you explain what Mahmir means?

Yeah, and I'll say that the reason you have to ask me is because like that word automatically kind of weeds out like who gets you and who doesn't get you because it's very specific.

And, you know, we'll march and we'll have that on our signs and Jewish people will stop us or like the people we're marching with.

In the contingent right next to us, we'll go, you know, from Keshet or wherever, like, what does that mean? And so we automatically know, like, who gets what to be queer or unorthodox is.

And so machmir is a term that's referred to the degree to which somebody is adhering to Jewish law.

So there's machmir, which means, like, stringent.

And there's meikil, which means kind of like easy or easygoing.

Tell us about how you came up with the name Eshel.

So Miriam, tell me about Eshel and why did you start it?

Sure.

So thank you so much for having me and being open to hearing my story.

It's a very personal story.

It started that way.

And now it's the story of many people that we work with.

So it's kind of validating for me to see my story played out over the past 15 years through Eshel's work.

If you got to 500, it would be okay as long as it maintains that sort of intimacy and tradition and spirit in which you're creating things so far, right? Yeah.

And, you know, how are they understood today, even within the folks who live more, the more modern types of Orthodox Jews?

Okay, so yeah, you know, the Orthodox world is kind of governed by like a legal system.

And then there's also like a social system.

So, you know, there's kind of understanding things in your life according to this legal system.

And then does it really map onto the world that you live in socially? So those are the questions.

And we deal with both at Eshal, but we mostly try to humanize the experience of being LGBTQ so that whatever legal, or we call it halakhic, which is the Jewish way, it's called the path, but it's also referring to the laws that govern our lives.

So the laws that govern our lives, are they gonna be prohibitive and restrictive so that it's against the law or the Torah to gay? And so there are, you know, definitely, that's like the root of the problem, basically, because there are passages in the Bible, in the Torah, the Jewish Bible, that will, you know, prohibit male sexuality with other men, and also in the rabbinic literature for women.

that, if you don't mind?