This is a delicious article Melinda. You will understand in a moment why I gave it 36 claps. In my story https://medium.com/loud-updates/mediums-clap-system-amounts-to-a-vermiform-appendix-7587edb85a0a I write: " I’ve seen people complain that why clap at all if not giving the max? Are you kidding me? Finally, I came up with my own system: 0, 18 or 36. To me, 50 is perfunctory and 36 is very meaningful, because in Jewish superstition, 18 is a very lucky number as its formed with the same letters as the word for life, and thus “double ch’ai” connotes something very special. Le Chayim!" In a comment to another fine story today explaining my 36 claps I explained to the writer that chai is not pronounced like the tea. I am not religious at all. I do still identify and culturally and ethnically jewish. I do think the kabbalah has some interesting things to say as I tend towards the mystical. For example, I have written many times: "It dawned on me one night how screwed up the story is of the Garden of Eden, or I should say, how the interpretations of the allegory are wrong and have led to so much that has been and continues to be wrong in this world. It occurred to me that so called “original sin” is quite the opposite. It is curiosity; it is thirst for knowledge not just of things, but of what is the best way to handle life, which some idiots turned into right vs wrong and good vs evil. Then it occurred to me that the tree of knowledge is Earth and the tree of life is Heaven. Then I googled and the Kabballah is the closest to my thought as it has the tree of life as “the tree of souls.” I was listening to Aloha Ke Akua and the line “in the image of God” caught my ear, and I started to wonder what the uncorrupted meaning would be. It could certainly refer to souls, and to a baby; after that life takes over — only a newborn is created in the image of god and new borns do not display any masculine vs feminine. New borns are divine innocence. This thought proceeded the prior. I think. I’m really not sure. Ah ontological time."
