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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • If someone harms you, turn the other cheek.

    This is a bit of an aside, but the “turn the other cheek” passage from the bible is interpreted in multiple ways. My favorite is:

    The scholar Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, interprets the passage as ways to subvert the power structures of the time.[3] At the time of Jesus, says Wink, striking backhand a person deemed to be of lower socioeconomic class was a means of asserting authority and dominance. If the persecuted person “turned the other cheek,” the discipliner was faced with a dilemma: the left hand was used for unclean purposes, so a back-hand strike on the opposite cheek would not be performed. An alternative would be a slap with the open hand as a challenge or to punch the person, but this was seen as a statement of equality. Thus, by turning the other cheek, the persecuted was demanding equality.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek