V'ahavta Lvrarecha Kamocha: Loving Your Neighbor As Yourself Even When It's Hard

I pride myself on loving everyone in my life unconditionally. But I wasn't always this way. So today, I'd like to talk a little bit about loving one another even when it's hard. This past week, in the portions Acharei-Mot-Kedoshim, we read the words "v'ahavta lvrarecha kamocha"--I apologize for the terrible transliteration. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, this seems easy, but I don't think it's supposed to be easy. I think that loving your neighbor as yourself is supposed to be hard:

The first challenge is with loving people who seem to have irreconcilable differences with you. This is difficult. How can I love and respect someone if they are hurting me or if they have beliefs that pain me to think about? And once again, this is not easy, but I think we need to recognize the humanity in each person. You can love a person for who they are even if you don't want to spend a lot of time with them. You can respect someone's beliefs and argue with them instead of cutting them out of your life. You can embrace difference and see it as an asset as opposed to as a problem. This leads me into my second point: Loving people who it's hard to look at.

I know we've all done it. Crossed the street so we wouldn't have to walk past a homeless person, awkwardly avoided the person in the wheelchair at the movies, judged someone for their clothes. Believe me, I have a little sister in a wheelchair. I know what kind of looks we get when we walk down the aisle at the grocery store. We like to throw around buzzwords: inclusivity, diversity, celebrating differences. But how do we actually celebrate differences? In order to do that, we need to stop avoiding difference and start just loving other human beings while confronting difference head on. You can ask me what my sister's name is or just simply wave to her, acknowledging that she is human and your neighbor just like the cashier who you tell to have a nice day. You can spend a little more time listening than you do talking, and maybe, you can realize that all anyone wants is to live a meaningful life and be respected by other human beings.

The last point I want to make is about loving when it's hard in terms of people who are already a part of your life. Sometimes, I'm a hard person to love. I isolate myself, scared that the symptoms of my various preexisting conditions will make me an outcast. I complain of pain, sometimes leaving very little space for other people. It's easy to love someone in the good times. That's not a difficult task, but it is so much more meaningful to love someone in the bad. And at this point, I'd like to thank all of the people who have sat down with me, asked me how I was and wanted a real answer, given me rides places, listened to me talk for hours or just hugged me and told me that I was okay and that I was doing the best I could. These people are the people who love unconditionally. I strive to be one of these people as well: I never turn my phone off, so if someone calls me and tells me that they need me, I will be there in a second. It's just who I am.

We need to strive for love, no matter how much hate and disdain and discomfort there is out there. We need to take this commandment to heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. I'd like to add: even when it's hard.

Coming Out As Chronically Ill: Yes, I am a Zebra

They say that when you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses, not zebras. But I am here to tell you, that some of us are zebras. I am a zebra. You need not be scared. You need not be cautious, but you must be understanding.

Recently, my chronic illness has been flaring up. I've had a lot of pain in my hands this time a symptom that I hadn't ever experienced, and for the first time ever, I've had to express my limitations to pretty much everyone in my life. And that has been scary, so I'm here to give you some advice on talking to someone who has just told you that they have a chronic illness, and that they are struggling in the moment.

When someone comes to you in pain:

Don't Say: Oh I understand, I hurt my knee/hip/hand playing soccer last week.
Do Say: I can't understand, but I want to try (and if you can understand, please please please share in hospital stories and morbid jokes with me).
It's okay that you don't understand.  I don't need you to understand, I just need you to be there. And frankly, you're probably not going to understand. I need you to acknowledge that right now, I'm not doing well, and I need you to let me be selfish, at least for a little bit.

Don't Say: How are you feeling? (If you don't want an honest answer)
Do Say: Can I help you with anything?
Obviously, if everything is hurting, I am not okay, and I hate having to lie, so that people don't have to deal with my problems. And I'm probably not going to be your definition of "okay" ever. I have a chronic illness that has become my "new normal." I'm used to the knee pain and all of the other things that come along with my rare disorder. But asking if you can help makes me feel a little less alone, one of the hardest parts of having such a rare disorder.

Don't Say: You're so strong.
Do Say: I admire your courage.
It's scary to tell people that you are sick. I was incredibly terrified when I had to tell my professors that I was struggling, and I'm a little bit scared to write this blog post. We live in a productivity driven culture that implies that you are "weak" if you aren't getting things done. And I don't feel strong when my chronic illness is flaring up, especially when I'm feeling quite alone and scared. Telling me that I'm strong is negating what is actually wrong. Affirming my courage makes me feel supported and hopeful for the future. Because I do feel brave. I feel brave for learning how to navigate Massachusetts General Hospital and for getting myself to the emergency room when I need to go and for calling my doctors. Thank you in advance for affirming that.

Thank you to all of you who have supported me so far, and thank you to those who will support me and others in the future. The only way one can survive is with support. Thank you for affirming my stripes. 

Ancient Prostitutes: Single Women or Slave Women?

In both of the languages that I study--Hebrew and Latin--there are many words for prostitute, from zonah and kadesha in biblical hebrew to meretrix, scortum, and lupa in Latin. But what can these words actually tell us about who these women were and how their systems of prostitution worked--if there were systems at all.

More specifically, I want to talk about whether these prostitutes were slaves or single women. The answer to that question depends on a lot of things including which culture you want to look at: Roman or Ancient Israelite: Ancient Israelite/Biblical prostitutes, at least from the research that I have done so far( and I'm probably writing my final paper for the year on this topic) were the only women in Ancient Israelite society who were free from the control of a man. Before marriage, women belonged to the oldest man in her family, usually her father, but sometimes the brother would take control if the father had passed away. After marriage, the woman belonged to her husband, and if the husband died, she would be sent back to her father's house. The prostitutes in 1 Kings 3 came to Solomon because they didn't have a man to make the decision that they were looking for. I'm sure there are other examples.

But Rome, on the other hand was a little more complicated. Prostitution was an extensive industry: looked down upon, but at the end of the day, relatively common. There were brothels on every corner at least according to the archaeological record at Pompeii. There were essentially two categories of prostitutes in Rome. The first, called a number of things, including a mulier, a woman, or a scortum, or occasionally meretrices in the plural, were prostitutes, owned by a man, a pimp, a leno,  who worked out of inns or taverns or in a brothel.  These women, often foreigners who were captured by pirates or in battle, were sold to the pimps as slaves. They rarely made enough money to buy their own freedom. The second category was the meretrix, a word that literally means, the one who earns. These prostitutes were generally Roman women who chose this profession. She walked the streets and acquired her own clients, and she in fact wasn't under the control of any man.

So what's the verdict? I think it's still out. The Zonah and the Meretrix were certainly single, independent women, who didn't need a man, but does that make up for the pimps, the lenones that enslaved many helpless foreigners? You tell me.

#BlogExodus:Perplex

Perplex. Confuse. Complicate.
I am perplexed. Why do we act in the way we act? Why do we choose what we choose?
Why did I wake up in pain?
But there are also good things that I am unable to explain.
What exactly makes a person or piece of writing inspiring?
Why can people be so kind?
 I am confused.
But I am content with being perplexed.

#BlogExodus: Expand

Take a deep breath.
Let your lungs expand and then deflate.
The magic of the human body.
Stretch your arms.
Take up space.
What will you expand into?
Who will you be?
The future has yet to come.

#BlogExodus: Read

The things we read influence us. They change our lives, shaping how we look at the world and how we look at other people. Everyone's story can be pulled, at least to some extent from the things that they read, whether that be the Bible or anything else. My story is intertwined with the Animorphs series, Harry Potter, and so many more pieces of writing. My story is intertwined with the Shakespeare plays and poems that we grandfather reads me at the breakfast table. My story is intertwined with Crime and Punishment, one of my favorite books that we read in my high school career. And my story is wrapped in and out of books by Abraham Joshua Heschel and liturgical supplements and every prayerbook that I can get my hands on. And by the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a poem that I truly think changed my life. There is so many pieces of writing that I have read that have shape my story. My hope for the future is that someday, I will have the chance to write something that will shape someone's story just like so many pieces of writing have shaped mine.

#BlogExodus:Retell

Judaism does a lot of retelling. Retelling of our own family memories and of the stories of our people. This got me thinking about why do we retell these stories so often? What can we learn from retelling the stories of history? I think about this a lot when I think about why I study Classics as well. And I think we retell for a couple of reasons. First, we retell stories to bring people closer to their ancestors and to their descendants. Shared stories are often what make communities strong. Second, we retell stories with the hope that history will not repeat itself if we remember it. Whether this always happens is a different issue, but ideally, we can learn from our mistakes and we can learn to speak out if injustice arises.