I’d like to suggest that there is room for so much more than what the American ethos has shrunk to. There is room for reckoning. Reconciliation. Reparation. There is room for education. Critical thinking. Art. Poetry. There is still room for greatness.

Some sages say angels’ names are not fixed. That an angel’s mission is its name. And thus its name is always changing, depending on its task.  And so, angels, now I ask you. What is your task right now? What is your name?

The Book of Ruth, which is our companion for the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, can be read many ways. For me it reads as queer narrative. For that reason, among others, my husband and I spoke Ruth’s words when we were under the chupah. “Where you go I will go . . .”