I am exhausted, and if I’m being honest, I don't think I’m the only one. This past year has brought a litany of unfamiliar experiences and emotions.  This year, we’ve had to wrestle with questions like - Where do I fit in? And - what does it mean to live as a Jew, to be part of a local and global community, to be part of a peoplehood and also part of a modern society where we are an ethnic and religious minority?  Perhaps some of us are perfectly comfortable, we do not feel so different from anyone else around us. For some of us, this has been a persistent feeling throughout our lives - antisemitism, hate, feeling like we are on the outside, like we are other. For many of us here, this is a new reality that we have had to grapple with over the past year....

 My first month living in Chicago, on a quiet Friday, I took my bike out at 6:30 in the morning to ride up to Montrose Harbor, because of an instagram post. 7AM, I arrived, completely unsure of an exact location, nervous going to something by myself, scared that I had no idea where in the city I was, yet, as I got closer to the harbor, I saw people walking and biking, together in groups with inner tubes and pool floaties. I locked up my bike and followed the crowds of people towards the water where a few hundred people were jumping into the lake at 7AM. I dumped my things on a step and approached the edge of the water. I was terrified. All of a sudden, I hear an affirming shout- “are you going to jump?” and a young woman and her friends start cheering me on...