Jill, I’ve always been interested in the Jewish faith and I love hearing your perspective. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.

I wasn’t in the greatest place when I wrote this piece but I think I needed to write it in that particular moment. In hindsight, I’m not sure if I’ll keep it up — or maybe I’ll re-write my experience from a different angle. Forgiveness, perhaps — because that is a big part of my story, too.

There’s a wonderful book called Fire in the Soul by Joan Borysenko that a high school teacher recommended to me in my teens and I still return to the premise of that book — that suffering has transformative power.

Goodness always outweighs the bad. At the end of the day, I still firmly believe that.

“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.” Elie Wiesel