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Did You Say The N Word?
“Hey, would you like these books?” One of my dear co-workers asked me this one day, while we were both working. He articulated to me that he had moved, and when he went to his garage, he discovered something. It was a box. A box full of books! What type of books, you may ask? You always propound the best questions. Jewish books. Specifically, Chasidic (or Hasidic) literature, or literature that deals with, interrogates, expounds, and champions Chasidic Judaism. Wherever I have worked, ever since January 2013, when my God Yahweh healed me of my identity crisis, and helped me lovingly and wholly embrace my Israelite identity, I have worn tassels. This is in harmony with Numbers 15:37–41. Many people associate this with Judaism. I don’t blame them. If we play a word association game, and someone says picture a Torah observant Jew wearing tassels, is the first image that pops into your mind a man of color, who looks brown like me?
My God Yahweh is teaching me to extend grace, in the same manner my Rabbi Yahshua does so perfectly. Some people just genuinely don’t know. I was in that same boat in times past. So perhaps my beloved co-worker presupposed that I was a Chasidic Jew, practicing Chasidic Judaism. Innocuous, honest mistake, no? Should I have been deeply offended by this presupposition, whether his intentions were good or…Chabad?
