if you ask me. being a good storyteller and love are inherently entwined. you cannot tell a good story without loving the people in it and loving those you tell it to. because to tell a good story is to understand it and its impact. to love is to understand how something moves through others and how to deliver it the way it would be best received. and how to breath life into something that did not exist before. storytelling is an act of creation sure but i do believe in all creation, there is love too. that there must be
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Literally every conversation with a colleague/peer in the academic field I'm in (anthropology, with a focus on human prehistory and human evolution) upon them learning I'm an observant religious Jew goes like this:
Person: "Sorry if this is a personal question, but how do you.... y'know......deal with it?"
Me: "Deal with what?"
Person: "Y'know...... y'know......your religion......"
Me: "Meaning?"
Person: "Well, um, how old do you believe the earth is?"
Me: "I follow the geological consensus, which is approximately 4.5 Billion years"
Person: "But......but.....your Bible says that it's 6,000 years old....."
Me: "Technically 5,783 years, so you're wrong there, haha"
Person: "Okay but how do you....how do you reconcile that with science?"
Me: "I don't need to reconcile it. They're not in opposition."
Person: "??"
Me: "The plain text in the Tanakh states that it has been 5,783 years since the creation of Adam, and consequently the world. Judaism has never been about taking the text in the Tanakh plainly, there's always deeper meanings. Who's to say that the 5,783 years aren't just the years since a couple named Adam and Eve met and copulated, triggering the begining of the lineage of Abraham, Moses, and the entire Jewish lineage, and that the six days of creation aren't six phases which are actually pretty in-line with our understanding of evolution?"
Person: "But.....some people believe that it's literally been 5,783 years since the earth was literally created!"
Me: "Okay..... that's what they believe. I don't see how it should bother me, especially considering we're in the field of anthropology where we try to study other patterns of belief, not cast judgement upon them."
Person: "But other Jews believe that!!!"
Me: "Again.....why should that affect my religious and academic senses of self? Judaism has never been a monolith of belief, anyway."
Person: "But-"
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