#and protestantism is what you're going to find most often in america honestly

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Nothing has shown me how exceedingly lonely protestant american exceptionalism is than joining my jewish community.

We're having torah discussions about the part where you are commanded to help your neighbor before they're destitute - that it is a moral imperative to care for people in personal ways such as this, and it reminded me of a conversation I had a few years back that stuck with me.

In this conversation, my dad was discussing with a coworker who said it was your duty to help neighbors if they are not fortunate. "Bullshit!" my dad, essentially said (though he doesn't swear), "I worked hard, we aren't obligated to each other like that!"

And the way he said how dumb that was, to think that you should feel compelled to help a neighbor. He doesn't contest that there is no shortage of people who he would help, but his problem is feeling a duty to others. And something feels... emblematic about that.

In my community, it's just accepted that part of being in community is work. We explicitly ask, "do you need help?" because that's what community is - community is help.

It's normal to ask g-d for help, for strength, but it's weird how often american exceptionalism posits that community cannot help you. It's absolutely lonely, and I say this as someone who is very independent, who is very protective and interested in my sense of freedom and my individualism.

I don't think you need to be jewish to have a strong sense of community - what I am saying here is that being in my offline jewish community, doing jewish things with them, has truly made me see how desolate I feel in my broader, non-jewish community.