If I could sit my younger self down, this is what I’d tell her. Not to be less. Not to explain herself first. Not to earn her place before she took up space. The mitzvot were never a cage. They were a framework built to hold her. The questions were never a crack in her belief. They were the belief. And the survival she carried in her blood was never meant to be the whole story, just the floor she got to build on. I’m not writing this for her anymore. I’m writing it for whoever needs to hear it today. It was always both. Hineini. @empowerwithellis #JewishIdentity #JewishPride #jewishpeople