Take It or Leave It – Overdraft and All
We’re about to enter the High Holidays. Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be about new beginnings. At least I hope it is.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Adam and Eve and that red apple. They were tricked into eating it by the snake. By someone who smiled and said it would be fine, that nothing bad would happen. Look how that turned out.
My mother will look at me and say, “That shirt doesn’t look good on you. It doesn’t hide your stomach enough.” When I tell her that’s not nice, she answers, “I’m not being mean. I’m just being honest.” There’s something deeply Jewish in that.
Robby Hoffman, the queer Jewish comedian, says it plainly: “I’m just me. Take it or leave it.”
After a month in New York, I’ve come home ready to do my Jewish duty: complain. So here I am, writing this after a 12-hour workday:
After three years of a war that feels like it will never end, and three years of an economy defined by layoff after layoff, only a very small group seems to be succeeding – the ones who came from money, or the ones who work in cyber. The rest of us are just trying not to fall further behind.
Like Adam and Eve, we were sold a promise: get the grades, work hard, and success will follow. Yes, I know I’m not the first person to notice the snake in this story. Ten years later, I’m tired of working long tech hours knowing AI is already quietly replacing the work I do, of watching Tel Aviv rent continue to climb, and of meticulous budgeting to afford the life I’m living.
I know I’m not the only one who’s tired. My whole generation is. We try to stay positive. We say the things Israelis love to say – הכל לטובה, or יהיה בסדר. But sometimes you need to let out a little cry, a little complaint, a little scream into the darkness. And then we keep trudging along the way we always do. Not because we’re strong and heroic- but what’s the alternative?
If you came to this page looking to be pumped up, you should keep moving. This is not that post. The snake already sold us the apple. I’m not going to smile and pretend it tasted good.
We’re all constantly doing the math while the world keeps telling us we’re lucky.
And still, somehow, we show up the next day.
שנה טובה.
