Love-bombing: A manipulation tactic of increasing affection and grand gestures before or after doing something abusive, specifically to weasel one's way out of consequences.

What it is not: A streak of affection and generosity towards friends/loved ones.

Trauma-bonding: Knowingly traumatizing someone to take advantage of their vulnerable state, to then act like the "hero" or the one who cheers them up.

What it is not: Bonding over similar traumas.

Gaslighting: *Knowingly* convincing someone they cannot trust their own perception of a situation in pursuit of one's own narrative.

What it is not: Misaligned perception of events.

Narcissist: Someone afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a traumagenic cluster B disorder, that struggles with self-obsession, paranoia, craving validity from the public, delusions of grandeur, and social disconnection.

It is not: Your rubbish ex that cheated on you.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

but I wish more people talked about pious agnosticism (not 100% the label I would choose for myself; I don’t know that I would either call myself pious or say “I don’t know if G-d is real” I just feel like answering the question as a yes or no question is missing the point of Hashem). like, what about observance—even belief—being defined with complete agnosticism (ha) to the question of ontological existence?

I love Hashem & observing Jewish Law & mulling over Jewish teachings, but I don’t love those things because of anything to do with certainty of a literal conscious divine entity anymore than I sleep or eat food or go to the bathroom or love people because I’m certain I’m literally real.

if I’m not real, I can’t tell the difference! so who cares? I want to be who I am, whatever that means.

I don’t think so. if a thing that is “good” would be evil on its own merits without a deity to prop it up, then it’d just be evil.

if our aim is justice, and justice is that which waters life, and you do that which waters life, then even if the authority that tells you to do it collapsed, you wouldn’t have any reason to regret it; you still watered life.

no one is harmed by abstaining from certain meats or running by a certain schedule or weaving textiles a certain way; so if any of it makes you feel more connected to yourself and your culture, it’s still beautiful.

repair the world, and even if there’s no G-d, you still helped repair the world, didn’t you? isn’t that enough?

It took Haiti over a hundred years to pay that ransom and it's difficult to explain just how badly that fucked up their entire development, especially since France also demanded a 50% discount on everything they bought from Haiti just to make it harder. Like! No wonder they're impoverished!

"Looking Jewish"

a collage i made of a ton of photos of Jews past and present. our beautiful faces.

Maroallards!!