The Faith to Keep Fighting
When I was an adorable, relentless very flouncy four-year-old, I insisted on wearing my sister’s cheerleading skirt to kindergarten every day for two years. I could not imagine then that when I was older, all my favorite sci-fi shows would feature openly trans characters, or that Laverne Cox would be the sexiest woman on Orange is the New Black, or that RuPaul Charles would be a national treasure.
When I was thirteen, I tried far too hard to convince myself and my school that I was straight with public displays of affection with my then girlfriend, who was herself rebelling against her strict Church of God parents. I could not imagine then that a day would come when kids could come out at the age and get support from family and from the school.
When I was a hormone-crazed sixteen-year-old, I was absolutely crushed out on this boy in my health science class. I could not image then that 45 years later, I would be able to be legally married to that same boy named Tim.
When I was 26-year-old rabbinical student in 1987, I was doing my Clinical Pastoral training summer intensive on an AIDS ward at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York City. I could not have imagined that there would be a time when HIV could become a manageable disease, a preventable disease, and now there is some hope that it will be a curable disease.
And when I was a newly ordained rabbi in 1990, and synagogue after synagogue after synagogue cancelled my final visit and interview when I told them I was gay, I could not have imagined that there would be so many LGBT rabbis serving not only Reform but Conservative congregations, and that I would be able to be the rabbi at a congregation like Temple Sinai.
Those of us who are LGBT have so much to be grateful for. So much has changed and so much work, and time and creativity and loss has gone into that work, and just as God paused from creation after six days, and took a moment to really say, “It was good”, it is good for us to pause on this Shabbat and appreciate all the work and creativity that it took to get this far, and to say, “It’s good.”
Shecheheyanu.
But even as I’m trying to feel proud and feel gratitude at what we have, I have to admit that this year, PRIDE feels different. Our gains feel significantly more precarious to me this year than last. The Dobb’s ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, that took away from women the guarantee of the right of control over their bodies, also removed the legal cornerstones on which most national gay rights are built. The same arguments Justice Alito used to justify revoking an established right of women can and will be used to undo the legal gains the gay community has made. Our rights stand on a sandy cliff by the sea that is eroding with each wave that crashes upon it. Other houses have fallen into the sea and we can sense ours might be next.
I feel threatened, and most of the women I know feel threatened. And honestly, most of the Jews I know are also feeling like our house might go off the cliff as well. After feeling the freedom of having our rights accepted, the freedom of social acceptance, it is particularly unsettling to have those freedoms taken away. In an odd way, taking away rights from people feels much more pointed and hostile and threatening than not yet having them.
But this is where I think a spiritual practice, faith, and a sense of connection with God can be deeply helpful. When things like this happen, and we know our lives could change drastically and not for the better, faith reminds us that we are already ok, and that we are ok even in the face of oppression and loss. Indeed, oppression and loss are part of the human condition, and for century upon century people have lived full lives with love, friendship, success and joy even while experiencing tremendous oppression. Faith reminds us that we are created good, that we are loved and lovable just as we are, and that this new nightmare will pass if we can just stay engaged and grounded in the truth of our love and our goodness.
Faith can also give us the strength to stand up and speak up when all we want to do is go home and curl up. When we are threatened, there is a tendency to want to withdraw into our smaller circle of people, to make ourselves try to blend in more, to hide and wait for the storm to pass. But the women’s community, the queer community, and the Jewish community all know that shrinking doesn’t work out so well in the long run. The storm might not pass and might well worsen, and even though we are tired of fighting, wounded from loss, and just don’t feel like dealing with this, we know we must, and we know we can because people like us, with fewer resources and much less power managed to get us here in the first place, and we owe those who came before us and pave this way. We owe it to the Barbara Gittings and Harry Hays, to the Silvia Rivera’s and the Harvey Milks and the many people whose names we don’t know to keep moving forward. We owe it to them to use our humor, our solidarity with other groups, our creative rage and our commitment to love to try and reach those who hate us and show them our humanity.
This week’s Torah Portion, Ki Tavo, is all about blessings and curses, and our human ability and freedom to choose to do the right thing. On this Pride Shabbat, we must commit to choosing to be PROUD, choosing not to withdraw or hide, choosing to join hands and march together.
Every day is another chance to choose to do more than survive.
We can do more than survive.