It has been a few weeks since my article “Mi K’Amcha Yisrael” was published in The Jewish Link. Since its release, the article has generated a lot of positive reactions and I was most impressed by the newspaper’s reach as I received calls from friends living far away who saw the article.

While the piece was predicated on a sincere message of positivity and achdut, the most common question I received was what I meant when I wrote that “after not eating for one full week, [I] had the best meal of my life at EJ’s Pizza (much to the horror of most of Facebook).” I genuinely considered my two slices, a fries and a Snapple the “best meal of my life”. However, in an effort to show my Facebook friends that I was doing better, I posted a picture of myself with my food with the caption “Don’t judge…..” What followed were several posts questioning my judgment of eating pizza after what my system had just been through, and I simply responded to anyone who apparently did judge that the meal was cleared by both my doctor and my nutritionist. The comment had nothing to do with the specific fact that I was at EJ’s, and only that I went there straight from the hospital.

The takeaway from this is how careful we need to be with what we say, especially in writing, as people can mis-read otherwise good intentions. I will continue to eat at EJ’s Pizza and have fond memories of a perfectly timed meal last July.