You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth from the Code of Hammurabi. But as Jesus said, do not resist the one who is evil. But if Israel shoots you in the left cheek with a teargas canister likely manufactured in your home country, The United States of America, crushing the zygomatic arch of your skull and destroying both one of your teeth and your left eye, while you, a Jewish person, who’s very father was born in Tel Aviv, stand in peaceful solidarity with West Bank Palestinians at the Kalandia checkpoint that restricts their entry into Jerusalem or Al-Quds as it is also called, to protest the murders on the Turkish Flotilla that attempted to pass through the blockade of Gaza that morning - turn to them the other cheek also, as for a kiss.
When my left eye saw the teargas canister, the final sight it would ever behold, I was sure I would die. I who previously declared I didn't believe, in that moment, called out to G∞D, "...but I am an artist." You can't tell from the photos, but in the next moment, I was elated. "My brain is ok! My brain is ok!" I repeated as a mantra. How life does go on. Why do we waste life with fighting? Everyday I get to make art because I am alive. I know someday I will be not, just as my left eye is not. Now is an opportunity to love.
