Excellent piece Melanie. I have many comments to add and will do so under the parts I have highlighted. Regarding your general excellence, I gave 36 claps, which is my max clap. It's been a while since I explained why. 50 is an arbitrary cap chosen by Medium and Medium is a narcissist and I do not let my limits be dictated arbitrarily by anyone, particularly narcissists. https://medium.com/illumination/is-medium-a-malignant-narcissist-1f3d55793bf6. So for me, 50 is perfunctory and 36 is very meaningful, because in Jewish superstition, 18 is a very lucky number as it's formed with the same letters as the word for life, "chai," and thus double chai connotes something very special. Le Chayim! Chai is not pronounced like the tea. It's the throaty version of "ch." While I reject religion, there are cultural aspects of being Jewish, which to me is more race than religion, that stick with me. Besides, Jesus was an excellent Jewish person. The "last supper" was a Passover Seder and I believe that Jesus was the first hasidic jew. The hasidim have given themselves a bad and deservedly so rap with their insularness and hypocritical superiority. The movement was founded by a fellow with immense spirituality and the powers that flow from it who simply wanted to bring the spiritual teachings of Torah (the old testament) to the uneducated farmers. That is what Jesus sought 2000 years earlier. https://marcus17043.medium.com/jesus-was-a-great-man-and-prophet-who-sought-to-bring-knowledge-to-the-uneducated-b1691066bb37

https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/what-do-jesus-and-i-have-in-common-597c8ffbfada