously as my legs tired from standing still. After a while, the son turned to me. “We no longer need you,” he said. “You can go. Thank you.” I nodded and left. I had been with them for over an hour, but felt like I had done nothing. As I was walking down the hallway, I saw a Coptic Orthodox priest pass by me. Finally, someone who can help those poor people, I thought to myself. I beat myself up for the next couple of hours. What an ignorant fool! You don’t even know how to help these people. You know nothing of their religion, their culture, their customs. You are useless, a lousy stand-in for the pastor they truly needed. Probably five or six hours later, I was doing my rounds, letting the nursing stations know I was the overnight chaplain on call. I saw the son walking down the hallway toward me. I made eye contact and gave him a sympathetic smile. He stopped to speak to me. “Thank you for being there with us today. It meant a lot that you stayed with us. Thank you – God bless you.” I nodded in a small humble bow. “You’re welcome,” I said. “God bless you and your family. May God comfort you.” He nodded back to me. “Thank you. Thank you.” And we parted ways. As I walked away, my mind buzzed with thoughts and feelings and I had trouble pinpointing any singular one. Finally, my mind landed on this: in truth, we were both ignorant of each other. They did not know about my religion or culture, and I did not know about theirs. But ultimately, it didn’t matter. They didn’t need me to be a Coptic Orthodox priest; they had one of those. They didn’t need me to know their culture and customs; they had each other. They needed me to respect them. They needed me to be present. They needed me to physically and spiritually be with them. I was the only one who could serve that purpose, and they were grateful that I did. When Reverend King, Jr. spoke his famous words, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he was not speaking about color-blindness. He did not say he dreamt his children would not be seen as Black. He did not say he wished race were irrelevant or insignificant. He said it should not be a matter of judgment. Where we come from, how we were raised, how we move through our social circles, how we see ourselves, how the world sees us, all of this affects us on a deep and personal level. It influences who we are. In no way is it superficial or inconsequential. But it is not the whole sum of who we are. As a young adult I thought about human rights, equality, respect for differences, etc. from a political perspective. And it is deeply political: being in Minneapolis during the murders of Philando Castile and Jamar Clark showed me how political this conversation can be. In a country which is built on institutional racism, these topics become a political issue. As I’ve grown more into my Judaism and become ordained as a rabbi, my perspective has shifted on this. Without discounting the importance of voting with our conscience to help dismantle institutional racism and work toward true equal civil rights, I no longer see this as a purely political issue. While politics affect the real lives of people, this cannot be seen as a partisan concern. This is a moral and ethical concern. At the core of my spirituality is the belief that all humans are representations of God. How can we each be representations of God if we are all so different? Some people respond that despite our external differences, at our core we are all the same. That there is a small part in all of us that is identical, and that small part is God. Oftentimes the people with this belief go searching for others who seem to be similar to them. They recognize the similarity and name that sameness “God.” As evidenced by my many memories of connecting with people others saw as different but whom I saw as similar, I can appreciate the love that’s found in sameness. Nonetheless, I have ended up with a different conclusion. I have seen for too long human beings reject each other’s humanity based on their inability to see similarity in each other. I fear that encouraging others to find that sameness may suggest they look past their differences. Our differences do not define us, but they are not insignificant. We each have souls, we each have the spark of God within us, but that does not mean our essences are identical. Moreover, due to the countless inequalities our societies have been built on, when most people imagine a godliness inside each of us, the God they imagine is a white cisgender able-bodied man. I reject that notion. It is not only reductive of humanity; it is reductive of God. When I read that we are each representations of God, I go in a different direction. Just as we as humans are diverse, multi-faceted, and complex, God is diverse, multi-faceted, and complex. It means the sacred does not just live within the similarities, but equally within the differences. It means I can learn about God by learning about people who are different from me. It means that every person I meet is sacred in their own unique way, which may not mirror my own sacredness, but is holy all the same. It means that we can never fully understand each other just as we can never fully understand God, but that seeking understanding is a lifelong process that enriches us and our lives. February is Black History Month, and it is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month. In the past I may have jumped on the bandwagon to use these times of awareness to preach a message of sameness, to exclaim that at our essence we are no different from each other. In part this is an apology for parroting that rhetoric. With every apology must come a dedication or rededication to change. I commit myself to seeking similarities in those who may be deemed different from me while simultaneously celebrating and learning from their differences. I commit myself to recognizing and acknowledging the limits of my own understanding. I commit myself to leaning into my inability to fully understand as proof of God’s unknowable complexity, and ultimately as a gift of the wondrous diversity of creation. I commit myself to love, to respect, to compassion. B’ezrat Hashem, with God’s help, may it be so. Or, as my good friend Laila would say, Inshallah.

In preparing to apply for rabbinical school, I was meeting regularly with my rabbi. In one of our meetings he prepped me through a mock interview. Afterwards he said to me, “Ariel, most rabbis struggle with humility in that they don’t have enough of it. We’re a profession that attracts confident, prideful people. I’m going to give you the opposite advice I give most people in our position: you have too much humility. You’re too modest. You need a little more pride and confidence in yourself.” His words plagued me. I considered them from many angles. Was I really too modest, or was I just more modest than most in my field? I became committed to learning about the middah of anavah, the character trait of humility. I started my study of Mussar, Jewish ethical practice, and explored a variety of middot, character traits. But the middah I kept returning to was anavah, humility or modesty. Throughout my now several years of study, there were times when I was accused of being too modest, of not taking up enough space. Additionally, there were also times when I was accused of not being modest enough, of taking up too much space. I have struggled to determine where exactly I fit in the middah of modesty, and whether my personal trait of modesty is a benefit or detriment. In his influential Mussar text Path of the Just, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto explores different middot and how to acquire them. One middah he explores is anavah, this trait of humility or modesty. In explaining what anavah is, Luzzatto emphasizes the importance of understanding natural gifts as beyond one’s control, and thus not something to be prideful of: One who possesses a straight intellect, even if they have merited to become a great sage and truly distinguished, when they look and contemplate, will see that there is no room for haughtiness and pride. For behold, one who possesses high intelligence, who knows more than others, merely does what it is their nature to do. They are like a bird which flies upwards because of its nature, or an ox which pulls with its might because of its nature. So too for one who is wise. This is because their nature brings them to this. But for another person who is currently not as wise as them, if they had possessed natural intelligence like them, they would also have become just as wise. Hence, there is no room to elevate and pride oneself in this.[1] Luzzatto addresses how each of us have distinct natural talents and abilities which are not necessarily the result of hard work or dedication. Pride in our natural talents and abilities is unhelpful, since they are not due to our own efforts or accomplishments. We must recognize that the naturally intelligent, talented, or skilled person often does not need to work as hard or diligently as those born without the same abilities, and therefore does not deserve extra praise due to what God has blessed them with. However, just because someone with natural ability should not feel pride in what they were born with, it also does not mean they should hide or downplay their talents: “One who denies one’s strengths is not humble, but a fool. Rather, a humble person is one who understands that all their strengths and accomplishments are a gift from heaven. The more a person recognizes this, the more humble they are” (Rabbi Leib Chasman).[2] From the juxtaposition of these two understandings of humility, we can glean that anavah is heavily dependent on circumstance, and may change from situation to situation. What may be modest in one situation could be considered meek in another. What may be modest in one situation may be arrogant in another. There is no one way to act to be modest, not only because each of us are so different from each other, but also because each situation we’re in is unique and distinct. In Luzzatto’s exploration of anavah, he concludes with a quote from Proverbs: "let the wise man hear and increase understanding" (Mishlei 1:5).[3] I learned humility from my father. He is the smartest person I know. Coming from a family of lawyers, he put himself through law school, passed the bar, and started practicing law, but quickly realized his heart wasn’t in it. He went back to school and became a teacher. He taught all levels of math in public high school. He loves math, and he loves teaching. Growing up, I had a natural gift for math. I didn’t struggle until freshman year geometry class, at which point I sat down with my dad for my first-ever tutoring session. We had my homework in front of me, and he asked me to begin to solve the problem. “I don’t know how to solve the problem,” I shot back. “That’s why I’m here asking for your help.” “I understand,” he responded patiently, “but I need to see how you would naturally approach the problem before offering a solution. There are several possible ways to solve this problem. Different people have different ways of thinking about things. One way will make sense to one person, but not to another. I could show you any of the possible ways, but I don’t know which one will work for you and the way you think. So first I need to see how your brain works, so I can show you the best solution for the way you think.” As an adult, I look back at this interaction between my father and me, and I think about what an amazing lesson it was in modesty. He could have shown all the possibilities, as he knew them all. He could have started with the one he preferred, thinking it superior. Instead he took a step back and asked me to begin, to first learn how my brain worked before offering any help. He took no pride in his own knowledge, but also did not deny his strengths or knowledge. He started with listening to increase his understanding. Without knowing Mussar, here my father was displaying all the qualities of anavah that I have discovered on my learning quest. At the time, however, I was fourteen years old and full of angst. I could not appreciate this lesson in modesty. I was frustrated that something I had always excelled in was no longer easy for me. This was possibly the first time I had been encountered with a problem that I had no idea how to solve, and the uncertainty scared me. I said something like, “Well if you’re not going to help me, what’s the point?” and I took my textbook and left. More than the discomfort of not knowing was the discomfort of bruised pride. I could not face the possibility of doing something incorrectly in front of my father, the smartest person I knew. What if I embarrassed myself? What if he no longer thought I was smart? I just wanted him to show me how to solve the problem, so I could memorize the steps and duplicate it myself. That experience not only represented a time when my father modeled healthy modesty, but also a time when I had unhealthy modesty. I had both an excess and a deficit of modesty. I was not modest enough to be willing to potentially embarrass myself (pride). I was too modest to think I deserved the patience and compassion of receiving help even if I was wrong (insecurity). I felt undeserving – undeserving of shame, and undeserving of care. In fact, I don’t think there are many situations where someone is purely in excess of modesty or deficit of modesty. I believe more often than not, unhealthy modesty has excesses and deficits simultaneously. I did, eventually, sit down with my dad again. We learned that I do not have a spatial brain, which was why geometry was so hard for me. We used a different approach that made more sense to me. On top of geometry, the lesson I learned was that everyone’s brains work in different ways. No way is better or worse than another, they’re just different. It is important to acknowledge and recognize those differences if we are to understand each other and adequately help one another. It isn’t about showing someone how you would solve the problem, but figuring out the best path for them. There isn’t just one path to duplicate, but many different paths each suitable to many different people. Listen first, and increase in understanding. I did not learn the first time, but I had a great and patient teacher. The middah of modesty came up again when I did CPE – pastoral care education and work as a chaplain in a hospital. My CPE supervisor said the same thing my rabbi said years earlier, that I was in excess of modesty. “Your colleagues want to hear you speak more in class,” he told me one day. “I have a feeling that you have more to share, and you’re holding back. You’re often the last to speak. I think everyone appreciates what you have to say, and our conversations may go in a different direction if you were the first to speak.” I didn’t know how to respond, so I told my supervisor that I would think about his words. It is still something I am working on and wondering, this question of where exactly I fall on the scale of modesty. On the one hand, I do tend to be a more quiet person, often letting others speak first and not feeling the need to respond to every statement. On the other hand, I am confident enough to be a teacher, a preacher, and a community leader; confident enough to call out injustice, speak truth to power; confident enough to be talking about myself today. After thinking about my supervisor’s words, I challenged him in our next meeting. “What is modesty?” I asked him. “I share when I feel like I have something to add. In order to add something, I must listen first, and then evaluate the value of my own thoughts. If I have something to add I will; if I don’t, I won’t.” And then came my challenge of him: “Could it be that my classmates value what I have to say precisely because I don’t always share what I’m thinking? I try to only share my best. An excess in modesty would be not sharing at all, and a deficit would be sharing everything.” I do think even healthy modesty can sometimes look like self-deprecation or insecurity. In contrast, some insecurities disguise themselves as healthy modesty. I think the difference comes back to confidence. I remember my experience with my dad when I stormed off. In that case, I felt fearful, ashamed, and undeserving. Those are clear indicators of unhealthy modesty. But with an absence of fear and shame, when recognizing that we do not have anything new to add, we create space for others to share their perspective. Not only that, we create an opportunity for ourselves to learn from others. And this is the biggest reason why I believe healthy modesty can be an asset: the opportunity it gives us to grow. By listening, I have learned so much from others, from all kinds of people. From people who maybe aren’t book smart, or super articulate, or great at memorizing and repeating information. From people who are artists, creatives, or emotional thinkers. From people who process information through their bodies instead of just their minds. From people who think in ways I could never imagine. Through my own exploration of the middah of anavah, I have come to believe that healthy modesty isn’t about restricting yourself due to self-doubt, shame, or fear. Healthy modesty is creating space for others out of the desire to hear them. As Proverbs says, in hearing others, we can increase our own understanding. It may appear to be a benefit to others, and it is; but we cannot discount the immense benefit it is to us as the ones who hear and learn. This is not to say I have figured it all out. I do not always excel in this balance of healthy modesty. Sometimes I think my thoughts are novel when they aren’t. Sometimes I feel anxious about silence and I break it too soon. Sometimes I respond to questions with answers when I could respond with more questions. Even talking about modesty in relation to myself feels immensely immodest. Modesty feels like this incredibly fragile thing, this impossible balancing act, amorphous and nebulous like a plume of smoke. Modesty is not something I have mastered, or something that is even possible to master. Rather, this is to say that through my struggle with the middah of anavah I have learned something I think is worth sharing. Healthy modesty is not restrictive. Even if I take up less space, it is not because I see myself as small. When I step back to listen, I am pausing my own activity in order to grow. Like a plant bathing in sun and soaking up rain, listening and absorbing the wisdom of others is what I need to grow. While this pause undoubtedly helps others, ultimately it is an act of self-love. Luzzatto says modesty is not just about action and behavior, but about thought and intention. In my practice of anavah, I remind myself that creating space for others is an opportunity for my own benefit. An opportunity to listen, to learn, to grow, to increase understanding. On the other hand, speaking up and sharing my own insights is a way to give back and engage in tikkun olam, repairing the world. In short, I believe the middah of anavah is about acknowledging that we all have talents and intelligences to share with the world, and we all gain wisdom through listening. We do not need to bring ourselves down in order to lift each other up. Each one of us has so much to teach, and we all have so much to learn. [1] Mesilat Yesharim 22:9 [2] From Every Day, Holy Day by Alan Morinis; pg. 245 [3] Mesilat Yesharim 22:54

I have not said much on the war in Israel and Palestine. In truth, it has been hard to find words. My heart has been broken, and I have been grieving. I have been grieving for those killed in the brutal attacks on October 7. I have been grieving for those kidnapped, living in unthinkable conditions, those whom we still do not know whether they are alive or dead. I have been grieving for those killed in bombings and air strikes. I have been grieving for those who have lost their homes, their homeland, their hope. I have been grieving for those who do not have enough food or water, who don’t know how much longer they have. I have a deep love for my people. But my love for my own does not preclude my love for others. After all, one of the most repeated phrases in the Torah is to love the stranger. While I consider myself a Zionist because I believe that Israel has the right to exist as a homeland for Jews, I often use the term Critical Zionist to qualify that my love and support of Israel does not come at the cost of death, destruction, and suffering of others. I am critical of Israel’s actions because I believe a Jewish state must uphold Jewish values, such as to love and not oppress the stranger. I further believe that nonviolence is the best path forward for the safety and security of all peoples living in the land, Jews and non-Jews alike. But in truth, I am not writing about my political beliefs; I am writing about my moral position. This recent conflict has torn our communities apart. Some people I love dearly have used dehumanizing language against Palestinians, calling them “animals” and “barely human.” Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Israel will never be safe until Palestine is eliminated. Other people I love have engaged in blood libel, suggesting that all Jews are bloodthirsty killers who want to take over the world. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Hitler was right in wanting to exterminate us. So many people have hardened their hearts. Many with hardened hearts have tried to express their love for one group, only to end up expressing hatred for another group instead. Love cannot translate into hate. The feelings warp and change, becoming something else entirely. Hate cannot represent love. It only represents hate. As someone who is trying their hardest to keep their heart open, no space has felt safe. Trying to show support for Israel, I feel hurt by the anti-Palestinian and often islamophobic hatred. Trying to show support for Palestine, I feel hurt by the anti-Israel and often antisemitic hatred. I have felt like my love is unwanted, and therefore it has nowhere to go. So I have been silent. I have not allowed myself to join conversations or demonstrations. I have been afraid of what others may say or who I may end up in community with. Until now. What’s changed? First, I think I simply needed time to grieve. Israel is my second home. I lived there for a year, and I have family and friends there. It was like seeing your hometown attacked after moving away. It was heartbreaking. At the same time, one of my best friends lives in Palestine. After checking in with my family, she was the first person I reached out to. She is, for the most part, safe in Ramallah. But I know she has family and friends in Gaza, and my heart breaks for her and her people. Second, I needed a lot of time to process my thoughts and emotions. I wrote a lot of poetry. I had a lot of arguments in my end. I thought back to a community organizing training I received as a rabbinical student called “Momentum,” which uses polarization to group people together for a singular cause. The idea is that we can disagree about more things than we agree about, but if we all agree on one simple action, then we can be in bigger coalition and have more power to move forward. I have been thinking over these last couple months, who am I willing to be in coalition with? Well in the beginning, I wanted nothing to do with the individuals likening my people, my family and friends, to Nazis. I struggled a lot. I felt like I was free floating in a middle ground with no tether. Where was my community? Third, I have been following the leads of Israelis, especially the families of the hostages. When I saw that more and more Israelis are speaking out in support of a ceasefire, including those with loved ones in captivity, I knew I had to join with them. (The Israeli organization Standing Together - Omdim Beyachad - has been incredibly influential to me and my thinking around this.) As I was able to process my own grief, I recognized that my pride was interfering with my open heart. When I felt myself and my own were threatened, my heart closed in protection. I focused on my grief and did a lot of internal work to recognize when my heart was closing and how I might open it again. I realized that I was willing to be in coalition with anyone who could recognize the atrocities of the October 7 attacks. If they could acknowledge the pain, trauma, and devastation of my people, I felt safe enough to keep my heart open and join them in focusing on the pain, trauma, and devastation of the Palestinian people. Why am I writing this now? Because today I broke my silence. I was invited to speak at a ceasefire rally in my local district. The coalition first condemned the October 7 attacks, then stated that we do not support the killing of innocents in response. The goal of the ceasefire rally was to urge our representative to vote in favor of a ceasefire. I want to share with you the speech that I gave at the rally. It is possible that some of you may be angered by my words. It’s possible that others may be validated. If it happens that my position upsets you: I would be eternally grateful if you were in dialogue with me. Please don’t cut me out. Please don’t dismiss me. Let’s talk about it. We may have more in common than we think. Or we may receive excellent practice in being in dialogue with people we disagree with. These are not easy conversations to have, which makes them all the more crucial. Here is what I said: I stand before you not as a politician, not as a military strategist, but as a rabbi, a Jewish religious and moral leader. My concern certainly involves politics but it is a moral concern. As a rabbi, I turn to the Torah for guidance. Our Jewish sacred text begins with the story of creation. Humanity is created within a single person. This first human is described as both male and female, both singular and plural, multiple apparent opposites in one. Not only that, but this human is also created in the image of God. Later, the first human is split into two, into the individuals we may know as Adam and Eve. But the story did not begin with Adam and Eve as distinct individuals. They were once one, and we all originate from that one singular complex multi-gendered person whose image is a representation of God. Whoever we are, whatever we may be like, we are represented in that first human. Ancient Jewish sages asked, why did God make humanity in God’s image? Well, if God cannot be seen, then the only way to see God is in the faces of our fellow humans. Not just those like us, but everyone. We must therefore see every person as a representation of God. The ancient Jewish sages also asked, why did God start with only one person? One answer is so that no one can say, “My family is better than yours,” because in fact we all descend from the same ancestor. We have forgotten over the years, but we are all family. Another answer is so we can learn that within every human being is an entire world. From the first human we now have the billions of people currently living on earth. If an entire world can come from one person, then an entire world can also be lost when even one life is destroyed. As a Jew, this is what I believe: every human being is a representation of God. Every human life is an entire world. I say this to my friends and my foes alike: your life is sacred simply because that is what it means to be human. It is irrelevant whether or not a ceasefire is fair. The moral choice is not always the fair choice. The moral choice is not always the logical choice. But it is always the right choice. Within every human is the face of God. Within every human is an entire world. A universe has been lost already. We cannot lose any more. We must call for a ceasefire now. Dear friends, I have not forgotten the hostages. I continue to pray for their return. But I do not believe more civilian death will bring them back. I do not believe they can be avenged by hatred and violence. I may sound unrealistic, but so did our prophets in the prophetic writings. I admit I am not always a realist. I believe that as a rabbi dedicated to our tradition's prophetic mission of repairing the world, it is not my job to see the world as it is, but rather to remind people of the world as it could be. Ken yehi ratzon — May it be God’s will.

I'm having some thoughts on some of the responses to the hatred brewing in the US, namely the two following ideas: no one is born knowing how to hate, and you can't fight hatred with hatred. I'm not going to say these statements aren't true. On the contrary. However, I will say I think they are only part of the truth. Let me share a personal experience. I grew up in a house that believed in inclusivity, acceptance, and love. I was taught these values. I was not born knowing how to hate. But I was not born knowing how to love either. I was born ignorant. I was taught how to love. This is illustrated best in an interaction I had with my mother when I was young, maybe 6-7 years old. It is a memory that brings me shame, but it is the shame that has made it stick so clearly in my mind. I hope this story does not embarrass my mother, because I am grateful for the myriad lessons she has given me. I remember we were in the kitchen. We were making hamantaschen. She was teaching me the story of Purim. As she was telling me about Haman, she said he was "ruthless." I asked what that meant, and she asked me if I knew who Ruth was. I said I didn't. She said ruthless means without kindness, compassion, or mercy. She said the word comes from our matriarch Ruth, who was a convert. I said I didn't know what a convert was. She said a convert was someone who was not born into Judaism, but chose it later on in life. It is my response that gives me shame. I want you to know I did not say this out of hatred. I said it out of ignorance. I said, "So she wasn't a real Jew?" My mom stopped what she was doing. She looked me in the eye and said, sternly, "Don't you ever say anything like that again. Ruth chose Judaism, which makes her more of a Jew than someone born into it who rejects it. She was just as much of a Jew as you or me. Do you understand me?" I didn't understand why she was angry. I didn't understand why it felt like I was in trouble for asking a question. But I understood her. And I want you to understand, she did not say this out of hatred. My mom chastised me so sternly because she loves me, and it pained her to hear such vile words coming from someone she held so dear. My mom rose her voice because she loved me, and she wanted me to be the best person I could be, and that was a person who doesn't think they're better than someone else because of the family into which they were born. No one taught me that hatred. Because even though my words were hateful, it came from a place of ignorance. But I had to be taught to love in a way that did not come naturally to me. My mom didn't fight my hatred with hate, she fought it with love. But she also did not fight it with kindness. She did not coddle me. She did not hold my hand. She did not comfort me when I felt shamed by her admonition. She wanted to leave no doubt in my mind that what I said was wrong, and that it would not be tolerated. And she was successful in that endeavor. As I'm sure many parents know, you can be mad out of love. You can yell out of love. You can sometimes even be mean out of love. I certainly felt that day that my mom was being mean. I felt like I did not deserve that response. I felt like there were better ways I could have been taught. I still feel that there were better ways, without anger or shame. We are not perfect. But even if imperfect, I never forgot that lesson. I would be reminded of that same shame I felt when I saw others expressing the same kind of ignorance that ends up being so hateful. And I have been proactive to fight against that hatred, just like my mom fought against mine. People spewing hate are still people. I am commanded to love my neighbor and the stranger alike. But that doesn't mean that I can't yell and cry and argue. Loving someone isn't always rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes it's a stern look, a raised voice, and a harsh admonition. And it may feel mean, but that does not make it similar to the hatred it is speaking out against.

A lot of people didn't know me before my transition, so not everyone knows that the name Ariel was given to me by my parents at birth. Before birth, even: my parents chose the name Ariel before knowing if I was going to "be" a girl or a boy - either way they were going to give me the name Ariel. What bizarre happenstance! I sometimes think God gave the name to them. When starting my transition I wanted to change my name. I felt like it was just something one does when going through a gender transition. But I thought and I thought, and I realized there was no name I liked better for myself than Ariel. It was kismet. But it wasn't easy growing up with a Hebrew name in an English-speaking country, especially since I was born just one year before The Little Mermaid came out. I got so used to people mispronouncing my name, that I ended up settling: a less incorrect version of my name was preferable to a more incorrect version. I noticed if I said it correctly, arr-ee-EL, people would only hear the EL, and mispronounce the first syllable. Air-ee-EL, they would repeat, trying hard to match the emphasis, only to have me correct them. And sometimes we would go back and forth, me saying it one way, them saying it another way, unable to hear the difference. It wouldn't be until I said ARR-ee-el that they would understand why I was correcting them. Then that would be how they pronounced it. After enough of this, I unconsciously decided to skip that often futile step. I began to say my own name wrong. I remember I was in middle school. I had had friends over, and they had all just left, when my mother approached me. "Why do you let them say your name wrong?" she asked me. "What are you talking about? None of them say air-ee-el!" I snapped back defensively. "No, but they all say ARR-ee-el. Or worse, ARR-ee-UL. Why don't you tell them how to say it properly? Your name is so beautiful, it should be said properly." I remember I clicked my tongue. "You can't expect so much from people, they can't hear the difference. As long as I'm not the Little Mermaid I'm happy." Please don't misunderstand, I don't blame anyone in my life for saying my name as such. I introduced myself that way. I decided it wasn't worth it to go over and over exactly how to say my name. I probably made this decision by 9 or 10 years old. I spent most of my life introducing myself with an anglicized version of my name. I made that decision myself, and it made introductions easier for me. I remember in high school I knew someone with the name José. He introduced himself with the Spanish pronunciation, but most people said it with an anglicized pronunciation, saying the "s" with a "z" sound. I said his name the way he said it. One day we were joking around, when he paused and smiled at me. "I like the way you say my name," he said. At first I didn't understand. "Do I say it funny?" I asked. "No, you say it like a Mexican," he said. "It's nice. It reminds me of home." After that, sometimes when I got close to someone, I would tell them the more correct pronunciation of my name. Most people picked it up, not understanding what was so difficult about it, or why I didn't introduce myself like that to everyone. Other times, people would insist that was how they already said it. Of course, there have always been people who use the most correct version of my name. Family, family friends, people who have known me all my life, people who are familiar with Hebrew pronunciations. But outside of them, I got used to most people not saying my name the way my parents would. I got used to having to repeat it, spell it, explain how what I was saying was different from what they were saying. I feel like it is really silly, but I think my favorite part of living in Israel is the way people say my name. They know the name. They know MY name. They know how to say it. They know how to spell it. They don't ask me to repeat myself. I actually had to get used to letting myself say it correctly again. I had gotten so used to amending how I said it when introducing myself. They say it so effortlessly. I used to feel like it was a burden to ask people to say my name the way it was given to me. I used to feel like I was asking too much of people. I used to feel like I would be "being difficult" to ask English speakers to attempt a Hebrew pronunciation. My mom tried to encourage me to not be ashamed of having a name some might consider difficult, and I didn't get it. Hearing the way people say my name here, how everyone says my name here, I sometimes have the urge to thank them for the way they say my name. It's nice. It reminds me of home.

Sometimes people ask me how things are going for me, with regard to me being a trans rabbinical student. And I really appreciate the question, firstly because it's an important question and it makes me feel visible and valued, but secondly because people tend to be surprised with the way that I respond. Of course I experience transphobia. I experience overt and covert transphobia in virtually every space I'm in. I have experienced transphobia that people are shocked to hear about, because even to their uneducated ears it is so obviously offensive. But those examples are not what I respond with. They are relatively uncommon, and though they hit me to my core, they are not the worst. When they happen I am able to understand and validate my emotional response, and if I were to tell others about the incident, they would also be able to understand and validate my emotional response. That isn't so bad. The worst part about being a transgender rabbinical student is, for me, the fact that I'm the only one. It is so lonely to be the only one. It isn't that I crave socializing; I crave understanding. Sometimes microaggressions can pile up. They happen constantly. I don't want to get into what anti-trans microaggressions can look like, and the point of this post is not to educate people on anti-trans microaggressions. But when people constantly make statements that exclude me and people like me, that suggests that I either don't exist or I am less valid than those mentioned. And this can happen multiple times in a day, and I can feel very alone by the end of it. And sometimes, the way to make me feel less alone, is to be alone. The most lonely feeling is when you try and talk to someone about your experience, and they try and tell you that you're wrong. You might say, "Hey, I'm kinda feeling a certain way, because this thing happened. That is actually a microaggression, and it really hurt my feelings." And it is not uncommon for the other person to respond with, "Hmm, I think you're misunderstanding/misinterpreting, I don't see it that way at all. I think it's actually ______, and you shouldn't be upset by it." This is an extremely common response, but it is generally only said by people who do not have many (or any) close friends who are trans and/or nonbinary. Cis people who are around trans/nonbinary people often have generally learned that the trans/nb person understands gender microaggressions more than the cis person. Being around these people can be a relief, because even if they can't personally identify with your experience, they can understand why it was upsetting. The only thing more lonely than being the only one like you, is being the only one who understands people like you. One thing I really like is when I tell this to people, and they respond with a time when they were the only one of their kind in some situation. I really like this because it is a way that they can understand how I feel and what my experiences may be like, and because it is a way in which I am not alone in my feeling of aloneness. If you were the only lgbq person, or the only Jew, or the only person of color, or the only disabled person, and you were speaking about your experiences, and people tried to argue with you about what you were experiencing, how did that make you feel? Being the only one of your kind, experiencing oppression/discrimination/phobia for said identity, and having your peers "disagree" with your assessment of your experiences feels the same, regardless of the specifics of the experience. It is hard to deal with transphobia, cissexism, microaggressions, erasure, etc. But having dealt with those problems for 7 years now, and only recently joining a community where I'm the only trans person, I can tell you my take: the transphobia is hard, but the hardest part is the slow, soul-grating ache of isolation.

Language that we use holds meaning and weight. We categorize things based on the words that we use for them. Without each of their meanings and significances, words in our language wouldn't add anything to our ability to communicate. Because of that, when certain words are being used for purposes that don't match their meanings, it can be really confusing or misleading. But what happens when we don't have the words to communicate the meanings we wish to evoke? Well, the great thing about language is, it's all made up. Regardless of what the word is, it came from somewhere, and from someone. As much as we might feel like language is a God-given entity that already exists in its entirety, and does not need editing, language is the most human creation, and it is constantly evolving. In English, we have seen a great shift in language throughout the centuries. As many of us realized when we had to read Beowulf in school, Old English can scarcely be categorized as the same language we speak today. Language has evolved so much, dependent on the time period and culture of the people who speak it. One adaptation to the English language has been the reemergence of the singular "they" pronoun. The singular they pronoun has actually been around for centuries, used by writers such as Shakespeare, so it is no way a new adaption. If there were a situation in which you wanted to speak about an individual without gendering them, you would use the singular they pronoun. For example, Shakespeare wrote, "Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight; / And every one to rest themselves betake, / Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake." Shakespeare was so fond of the singular they pronoun, that he even used it when the gender of a person was known: "There's not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend." By the way, at the time of Shakespeare, "you," or "ye," was still considered to only be plural, with the proper singular form being "thou." So the singular "they" is actually older than the singular "you," and yet we don't bat an eye when switching between singular and plural uses of "you." This shows how language evolves. "He" unfortunately came back into fashion as a gender-neutral singular pronoun after Shakespeare. With femininism rightfully calling out the gendered nature of "he" pronouns, this has been edited in many instances to "he/she" or "his/her." "They" or "their" is not only easier to say/write than "he/she" or "his/her," but as we know now, it is also more inclusive. There are people who are neither male nor female. For some of these people, it was obvious as soon as they were born. Intersex people are unable to be categorized into a binary sex. Many of these people receive "corrective" surgeries to "make" them one gender or the other. There are also nonbinary people, people who don't identify within a gender binary. We have these people in our Jewish tradition. With the six genders in Judaism, four of them are seen as "outside of male and female," and two of those four are unable to even be classified as "masculine" or "feminine." For people who don't fit into the rigid categories of "male" or "female," the singular they pronoun can help them feel respected, seen, and validated in who they are. It can be harder with Hebrew. The way our Jewish texts dealt with the binary aspect of the language, when dealing with nonbinary individuals, the text reverted to "he/him" equivalent pronouns, and at times would use female language in conjunction with male language. For example, it was written, "An androginos (one of the nonbinary genders): he is a being unique unto herself." They found no other way to describe these nonbinary individuals, so they used both feminine and masculine language. Luckily in English, we already have a foundation for gender neutral pronouns, and we all already use the singular they pronoun, whether we realize it or not (https://tinyurl.com/y6bfk7ca). "Who was the last person in the bathroom? They left the light on." "Did someone leave their jacket at my house?" "Someone is at the door, can you let them in?" Because of this, although other gender-neutral pronouns exist, the singular they pronoun is the most commonly used pronoun among people who use gender-neutral pronouns. My partner is one of those people. With love and support from myself, family, and friends, my partner has come out as nonbinary, and now uses they/them pronouns. While we have the language to express these meanings in English, this becomes more complicated in Hebrew. As we saw with our text on the androginos, the way the rabbis dealt with this was to mix feminine and masculine language. While this is possible and is something that is still being done, people wanted a more uniform way to refer to people in a gender-neutral way in Hebrew. And because language is entirely constructed anyway (especially with modern Hebrew, which arguably was created by Ben Yehuda in 1881 - which makes it significantly younger than the singular they pronoun), a young nonbinary college student studying Hebrew decided to do something about their lack of options to refer to themself in the Hebrew language. Along with their Hebrew professor, they came up with a grammatical system to conjugate verbs, nouns, and adjectives in a gender-neutral way. This became known as the Nonbinary Hebrew Project, and it has received international attention. Nonbinary people in Israel have been discussing this possibility for years: they had the identity terminology to refer to themselves (אי-בינארי, which means nonbinary in Hebrew) but not the formula to change the meanings of the everyday words we use. Words like "walk" and "tall" and "teacher." With the Nonbinary Hebrew Project, that is now possible. My partner and I celebrated our one year anniversary in February. As someone who prays regularly, I realized months ago that it didn't make sense for me to thank God for love without thanking God for my partner, who makes me feel so loved on a daily basis. So I wrote a prayer thanking God for them. With the Nonbinary Hebrew Project, I have been able to write this prayer in Hebrew, without using words whose meanings (binary gender) don't match my partner (nonbinary gender). בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה אֶת יְדִידֶת נַפְשִׁי Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who created my soulmate. We use language to communicate with each other. In using particular language, we can manipulate what exactly we are communicating, and how we relate to those we are communicating with. By using this language for my partner, I am able to both express myself, and validate their identity. As a congregant succinctly said to me at my last visit: it's not political correctness, it's respect. The Nonbinary Hebrew Project can be found at www.nonbinaryhebrew.com. You can familiarize yourself with / practice using the singular they pronoun here: https://tinyurl.com/y2hjn5gv

As I pack up my LA apartment to relocate to NYC for the summer, I'm remembering this time last year when I was leaving Israel and the life I had made there for the previous year. Israel was such a trip. I knew I was going to fall in love with rabbinical school; that was not a surprise to me. What floored me was how hard I fell in love with Israel itself, and with a very special person I met there. It was so hard to leave Israel last year. Being in a place where I felt connected to my Jewish culture even just ordering a coffee, where I didn't feel like a minority (even though I still was one in many other ways), where I felt a sense of camaraderie with everyone around me (except for the Women of the Wall visits where I would get attacked by Haredi elementary school children), where nobody mispronounced my name. I'm remembering one particular event that happened about a year ago. I was on my way from Jerusalem to Yaffo to stay with my family before going to the airport to fly back. I had all my stuff with me, including my cat, so I took a cab instead of a shuttle. My cab driver had dark hair and light blue eyes, just like me. He spoke Hebrew with an accent that told me his first language was Arabic, but he used many Jewish Hebrew expressions, like "Baruch hashem" - thank God. I didn't take too many cabs in my time in Israel, so I didn't know that this was a thing. We got to talking, and although his English was probably better than my Hebrew, he told me it was important for me to speak Hebrew, and we spoke for the whole trip in Hebrew. He spoke slowly and enunciated to help me understand. He told me he was born in Kuwait and his wife was born in East Jerusalem. They now live in Jerusalem together with their whole family on a compound, over 100 people living together in separate houses in the same area. It was Ramadan, and he said he was not a very religious man, but he loves Ramadan, because it was not hard to fast when you get to have a beautiful feast every night surrounded by everyone you love. He told me about the lights, the music, and the food - so much food, everyone felt like kings. He said over and over how blessed he was - Baruch hashem. We also talked about cats. He saw mine and was so excited. He said he never owned a cat, but that there were dozens that live on his compound, and he feeds them and takes care of them. He said there was great joy when one let you touch it. He said he doesn't let them in the house, because his wife thinks they're dirty, but to have a cat hang around your house is very very good luck. And that it was probably good luck for me to keep one as a pet. He asked me why I was moving back to America. I told him I had to for school, but that it is also hard to live in Israel. He said he understood, but Israel "will be here" for me when I return. I was unsure how to respond to a non-Jew seemingly advocating for my "Right of Return," but I accepted it as a very warm and welcoming gesture from someone who also loves the land, and had lived in it longer than I had, but was also not a native. The jacarandas have bloomed in Southern California and are beginning to drop their flowers. The jacarandas in Jerusalem reminded me of California. The jacarandas in California remind me of Jerusalem. I'm reminded of taking walks around the city with Ze'evi, pointing out all the plants I could identify. Going to Jachnun Bar and having to remember how to say "cauliflower" in Hebrew because the server, seeing that we mostly knew Hebrew, wouldn't let us order in English. I see the purple petals and I crave malawach and the sound of Hebrew and the soft slippery steps of Jerusalem stone. My heart has been full of longing -- איזה געגוע -- for the person and the place I fell in love with last year. And while it will be a while yet till I return to Jerusalem, my heart is full knowing I will be with my person, and there will be new plants for me to identify for them, and new places for us to discover together.

Ze'evi and I went to pride wearing our pride kippot, and I had on a Jewish queer pride flag. Throughout our day/evening, multiple people came up to us to talk about us being visibly Jewish and visibly queer. At first we got comments from non-Jews, telling us how nice it was to see people like us there. And then we got approached by Jewish people. Some came right up to us and said "Queer Jews!" or "shavua tov!" Some gingerly approached us to ask us about our kippot, and to tell us about their first time seeing a queer Jew. It was all the same story: I didn't know there were people that were openly queer and openly Jewish, until I met one. Honestly, I was worried about showing up in LGBTQIA+ spaces in kippot and a Jewish queer pride flag. I had prepared answers in my head for if anyone questioned me or my identities. But every single interaction we had was positive, and we could see how for some of these individuals, seeing someone be unapologetically queer and unapologetically Jewish gave them permission to allow themselves to exist within those dual identities. For many of us, if we didn't have a queer Jewish role model, we didn't how to exist in Jewish spaces as a queer person. For many of us, that meant stepping away from Jewish spaces. One of the queer Jews who approached us told us they had never seen someone with a rainbow kippah until they went to their first pride Shabbat service a couple days ago. They didn't know such things existed. Another person told us that growing up, the president of their synagogue was a trans guy, and seeing that someone could be trans and active in Jewish life was what he called a "formative experience." If you go long enough in a space without seeing anyone like you, it's easy to get the impression that people like you don't belong. Ze'evi and I showed up and refused to compartmentalize our identities. We are queer, trans, and Jewish, and those identities are not dichotomous. What we didn't realize is how much it would impact others to see us being our full Jewish queer selves. As we were leaving our last event of the evening, a person saw us heading out and literally ran over to us. "Can I just say, before you go, you two have been giving me so much life all evening. Can I hug you?" We consented, and got a giant squeeze like we were long lost friends. We thought we were just going to show up for ourselves, but we ended up showing up for everyone who has felt like these two identities of theirs can't coexist. חג גאווה שמח Chag ga'avah sameach -- happy pride!

I knew rabbinical school was going to be difficult. Ancient and Modern Jewish history, Torah chanting, Hebrew grammar, learning all the prayers and their meanings. Learning about difficult lifecycle events, like illness and death, and how we might be a pastoral presence during these difficult times. I knew it was going to be hard. On Monday, for Liturgy, our class on prayers, our professor sat down and passed out some papers for us. “I apologize,” she said, “but we will have to delay our planned lesson for today. There are more pressing matters. I did not think that I would ever have to do this, but it seems that it is necessary. I need to teach you the blessing to say when Jews are murdered in public for being Jews.” ברוך אתה ה׳ אלוהינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו נמצותו וציונו לקדש את שמך ברבים Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu, l’kadeish et shimcha ba’rabim. Blessed are you, Adonai our God, ruler of the universe, who makes us holy through his commandments, and has commanded us to sanctify his name in multitudes. We made a covenant with God. We told God, if you will be our God, we will be your people. And this is us holding onto our covenant. Oh God, we will be your people, no matter what. We Jews have a blessing for everything. The pessimist in me says it’s because we’ve experienced so much hardship, so much pain, so much suffering, that maybe we had to bless everything, or else we’d never be able to experience joy. I said this to my professor. She held me in her gaze, the comfort of a sad smile and soft nod. She then furrowed her brows in a thoughtful expression, looked at me in earnest seriousness, and said, “It hasn’t all been sad.” We Jews have a blessing for everything. Our early rabbis gave us a blessing for hearing bad news. Baruch da’yan haEmet. Blessed is the true judge. This has also become what is said after hearing that someone has died. What is the rationale behind this? The rabbis said, “A person is obligated to bless upon the bad just as they bless upon the good.” Our Torah portion this week is called the Life of Sarah, and it begins with Sarah dying. In the very first sentence, it recounts how long Sarah lived, and in the second sentence it confirms that she has died, and Abraham mourns her and weeps for her. Why is it that a chapter about the death of Sarah is called the Life of Sarah? Because a person’s life cannot be fully measured until it ends. Although we can get stuck on the end, the true meaning is all that came before it. Sarah’s story is not just about her death, but about her life, about all the things she did and all the people who loved her. Sarah was lucky. She lived a long, comfortable life, a life full of love and joy. Sarah went peacefully in her old age, and still Abraham mourned and wept for her. It is never easy to lose someone, even under ideal circumstances. Every human life is so precious. We all have that divine spark within us, and each time a soul is taken, the world gets a little darker. Abraham and Sarah had a pretty ideal life. Sometimes the Jewish people can see ourselves as Abraham and Sarah, living a life of comfort: with land, with wealth, surrounded by family, without anything at all to fear. But at other times we see ourselves as Miriam and Aaron, and the Hebrew slaves of Egypt: downtrodden, despised, and oppressed. As of 2017, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 902 individuals, 22.5% of whom were Jews, although the total Jewish population is less than 0.2% of the world's population. This means the percentage of Jewish Nobel laureates is 11,250% above average. – Despite being strangers in strange lands, we have excelled! In Lithuania in 2016, 23% of Lithuanians said they would not accept a Jew as a fellow citizen. In 2017, 23% of people in the UK said they would not accept a Jew as a member of their family. In 2017, we saw a 57% increase in antisemitic attacks in the United States. We are less than 2% of the population of the US, and yet a whopping 54% of all religiously-motivated hate crimes in the US are against Jews. Those statistics weren’t just numbers this past weekend. They were names. David Rosenthal, Cecil Rosenthal, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Irving Younger, Daniel Stein, Joyce Fienberg, Melvin Wax, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, and Rose Mallinger. The Jewish people are a family. We are the children of Israel. When our people are being oppressed because they are Jewish, when our people are being killed because they are Jewish, each one of us feels it in our hearts, in our guts. Just as we all stood at Mount Sinai together when God gave us the Torah, just as we all stood at the shores of the Red Sea together as God parted the waters and we walked on dry land to freedom, so too were we all in that synagogue, the shock, the fear, the horror, the overwhelming sadness. When Jews suffer at the hands of antisemitism, we carry the weight of the loss of a member of our extended family, and we carry the weight of the fear knowing that it could have been us. As a Jew growing up in a post-Holocaust world, I was told as a small child, “That could have been you.” Since growing up and recounting these memories, I’ve been told that is a horrific thing to tell a small child. I wonder then, what do we tell our children? I was in Lithuania last spring, on a trip with school, to learn about what Lithuania was like before and after the Holocaust. What a thriving Jewish community Vilna had, and how virtually none of it was left in the wake of the Shoah. I did not just see the antisemitism in the derelict synagogues and closeted Jewish community, I felt it. Even with a beanie covering my kippah, the locals could tell I was Jewish by the way I looked. I got stares and dirty looks. One day we were learning about the center of the Jewish quarters, when a woman who now lived where the great yeshiva once stood opened her shutters to yell at us. She called us evil, said we had a dark aura, and demanded we get far away from her. She was recording us on her cell phone. We couldn’t understand why. Did she actually think we were witches? That act of antisemitism stung us all. Stunned, we sort of scattered in different directions, not wanting to draw attention to our Jewishness, each of us looking more Jewish next to the others. As I was walking away, I heard the voice of a stranger. “Shalom Aleichem,” he said. “Peace upon you.” A formal Jewish greeting. I turned and saw a man standing behind me. Neither of us had on any identifiably Jewish markings. My heart was beating fast. Was he friend or foe? “Shalom,” I said, cautiously. Both, “hello,” and, “peace.” He smiled. I relaxed, and I smiled too. He started speaking to me in Hebrew. Where was I from? I told him I was from America, but I was currently living in Israel for school. He told me he was from Russia, but that he didn’t speak any English, so we continued in Hebrew. He told me he was on a Jewish tour of Lithuania. He said he hoped to go to Israel one day. He asked what I was studying. When I told him I was going to become a rabbi, he didn’t have any words. He raised his eyebrows and smiled really big, like when you’re surprised by joyful news. He clutched his heart and nodded at me, and I nodded at him, and for a moment we just held each other with our expressions, and then we went our separate ways. The neo-Nazi who shot up that Pittsburgh synagogue would call me a globalist. If I can go to Lithuania and have a conversation with a Russian who doesn’t speak English because we both speak a little Hebrew, and if we can feel as if we have an automatic kinship despite never having met before, and share an honest human connection, and that makes me a globalist, then I’m glad I have the largest extended family that spans all across the globe, and I’m glad I have a connection to them. The fact that it could be any of us doesn’t just mean we’re connected in our fear. It also means we’re connected in our joy. It hasn’t all been sad. We Jews have a blessing for everything. It is so hard to want to bless God right now. My heart feels heavy, my soul feels tired, and I don’t want to be uttering praises. But I think our rabbis understood something. We cannot let our fear, our anger, our sadness, turn into curses. We cannot let them turn into resentment at God. We are commanded to bless upon the bad just as we bless upon the good. We are commanded to experience joy on Shabbat, even if we are not joyful in our hearts. Our life is a precious gift, and we must appreciate it, even when it is so hard, and we are in so much pain. It hasn’t all been sad. Having allies to support us in the wake of this tragedy is proof that love is a powerful motivator. An old friend I hadn’t spoken to in years reached out to me to tell me that she was thinking of me and my community. Many of the Jews in this room have been contacted by non-Jewish family members and friends with words of love and support, and all the non-Jews in this room are here to show their love and support. We are all children of God, we are all made in the image of God, and we all have the divine spark within us. Everywhere the Jewish people have been, we have had allies there beside us, helping us in whatever ways they could. It is in part because of these allies that we are still here as a people. We thank you for standing up in the face of hatred and saying, “You don’t speak for me.” I’ve had a hard time knowing how to respond to the tragedy. At first, I cried. I cried a lot. And then I hugged people I loved, and I cried more. And then I talked about my feelings, and I cried more. But our tradition reminds me: bless even the bad. So now I say a blessing, and I praise God, the giver of life. Because although this story began with death, it is really about life. The Life of Sarah – the Life of David Rosenthal, Cecil Rosenthal, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Irving Younger, Daniel Stein, Joyce Fienberg, Melvin Wax, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, and Rose Mallinger. Baruch Dayan HaEmet. Blessed is the true judge. Zichronam Livracha. May their memories be for a blessing. Let us remember them in life, and bless all that is good in their honor.