For me it took a *long* time to feel safe around female leaders, which complicated my ability to live by my values on a number of levels. #ParshaChat

And part of the reason I'm thinking about this is because I was inadvertently dismissive towards people who live in the part of my city where this has been the biggest problem, and I don't want to keep being obnoxious in that particular way.

And I don't want to act like Eli, either.
#ParshaChat

💯 Exactly. It’s hard to balance. There are folk who come to Shabbat late to carry home food from the Oneg. There are folk who carry alcohol into services and disrupt services. And Tourette’s. We don’t engage with these in the same way, but there are congregants who look down on them. #ParshaChat

She knew that she was not drunk and that what she was saying was important, and she held on to that. That's brave, and that's hard. #ParshaChat

Which reminds me of another thing I've been thinking about teshuva: Teshuva isn't always about letting go of things. Sometimes teshuva is holding on to the important stuff *in the presence of pressure to let it go*. #ParshaChat

Maybe. And on the one hand, he doesn't apologize. But on the other hand, he doesn't make his feelings about having made a mistake Hannah's problem. Sometimes that can be the better course of action, I think? #ParshaChat

And: Treating people who are addicted to drugs as disposable isn't actually a solution. Figuring out what to do from a policy perspective is a legitimately difficult problem. #ParshaChat

So is Eli giving us an example of teshuvah? (Besides the parallel with Sarah giving birth to Isaac in the parsha, is that another reason why this is the haftarah that starts our season of repentance?) #ParshaChat

Thank you for being here today #ParshaChat

Yes, and: It's not a character flaw to want to be able to bring kids to a playground without them getting screamed at by intoxicated adults. It's not a character flaw to want to not get called slurs on the bus or to want to use an elevator to the train without it being soaked in urine. #ParshaChat

And that she felt able and willing to stand up for herself #ParshaChat

In my experience, most people who habitually miss this kind of thing because they are too caught up in their own status tend to double down when someone points out that they're making this kind of mistake. #ParshaChat

This is important. Where is the behavior coming from? We know certain folk or behaviors make us feel unsafe. But that’s also where the ugly laws came from. #ParshaChat

It occurs to me that it's actually somewhat unusual that Eli immediately believed her and course-corrected. #ParshaChat
bsky.app/profile/ruti...

I don't have any special expertise, but the -ayim ending often refers to things that come in pairs: arms, legs, eyes, eyeglasses (in modern Hebrew). #ParshaChat

#ParshaChat

Rashi reads it as one, but a particularly nice one. #ParshaChat

I think that’s what our rabbi was referring to when they said Hannah got a special portion #ParshaChat

And I'm also thinking about how, living in a city where there's a lot of very visible public drug use and a lot of very visible problematic behavior from intoxicated people, it's *really* hard to frame a conversation about it with the assumption that everyone involved matters. #ParshaChat

This is problem for me with PTSD. It’s really hard to trust male leadership in temple #ParshaChat