Vika Krieger

I learned Aramaic and I was studying the text, the Torah, all the legal codes,

from a young age in a way that I had direct access to them.

So I didn't need a gatekeeper.

So someone could be like, you're not allowed to do that.

And I'll be like, show me where it says that in the text.

Or I'm going to open up the Talmud and find the place where it talks about this and be like, well, it doesn't say that in here.

And so I think that for a lot of people who don't have that direct access, they need it mediated through a gatekeeper.

And generally, those gatekeepers have a culturally conservative agenda.

And they're like, oh, no, you're not allowed to do that.

And I'm like, well, it doesn't say it in there, so I'm going to do it.

So there's this quote, I think it's Audre Lorde, who said, you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools.

I'm going to be really embarrassed if it's not Audre Lorde.

I think that's right.

And I kind of was like, well, I guess maybe sometimes you can.

Like I had the tools.

The masters gave me the tools to dismantle the house.

Yeah, old man on a throne in the sky, long beard, kind of wagging his finger at you, recording all of your good and bad deeds in a book, and you're praying to this person just like you were sharing.

And so, yeah, that was definitely the God that I believed in as a kid.

You know, it's funny because people assume that if you're Orthodox or if you grow up really religious, you have a very close relationship with God.

Yeah.