A1: Oh, that's reminding me of the bamboo pajamas moms phenomenon. There are these mothers who like to buy and hoard and collect fancy baby pajamas, and buy/sell/trade them on Facebooks, and those groups are *always* full of awful drama.
#ParshaChat

A2: I also think that capacity for love and capacity for grief are closely intertwined.

You can engage in a lot of drunken revelry without caring about anything enough to experience heartbreak. But then you miss out on a lot of love...
#ParshaChat

A2: I didn't stop being a woman or feminist on October 7th.

I'm still mourning the loss of feminist communities that have gone antisemitic.

And:

I still don't want to be friends with those within the Jewish community who think I'm stupid for having been a feminist in the first place. #ParshaChat

A2: And from another direction: I *miss* all the friends and communities that I have lost. I was not stupid for valuing them. The ways that they betrayed that is on them, not me.

And... I feel like... some people are *celebrating* that loss, and I don't like that.

#ParshaChat

A2: One of the hardest things to take has been the obvious *pleasure* some people are taking in antisemitism, and how flippant they are about it. It's a game for them and they're having fun. #ParshaChat

A2: I feel like this lands differently for me since October 7th.

One of the reasons I've lost so much community over the past few years is because of people celebrating things that ought to have been mourned.
#ParshaChat

Ah, okay. That's a useful distinction. I can care about people as human beings, and want them to have health & peace of mind. But some folks, it's hard for me to like what they do, or like how they treat others. And yet, in an emergency, I assume it's a mitzvah to help them? #ParshaChat

People in the future will also be people! #ParshaChat

Q2: Here, Kohelet says that mourning is better than merrymaking. Are there circumstances in which you agree with this? Are there circumstances in which you disagree? How so? #ParshaChat

Q1: Reminds me of all the quotes I have seen about planting trees that will not produce fruit for years…we plant for the future & don’t ask “will someone appreciate or waste the fruit?”! At least I hope so. #ParshaChat

The sense in which I mean "caring about people" is less "having lots of warm fuzzy personal feelings towards people" and more "valuing people's lives and believing that they matter as people."

#ParshaChat

I think there's a time and a place for resentment and grudges, TBH. And I think that we need more of an emotional/affective range than just endless positivity. #ParshaChat

Our culture stresses having a positive mindset, or having a "positive attitude." We're not supposed to be resentful, or hold a grudge, for example. I just wondered if doing a mitzvah even if you aren't in the right mindset is still what God wants from us, if that makes sense. #ParshaChat

A1: The bit about merriment as pointless resonated rn as I see people both online & in-person who find their joy being ridiculed. If someone can’t see how important it is, then they will certainly focus on acquiring physical things instead of experiences to cherish/share with others. #ParshaChat

A1: Is Kohelet talking about his own children this way here? Who does that?!

I *want* to build things for my children so that they don't have to build everything themselves!

#ParshaChat
bsky.app/profile/ruti...

A1 Kohelet doesn't feel like he's very well connected with the community. He is offering his words of wisdom which is an act of caring but it's not clear how seriously to take them. #ParshaChat

I hope spending some time at the shore to renew hopefulness works, and I hope that someday community goes without saying and that we're not having to be so defined by all the community that we've lost. (I am very much not there yet.) #ParshaChat

I also think that sometimes caring is more of a commitment than it is an emotion, if that makes sense? #ParshaChat

A0: Hey. Spending a weekend reminding myself that I have community even after losing most of it. & hopefully spending some time at the ocean shore to renew hopefulness. #ParshaChat

A1: Reading with the theme of assuming that we're supposed to care about people really makes Kohelet's failure to do so feel very stark to me this year.
#ParshaChat