I’ve noticed something about myself lately, and if I’m being honest, I don’t love it.

When I see the comments—the ones about Jews, the ones that are so blatantly wrong, so hateful, so disconnected from reality—I feel it immediately. That pull to respond. To defend. To correct. To say something back that makes it clear: you don’t get to say that about us.

And sometimes, I start to.

But then I stop myself. Because if I take a step back, I know exactly what I’m looking at. A mix of bots, people who are completely uneducated but loud anyway, and others who have always hated Jews and now finally have a place to say it without consequence. Social media didn’t create this—it just gave it a microphone.

Still, knowing that doesn’t always stop the reaction.

The other day, I actually did comment. It was one of those posts where the accusation was so ridiculous, it almost demanded a response. And what I said was valid. It was justified. But afterwards, I sat with it, and what bothered me wasn’t the comment itself—it was that I let it get to me in the first place.

Because that’s really the battle right now, isn’t it?

We are seeing more hate, more noise, more distortion than ever before. And we have two options. We can let it pull us in—get worked up, feel angry, feel heavy, start to see the world through that lens. Or we can make a conscious choice to focus on something else. On what’s real. On who we are. On our families, our values, the fact that Hashem gave us another day in a world that is still, despite everything, full of beauty.

That doesn’t mean ignoring hate. It doesn’t mean staying silent when something needs to be called out. But it does mean being careful about what we let take hold inside of us.

Tazria–Metzora talks a lot about what comes out of a person—what is revealed, what becomes visible. Chazal connect it to speech, to what we say and how we say it. But the more I sit with it, the more I think it’s also about what we allow to live inside us before it ever comes out. Because what we absorb, what we focus on, what we replay in our minds—that eventually shapes what we say, how we respond, and who we become.

And lately, I’ve been realizing something simple but important:

If I spend my time focusing on hate, even if it’s justified, even if I’m responding to it, I’m still letting it take up space in my life that it doesn’t deserve.

So this week, I’m shifting.

I’m going to focus first on the people and the things that bring me joy. The love that exists in my life. The beauty that’s still here, even when it feels overshadowed. And yes, if something crosses a line, I might still say something. But I’m not going to let it pull me in. I’m not going to let someone else’s ignorance, or hate, or need for attention dictate my emotions or my day.

They don’t get that power.

They can stay where they are—lost in whatever it is that fuels that kind of thinking. But I’m not bringing that into my space. Not into my mind, not into my home, not into how I move through the world.

Because at the end of the day, what we carry inside is what eventually comes out.

And I’d rather be filled with something better.

— House of Yael