Mankind's Ugliness

A New York Times Reporter interviews a Lesbian Rabbi

The interview is interrupted by a
hate...abuse..crank call from some
Hassidim youths
The rabbi responds
calmly
reasonably
and finally hangs up.

The reporter, perhaps more shaken than the rabbi,
asks:
"How can you stand it?"

The rabbi, a young women in her 30s, looks
at the ceiling, then back at the reporter

"When I was a a little girl,
and people made fun of me,
hurt me
because
I was Jewish,

my parents told me:
'Never let yourself be defined
by your enemies,
by those that revile you'....

So I don't"

Through the years of
difference, of dissonance
of being at odds with
TheSocietalNorms....
/I/ define myself.

...and I remember my mother,
the most gutsy, vital person in my life.
/She/ was dealt a losing hand by polio,
almost complete paralysis.
But she bluffed with those cards
for years of life filled with
love and growth and participation.

You have to agree to fold your hand

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