22 December 2013

How the URJ Biennial exacerbated my pet peeves with the Reform Movement

I did not attend the URJ Biennial in San Diego.  My parents did, and I watched videos, though not live broadcasts, as I was busy during the days it occurred.  I was impressed with several of the pieces that are now available on the URJ's YouTube channel including R' Rick Jacobs' keynote, the women clergy (many of whom I learned from at camp and in NFTY) talking about how important NFTY was to their own experience, and R' David Ellenson's d'var torah and blessing of R' Aaron Panken.  I enjoyed learning about the work of the Ruderman Foundation, and fun facts about the progressive nature of the Women of Reform Judaism.  Neshama Carlebach explained how she was made to feel at home in the Reform Movement and is now choosing it for herself.  The cast of musicians was tremendous.  I experienced both naches and horror as current NFTYites cheered (naches because it's NFTY and horror because the cheer has changed in minor ways in the ten and a half years since I was a NFTYite).  I felt proud of the Movement in which I was raised.

Watching the videos from the Biennial also made me aware of the ideological distance between myself and the Reform Movement, even as there are more and more Reform Jews whose personal observance is traditionally radical rather than rebellious.  I felt alienated from the spectacle of pride in a Movement in various ways.

Ideologically, the movement is democratic and capitalist.  The Reform Movement is the movement most focused on inclusion of interfaith families, most talkative on issues of social justice, and claims it is the queer-friendliest (although it does not use that term).  These attributes were trotted out over and over to justify the Reform Movement's market share in America, propped up with unsurprising data from the Pew Research study on American Jewry.  As a socialist raised in the context of multiculturalism who has had the privilege of being a part of genuinely pluralistic Jewish spaces as well as post-denominational Jewish spaces, the competitive nature and liberal democratic values espoused to back it up were a turn-off.  I'm not interested in beating other groups of Jews (or anyone).  And, as my high school English teacher would say, show, don't tell me, that I should want to be a part of your organization.

The Reform Movement has what Rick Jacobs described as respectful differences with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.  Support for Israel as a political entity as the democratic and Jewish state was talked of the entire time, ignoring the socialist history of political Zionism, and almost entirely ignoring the injustice of occupation in favor of struggles within "Israeli" society for women's equality and religious (read Jewish religious) freedom (on which R' Rick Jacobs said the Movement and Bibi have respectful differences).  Furthermore, both Bibi and Vice President Joe Biden talked about the importance of keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  Cue Tom Lehrer's "Who's Next?".  My thoughts on Israel, and on the relationship between Israel and American Jewry are quite complex.  Suffice it to say for this that I think the focus of American Jewish engagement with Israel should not be parroting support for injustice by buying into excuses.  The Reform Movement has a vested interest in Israeli politics, having programs and institutions there, and not having its rabbis recognized by the theocratic machine.  Therefore it should be outspoken on every issue that it cares about relating to Israel, and it should not describe any differences regarding subjugation of human beings as "respectful".  It should not stand by when Israel blames the failure of the Peace Process entirely on Palestinians.  As a well-organized body of progressive American Jews, the URJ should exercise its critical perspective on the ways in which Israel does not live up to Reform Jewish values, just as the Religious Action Center does the US government.

Lastly for the major issues, the Campaign for Youth Engagement grates my nerves.  Don't get me wrong; I support the involvement of young Jews in Jewish life.  I benefited tremendously from URJ camping (9 summers at OSRUI and one at Kutz), and my involvement in NFTY led me to feel like a part of the Jewish community rather than a token or an outsider.  The messaging of the Campaign for Youth Engagement is patronizing at best and selfish at worst.  Selfishly, it reads: the reason we should engage youth is that we need somebody to take over for us in 25 years.  The patronizing read is the message: youth are the future of our movement.  As a teenager, being called "the future" was one of the worst things you could say to me.  What I learned from being engaged as a kid and as a teen was that I did not have to wait to express my Judaism.  I was a Jew then, and I could live Jewishly.  My thoughts, insights, learning, and actions as a Jew mattered, even my first summer at camp when I was nine.  As I grew up in the realm of informal Refom Jewish education, I found support for my deepening religious observance in the youth movement and in the professionals who served it.  I found a camp counselor who was extremely traditionally observant.  I found the first person I called my rabbi (who is not ordained as such) in my teacher and mentor Danny Maseng, who implanted within me not only a love for Jewish music but the seeds of the spirituality I am currently building for myself.  I found the first rabbi I would call my rabbi in NFTY in the form of R' Arnold Jacob Wolf, z"l, who knew how to criticize my point of view and point me in the right direction while taking my angry rebellious teenage self absolutely seriously.

A URJ cynic would look at my life and say I am not a success story of Reform Jewish youth engagement. My primary Jewish involvement is not through a Reform congregation, but rather an independent Jewish community called Mishkan run by Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (ordained at the Ziegler School at American Jewish University, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement) who was also taught by Rabbi Wolf. Since June, for the first time in my life, I do not belong to a URJ congregation.  (Two of the congregations I'm looking at joining happen to be URJ congregations, and one is more traditionally observant than most URJ congregations.)  I married a non-Jew, who, if he survived, would have made the most fabulous rebbetzin [sic].  I am looking toward becoming a rabbi and HUC-JIR is not even on the list of schools I'm considering.  After my first year as a camp counselor, I did not stay involved with OSRUI.  I am far to the left of the Reform Movement politically.  While I consider social justice to be of paramount concern for any Jew, my personal Jewish focus has turned more and more to tikkun middot (which I first learned about at sija in the Bayit at camp).  My theological views include a God that still actively performs miracles.  I can read resurrection of the dead and praying for the coming of the Messiah in metaphorical ways, although I generally prefer to talk of geulah rather than goel whenever possible.  I don't pray for a return of the beit hamikdash, but I do mourn its loss. I believe that we do not have to discard halaja to come up with ethical Judaism.  My political Zionism and my religious Zionism are separate. I don't feel there are any areas of Judaism that are not deserving of questioning.  I feel that there need to be ritual boundaries between what Jews are able to do and what non-Jews are able to do.  This perspective is particularly informed by my growing up with one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent and that non-Jewish parent later converting.  I don't believe that saying we are welcoming makes us so.  And I believe that talking about gender equality as women being equal to men enforces a binary that we should not be enforcing.  So, I'm in no way, the married-to-someone-I-met-in-Tzofim-become-Rosh-Eidah-go-to-HUC-JIR-or-law-school-or-med-school-join-a-Reform-Temple-20s-and-30s-group-future-URJ-board-member success story that the Campaign for Youth Engagement means to create.

However, without Reform Jewish informal education, I would have maxed out the Jewish knowledge of my congregation at an early age.  Without Danny's presence, Judaism would seem entirely intellectual to me.  Without Rabbi Wolf, Judaism would have become a boring set of rules that I didn't even follow.  I would not have developed a daily prayer practice and a reverence for Shabbat.  My parents would not attend synagogue on a weekly basis, and my dad has told me it was my passion for Judaism developed at camp that brought him into the Jewish community as a Jew and not just as related to us.  My partner would not have been enthralled by the rhythms and ethos of Jewish life. We would not have lived in the rhythm of the Jewish week.  And the thought of becoming a rabbi most certainly would not have occurred to me if I had not decided it was the best way to keep coming back to camp every summer for the rest of my life at age nine.  My Judaism might look like my brother's.  My brother had sporadic engagement with Judaism as a youth including a trip to Israel for the Eisendrath International Exchange, had a minor in Jewish studies at San Francisco State mostly because of the rampant anti-Semitism on that campus, and now his Jewish observance is mostly driven by his devout Catholic wife saying "don't you guys do this" and "shouldn't we...".  Judaism for him is at worst something he's stuck with and at best a peripheral connection to the rest of his family.  But then again, he and his wife belong to a Reform synagogue.  There's another possibility for what my Judaism might look like.  I might have gone what R' Benay Lappe calls "Option 2" and thrown out the baby with the bathwater, becoming an atheist who was raised as a Jew or identifying as "spiritual, but not religious".  I might have considered myself too good, too evolved, and too enlightened to practice ancient tribal customs.  My only engagement with Judaism might be seder at my parents' house.  Surely, if somebody had dismissed a teenage me as merely "the future" of Judaism instead of recognized me as a part of its present, I would have been dismissive in return.  Instead, camp and NFTY created places where I could be taken seriously where I was, where I developed the passion which led Judaism to be a central aspect of my life, and where my critiques of current Jewish practice started.  I don't need to feel a part of the Reform Movement, but I do need to feel a part of the Jewish people.  And I didn't feel an emphasis on that from the Biennial.

15 December 2013

On Grieving

Mr. Boy died shortly after I posted a short list of his advice for me on November 20th.  Other losses have also touched me since Mr. Boy's death.  A mentor lost a father-in-law, a friend lost a father, Superman Sam whose story helped give me and Mr. Boy strength died, Peter O'Toole's death made news, and, of course, the world lost one of the most incredible humans ever when Nelson Mandela died.  With each loss, I thought I was in a place where my heart could not break more, but it seems as though compassion is unending.

I'd like to write something profound about Mr. Boy, but I think it's too soon for that.  I've been staring at a blank page for days trying to put something together for the service which will be Saturday.  But, as a trusted rabbi shared with me, there are no words.  Human language is not meant to describe grief.  We mourners are not meant to fit people, relationships, and pain into grammatical structures.  We are meant to learn how to hold the joy of love and caring and the pain of loss and absence together.  We are meant to refuse comfort, to be comforted, and to seek comfort from others (not necessarily in that order).  I am meant to reconcile the loss of my partner with the fact that I yet live.  That feeling my grief will be a part of my life in many different ways as I continue to live despite that I feel like my world has stopped.  To live with grief is to expand notions of family and community to include those who are not present.  To live with grief is to live radically - to participate in an ongoing revolution of reimagining life not based on what we planned but based on where we are.

20 November 2013

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Even though today has been horrible in terms of my current situtation, I wanted to take the time to remember those who have died because they are Transgender.

Words of Wisdom from the Man I Married

Mr. Boy, dying, has made a number of recommendations to me for life after him.

1. Don't shave with a straight razor. You might be tempted, dandy as you are, but you're too clumsy.
2. You're a MacNeil now.  That means your motto is "To Conquer or To Die."  Conquering is always preferable, and is no longer meant only in a sense of conquering land or people. Spiritual conquering is the ultimate expression, these days.
3. Don't hang out with people who aren't stubborn; you have no capacity to interact with them well.  Stick with Jews and the Irish.
4. Laugh often.
5. You're better at being a good boy than a bad one; it's one of your best qualities.
6. Take time to mourn. Then move on.
7. Read the psalms.
8. No emotion exists that has not been properly captured by the Bard.
9. Being part of an Irish family means you can't ever get rid of them.  Don't try.
10. Add Irish to the list of languages you should learn.
11. Don't spend all your time remembering me, and when you do remember me, remember happy times and Hershey's kisses, not hospitals and vomiting.
12. There is an Indigo Girls song perfect for every occassion.
13. If people ask if you're Scottish, you say "Scots-Irish, by marriage."  Then they won't ask you any questions about your clan heritage.  But learn everything you can anyway.  Theoretically, you could owe fielty to Chief Rory.
14. Love.  Every person, every moment, every thing.
15. Don't try two days at a time. That's a recipe for disaster.
16. I will always love you. I don't know what happens after death (I'd like to think nothing), but if something does - I will still love you.
17. It will still be hard to be sexy while thinking of a red-nosed reindeer. Take comfort in the fact that some things will never change.
18. So I borrowed this one from my priest, but: Most of the time, what you think is a dementor is just a boggart.  And if it's really a dementor, eat chocolate.
19. Dream big; live bigger.  Life is always more amazing than your wildest dreams.
20. Though know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

18 November 2013

Welcome to the last days - #FuckCancer

Yesterday Mr. Boy had unexplained pain.  When you have cancer, the doctors tell you what should hurt, and how much, and to tell them if your pain is not typical.  So he did.  And after tests, they saw that despite the aggressive chemotherapy, his cancer spread to his lungs.  In a "normal patient," they would advise continuing the chemo for the full cycle, as the full cycle is perhaps necessary for any effectiveness, but with an HIV+ patient with a very low CD4 count, it's too stressful on the body to continue the treatment.

What happens now is that the cancer will replicate, filling Mr. Boy's lungs until he can no longer breathe.  Without intervention, he may also suffer renal failure.  Mr. Boy does not want drastic measures, so the care he is receiving now is purely palliative.  The doctors say he has less than a week

I am in Toronto to be with Mr. Boy.  He's currently quoting Shakespeare, clearly using the time he has breath for its most exalted purpose.  He has to stop every few minutes to catch his breath.  I'm trying to be present, to enjoy the Shakespeare, to enjoy him before he's gone.

15 November 2013

Drawing Strength from the Hardest Moments - #FuckCancer

Mr. Boy had methotrexate injected into his spinal column today, one element of his chemotherapy.  That process is painful and he'll be sore for a few days.  We're getting used to the routine of him being in cancer treatment.  We Skype before the doctors round on the patients, because after that, his day in the hospital is full of constant interruptions.  Sometimes we talk later, but we don't have deep conversations after 8AM.

It's hard to find the kind of support we're looking for.  Most support for cancer patients and their families focuses on hope.  What's important is that you have a positive attitude, there's a chance you could beat it, you could be one of the lucky ones if you just try hard enough.  What's important is that you think you have a chance you could survive.

Mr. Boy's cancer is such that the best hope is that he may survive for a little while longer and retain some quality of life, two years is a coin toss, five would be incredible - not good news for a thirty-one year old.  Our spiritual focus has been coming to terms with his death while trying to stay in the moment and enjoy whatever time we have.  The support focused on grief and loss seems altogether inadequate.  Not to say that it doesn't help, but grief is hard, and it takes time.  It takes time to let go of happily ever after, to let go of the possibility of children, to let go of dreams.  And incessant talk of death distracts from today.  Without knowing what Mr. Boy's quality of life after chemo will be, it's hard to make bucket list plans or even regular plans.  Taking joy in the now is

But we are finding strength from people who are share about their hardest moment facing terminal cancer.  People who have been told similar things that we have been told, or further along when the doctors tell them there is nothing more they can do.  One of the strongest stories that we grab on to is that of Superman Sam and his family.  A part of my extended camp community, Sam is an eight-year-old with AML now out of treatment options.  His parents blog at http://supermansamuel.blogspot.com about the experience of dealing with his cancer.  I've followed their story for a while, and Mr. Boy furiously caught up with it after his diagnosis.  We're members of Team Superman Sam, and we thank the Sommer family for sharing what's real about their experiences on a daily basis.  Sam is in our prayers, and we think he's incredible.  We hope he fills his remaining time with joy and love.  Mr. Boy hopes to do the same with his.

07 November 2013

Visiting Mr. Boy

So Mr. Boy has been quite sick for quite sometime, and we found out not too long ago that he has Stage IV cancer.  He went to Toronto, where he grew up, for treatment.  And so I find myself here visiting him.  The chemotherapy is making his body weak and his mind tired.  He has no energy, can't eat right now, and the pain he's in is visible on his face.  This is depsite the medications they give along with the chemo to make him comfortable.

When I crack a joke, he tries to smile, but I can tell he's not amused.  Today, they're running some tests to see how effective his treatment is so far, one week in.  And I'm leaving to go back to Chicago, which breaks my heart because I want him to be here and I can see the sadness in his face that I can't stay longer right now.  He'll be here for three months.

01 November 2013

One Jew's Praise of Halloween Customs

in memory of Bob and with all the love in the world for Bud and both of their families

I've seen many treatments recently of whether Jews should celebrate Halloween.  On a simple halakhic level, the practice of participating in rituals for another religion is forbidden.  Halakhah was not a big concern to me growing up, and still isn't.  The following is not an argument for why Jews should participate in American Halloween customs, but rather an outline of the benefits and Jewish values I received in my own life through having a rich experience of Halloween as a child.

My partner lives in Boystown, and gay men take Halloween quite seriously.  But the parades and costumes and frivolity of Halloween in the gayborhood doesn't compare to Halloween the way I remember it.  The Halloween I remember had no religious overtones, even in South Bend, where most folks are Catholic.  It wasn't until I studied French culture that I learned Halloween started as a religious holiday.

I lived in a neighborhood in South Bend that was the envy of other neighborhoods when it came to Halloween.  Kids would come to my neighborhood for the king size candy bars those in the mansions would hand out, and, of course, there was the haunted house my "behind" neighbors put together.  The best friends, Bob and Bud, who lived next door to each other, used their front yards as a spooky playground, and, I found out when I was older, their homes for the adult party.

As a small child, there was nothing so exciting as the fear that grips you when a hand grabs you in a candy bowl with false bottom.  Usually, my parents let my brother and I go trick-or-treating in a modest fashion.  The highlight was always the haunted house, whether the candy haul was great or sub-standard.

The haunted house brought the community together, and remains one of my best experiences of maintaining a yearly ritual that has the right intention and right actions - the haunted house captured both keva and kavanah of Halloween.  As I became an older child and knew that the hand in the cauldron was attached to a person, and even when I knew who it was under the table, it was still a frightful experience.  As I entered my years of being too cool to go trick-or-treating, as a neighborhood kid, I was put to work under that table with my hand in the candy cauldron or spraying silly string at kids from inside a coffin.  Becoming the man behind the curtain didn't take away the mystery or specialness of the haunted house experience; it added to it.  I was able to pass on the Halloween experience to those younger than me, and be responsible for helping my community.  And helping make Halloween happen helped me stay engaged with the tradition when otherwise it would have been uncool to participate.

When I was in high school, tragedy struck, and Bob was killed in a workplace shooting.  Bud, a fire chief, was one of the first responders at the scene.  After Bob died, Bud didn't feel much like throwing a haunted house and party without his best friends.  Bud put up a plaque explaining the absence of the community event.  The first year without the haunted house seemed empty.   The next year, the neighborhood community organization organized a day-time Halloween gathering in the park in the North Shore Triangle.  Halloween, after all, was a time that our neighborhood coalesced around, and we mourned Bob's absence but came together as a community to have Halloween without Bob, but for Bob and Bud.  Bud couldn't bear to celebrate by himself, and he didn't have to.

In college, my dorm organized a haunted house and brought people in to trick-or-treat, and as I became involved in the queer scene, many people my age do the costume thing and have celebrations, but there's not a proper ruach Halloween outside of my neighborhood in South Bend.

For me, Halloween is not about who has the cleverest, coolest, or sexiest costume.  It is not about how drunk one gets or who has the best drag act.  It is not about how much candy you collect or how scary you are or how scared you get.  It's not about the decorations or even about great death and ghost puns.  Halloween is about community, it's about support, it's about building things together.  It's about letting other people enjoy themselves and doing the work to make it happen.  It's about hospitality - having way more Halloween candy ready than necessary because you never know who will come to your door.  It's about remembering the amazing antics from last year or five years ago, and telling and retelling those stories.  And most of all, it's about the power of emanating kindness from the fast friendship of two men.

From Halloween, I learned values of tradition, kindness, what it means to be a part of a community, how to be there for those grieving, how to pass on my love for something to the next generation.  And I learned it better and clearer from a haunted house than from my synagogue.

21 September 2013

Zman simjateinu

Sukkot is upon us.  For eight days, we are commanded to be happy.  I've always rebelled against this notion.  How can you legislate a feeling?

12 September 2013

Marrying Mr. Boy

Mr. Boy dislikes science fiction.  He insists that Québecois is real French.  When he is involved in a project, he focuses on that to the exclusion of everything around him and his own self care.  He goes to Northwestern.  He's shy to the extent that it limits his social interactions.  He claims there are parts of his life I will never understand because I'm not a twin, and then doesn't explain them.

That's a short list of what I see as his shortcomings, to underscore that I know he has them.  That said, we're getting married, which still seems unreal after two days of being "true".  I feel blessed to have him in my life, and I'm looking forward to being married, and we're taking wedding planning one step at a time.

24 July 2013

The requisite post about Shabbat Nachamu

So I'm a little behind on this blog, and Shabbat Nachamu was a few days ago.  The observance of it is poignant for me this year, as Shabbat Nachamu is a reminder that there's hope.  Even in the darkest times, when it seems like the end of the world as we know it, we are reminded that hope is real and also external to us.  When we have lost hope it still exists somewhere outside of us, and we need only locate it.

17 July 2013

Unanswered questions

I've been trying to write a post about remembering my love and I don't know what to write.  Do I write that I am still devastated by her loss on a daily basis?  Do I write that I'm terrified that Mr. Boy will meet the same demise she did?  Do I write that thirteen years is long enough for someone to become responsible, and I can see it in her fourteen-year-old brother?  Do I write that I wanted to escape, because I still don't want to deal with her loss?  Do I write that I'm conflicted as I start to let go and move forward?  Do I write about how weird I feel in the moments when I notice how similar Mr. Boy is to her?  Do I write that this is the hardest year yet?  Do I write that I feel lost without her even as I find direction in my life?

16 July 2013

If Tisha b'Av falls on Rosh Jodesh, do you fast?

The title of the above refers to a trivia question I once answered.  It's a trick question, because Tisha b'Av means the ninth day of the month of av, so it can never fall on Rosh Jodesh, which is the first day of the month.  That said, if Tisha b'Av falls on Shabbat, you commemorate it the next day instead.

Last night, I attended Mishkan's Tisha b'Av observance, which included Ma'ariv, Reading of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations), and a conversation about our sadness and love when it comes to Israel.  As a Tisha b'Av observance, it was the closest I have come to my Tisha b'Av experiences at OSRUI - meaningful, hot, and at some points frustrating.  The pain in the room was real and the mood somber, but somehow, in leaving with the brokenness of the day, I came out more whole.

I did not grow up with a Tisha b'Av observance in my family.  As someone with staunch Reform upbringing, Tisha b'Av was (for those who knew about it) considered an inappropriate holiday to commemorate because the Reform Movement does not believe the destruction of the Temple to be a bad thing, and therefore does not mourn the event.  However, Tisha b'Av was commemorated at my summer camp, in a beautiful fashion that bestowed the day with contemporary meaning for this mourning.  We talked about sinat jinam, the senseless hatred that Jews see as our part in the destruction of the Temple.  But more than that, the ritual was well-crafted to imbue the day with sorrow and with connection to the history of the Jewish people: tragedies and persecution included.  Living in a time of relative peace and privilege for Jews, this connection was new for me.  I am here because my ancestors responded to persecution by making themselves stronger, because the response to the question eicha has been that part is under our control.  We find things we could have done better even when we recognize that others are responsible for inflicting violence, persecution, and genocide on us.  We could sit in our hatred of them or of God, but instead we reflect on what it is about us and the way we live that exacerbates the damage done to us by others.

I remember that unit heads carried the Torah from our units to Port Hall as the rest of us joined hands and walked singing Don McLean's "By the Waters of Babylon."  We entered Port Hall where we snaked around and joined hands with other units as well until everyone had entered and we sat on the ground.  Passages of Eicha were chanted in Hebrew and read in English, and the list of tragedies that ostensibly occurred on Tisha b'Av was read: destruction of the first Temple, destruction of the second Temple, the start of the first crusade, expulsion of the Jews from England, expulsion of the Jews from France, expulsion of the Jews from Spain, declaration of the Final solution, and the beginning of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (not to mention the Toraitic events that the rabbis associated with the day).  The history of how each Torah came to be at camp was recounted, with background information of situations of persecution and how Torahs were rescued if that was the case.  Esa einai was often sung, and we walked back after in silence, which was not a common sensory experience at camp.  The next day (Jewish days start at sundown and go to sundown) we would bury religious texts that were no longer usable in the camp genizah.  I don't know how the custom of adding to a genizah became associated with Tisha b'Av, but my conjecture is that Jews find the loss of text to be of similar importance to the crash of an entire way of life.  I carry nostalgia for that Tisha b'Av experience: the sense of connection to my people when all seems lost, and of being able to take concrete action to mourn the past but also of being able to take concrete action to build a better future.

The observance last night included "By the Waters of Babylon" and traditional kinot.  It included chanting of Eicha and reading it in English.  We sat on a hard floor in the summer heat, and although candles burned, we started before sundown and the effect was not one of darkness.  And we had a "conversation" about Israel, which is a topic that many in the Jewish world see as so divisive that we only talk with like-minded folks.  I put conversation in quotes because it wasn't a conversation in the usual sense. We were first asked to consider where our love comes from when it comes to Israel and where our sadness comes from when it comes from Israel.  We were given paper and pens to write our thoughts and some time (although not enough) to consider.  Then we were asked to listen to those who volunteered to share.  This was an exercise in "vulnerable listening," we were told, which apparently means being attentive and nonjudgmental toward the speaker, but also not to display any emotional reaction you may be having.  Sharers were to take no more than three minutes each and were instructed to give their names at the beginning of what they said, speak in "I language," and say "Thank you for listening" at the end, to which the response from the community was "Thank you." These stipulations led one person to comment that it felt like a "Jews Anonymous" meeting.  I think these regulations were necessary for people to feel safe sharing about a sensitive subject, but by no means did they engender conversation.  Sharers could only focus their comments on their own experiences and feelings, which prevented anything I would call conversation (questions asked an answered, deeper thoughts provoked, progression of ideas possible) from taking place.  It was uncomfortable to listen to people vent their frustrations about Israel.  It was hard to maintain a non-emotional face listening as things I disagreed with or agreed with whole-heartedly were said, and especially as others bared their souls, it was hard to resist impulses to comfort.  The discomfort and pain were fitting for the day.  After the discussion and the reading, we had more space for singing and meditating on loss.  Then we had Ma'ariv (no, not traditional, but again, we started before sundown).  We spoke Ma'ariv, which gives an eerie quality to prayer, and is traditional, as music might increase the enjoyment of the experience, and the idea is that one is praying out of spite because one is in too much pain to do otherwise, and we left, only speaking what was necessary to clean up the space after use.  I walked to the Red Line in silence and rode home, also in silence.  To allow ourselves time to process pain and grow from it is extremely powerful.

10 July 2013

Would You Risk Arrest to Get Married?

Indiana law defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.  Indiana law also imposes strict penalties for perjury in marriage applications or for applying for marriage when ineligible and penalties for clergy that officiate at marriages which are done under false pretenses.  These laws have been on the books for years.

However, a new law restructuring Indiana penal code makes it easier to prosecute and convict folks for such crimes starting July 2014.  The practical implication of these changes, given the realities on the ground in my home state, is that the combination of these laws will be used to brand as criminals same-sex couples and the clergy who marry them.  It is a felony in Indiana for people to ask the government to look at a piece of paper.

I wish I could say that since I moved out of Indiana, the shenanigans of the state don't bother me as much as they did when I lived there.  However, they bother me more, I suppose, because I have no say in the matter anymore.

There are obvious objections to the ways the laws work together, and it remains to be seen whether any enforcement measures will be taken based on them.  I wonder if I would risk eighteen months in jail to apply for a marriage license.  Would you?

07 July 2013

Showing My Parents the Gayborhood

So my parents were in town last weekend to see some museum exhibits.  While visiting Chicago, they came with me to Mishkan, which for Pride Shabbat was at Anshe Emet, on the north end of Boystown.  My parents have been to Chicago more times than I can easily count, but they had never been to Boystown.  So, after Kabbalat Shabbat, an awesome Ma'ariv, and a wonderful dinner with rainbow-sprinkled challah which reminded my mother of the challah made by Fantasia Bakery in San Francisco when she was growing up, I took my parents for a stroll down Halsted from Broadway to Belmont.

My parents grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and are fairly liberal and accepting, if not up on current terminology.  However, Pride parades, or parades of any sort, are not their style, so I didn't invite them to go to Sunday's festivities.  As we walked, I shared a little about the history of Boystown, and pointed out the "famous" places, as well as my favorite places.  Upon seeing a drag queen outside of Roscoe's, my father remarked, "OK, now we're here."  My mom was a little shocked that "they still have bathhouses."

03 July 2013

The Stuff I Find it Hard to Talk About: Shame, Stigma, Privacy, and Calculated Vulnerability

On Saturday, Mr. Boy checked himself into a psychiatric hospital because part of him wanted to kill himself while part of him did not.  He checked himself in voluntarily and without persuasion from any other person.  At some point, he stopped taking his medications, and taking them helps him stay healthy.  He is exactly where he needs to be to get better.

I'm a big proponent of self care.  Steps we take to ensure our health and well-being are both good and necessary, and when the step we have to take to do that is putting ourselves in a situation where we can't harm ourselves, we should not be afraid to do so.  Yet, we are ashamed when we take this step to protect our lives.  We feel like worthless failures for ending up in a position of vulnerability we cannot control.  I have been on Mr. Boy's side of this equation.  When the best thing I could do to survive was ask for help, I felt broken - not because I wanted to die (that felt normal at the time) but because I needed help not to.  The physicality of living is an unconscious process.  When it becomes conscious, we feel broken.  Despite the modern understanding of such brokenness as illness, we feel it as shame.

So Mr. Boy feels ashamed that he "let himself get to the point" of needing to take this step.  I'm grateful that he's taking this step rather than killing himself.  But I'm also ashamed.  I'm ashamed that the strength of his life and our relationship is not enough to give him reasons to live, even as I know that it's not about that, and if it were, any reasons for him to stay alive need to be internal to him.

I find myself talking around Mr. Boy's illness.  My boyfriend, I say, is in the hospital.  They're monitoring him; he'll be ok.  I told my parents he was in the hospital, but refused to answer questions about why or where.  They were supportive of me when I ended up in psych wards, but somehow it feels like my failure that Mr. Boy ended up in one.  I told them he's likely to be in the hospital for a few weeks, which is true, but have not elaborated.

With people I am not quite so close to, I find myself worried about how they'll judge Mr. Boy or me if they find out he has a mental illness.  The stigma surrounding mental illness is real and often unconscious.  I have no way to predict how my friends and coworkers will react.  In addition, there's a part of me that views this as a private matter.  It's something that is nobody else's business.  Most of my friends still do not yet know Mr. Boy, so they have no investment in the situation other than how it affects me.  And I feel like it shouldn't affect me.  Mr. Boy is sick, and is getting medical attention.  There's nothing else to say, and there's nothing to worry about it.

But it affects me.  I feel like part of me that is in relationship with him is on hiatus because he can't respond to me with a sparkle in his eye.  I feel sad that my dearheart wants to kill himself because I see how valuable he is in the world and it hurts that he doesn't see it.  I feel torn as I place my commitments to my job and my own self care such that I can't go see him every day (the hospital has very limited visiting hours).  I feel shut down as I put my worries over his well-being aside to get through my day.  I feel that my love for him is being strengthened by this experience and grateful to be able to pray about it honestly.  I feel lonely, like no one has ever been through what I've been through even as I reach out to people I know have been in my situation.  I feel distracted from the joys and sorrows of my friends and the world because my thoughts, when not focused on work are focused on him.  I feel amazed that I can care that way about another person.  I feel angry that he has to go through this.  I feel honored that I have become close enough to him that he wants to see me even though he feels broken.  I feel overwhelmed by all of this.  I feel vulnerable, and not the calculated vulnerability that I can use to be an effective organizer, but scared, vulnerable, and squishy (I'm looking to see if anyone has a pointy stick).  I feel like the person I would go to to help me deal with this is absent, but that what I want to be able to do is curl up in his arms and cry.  I feel like I can't express this in my daily interactions.  I find myself directing the shaming anti-sissy rhetoric that my flaming boy disdains at myself.  I tell myself to man up or butch up, that crying is something I need to wait until I'm home alone to do, that it's not ok to feel less than happy or fulfilled, that I need to pretend that everything is fine, and I need to protect myself from the inference that I am weak.

And it's hard to talk about.  Even with the select few people I've reached out to, it's hard to say what I mean.  I don't even know that I've managed to here, but at least I tried.

Because I don't know how to close this with my own words, here are Rainer Maria Rilke's, as translated by Stephen Mitchell:

I am, O Anxious One.  Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,

and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

02 July 2013

A Prayer for Queer Folk

אב הרחמים, gender-fuck father whose compassion cradles us like a mother cares for a newborn, we appealed to you in our darkest moments of internalizing the pain the world directs at us.  We cried out to you during beatings in alleys, with our heads in toilets, when our partners and friends died of AIDS, and, of course, when we finally let ourselves be free to enjoy the sex we wanted to have.  We asked you to put an end to our suffering, sometimes by ending our own lives.  We created communities of our own to let your love in when the world told us we were hated.

From the depths of the gutters we slept in when we were kicked out of our parents' homes, we called out to you and you answered us with the great expanse of a friendly drag queen's heel and her hand extended to pull us up and sit us down on the nearest bar stool.  You answered us in the still small voice of a goth girl techie who taught us oh those many uses for gaffer's tape.  You comforted us with show tunes, Gloria Gaynor, and the Indigo Girls.  You gave us the strength of each other which led us to have the courage not only to come into our own but to come out to the world.  You marched with us on Christopher Street and Folsom Street.  You cried with us as we lost amazing women to transphobia, and you learned with us as we developed and refined queer theory.

Some of us had faith in You from the beginning, and some of us still don't have faith in You.  Some of us rejected You when others told us You hated us, and some of us only found You when humanity abandoned us.  You are invoked all around us, but we lost hope in Your deliverance.  We lost hope when people made in Your image killed our brother Matthew Shepard and our sister Rita Hester.  Some of us lost faith but all of us lost hope.  We lost hope when we woke up with survivor's guilt when we survived the AIDS crisis.  We lost hope when kids continued to kill themselves even after Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres came out and so many others followed.  We lost hope when Mark Carson was killed in our safehaven of Greenwich Village.  We no longer knew how to call out to You.  The arc of progress seemed grayscale rather than rainbow. We convinced ourselves You weren't listening, that we just had to wait for humanity to catch up to Your justice and love.  And humanity wasn't looking too friendly.

Our Rock and our Redeemer, you sent us allies, who took up the torch we left at the door of the nightclub.  To us, some of them seemed like strange bedfellows.  However, when we cried that the country was burning they saw that it was not being consumed.  They fought when we were tired, and we took strength from them.  We were devastated when the US Supreme Court destroyed the Voting Rights Act and when they restricted the ability of employees to claim harassment against their employers, and we got angry at people, but not at You because we lost hope when, despite the illusions of progress, we were not safe in our own neighborhoods.  We called on You to guard our comings and our goings, but You seemed to be asleep on the job as our siblings, especially those of color continue to be attacked for walking down the street.

Our Strength and our Salvation, You nevertheless renewed our resolve as we held Pride Parades, Dyke Marches, and Trans Days of Action in our cities.  You allowed us to broadcast that it can be fun, invigorating, and complicated to be queer, but that coming out of the closet allows a person to be surrounded with complex and jovial folk.  As we lamented that Pride has become a spectacle that straight people come to gawk at and a forum for pandering to gay [sic] constituents, we became grateful that we have the privilege to feel that way.

מודים אנחנו לך, grateful are we for You, in the midst of all of this.  We are grateful for how far we have come.  We are grateful that there is more work to do because we have been struggling so long we don't know how else to live.  We are grateful every time we say the words "I love you," every time we see a rainbow - natural or manmade, every time we pass a single-user gender neutral restroom, every time we recognize what someone wants by a handkerchief, and every time we arrive home safely.  We are grateful for the opportunity to remember how grateful we are.

We pray that we may be cognizant of our gratitude constantly.  Knowing dark hours will still come, we pray that we may recognize the joy of Pride Month 2013 when we are enveloped.  We pray that we remain cognizant of our privilege, and that having more equal rights does not cause us to lose our focus on the marginalized members of society.  Appreciating the support we have been offered, we pray for the will to continue to form chosen families and mentorships as the world accepts our presence in more spaces.  We pray for the ability to show others that difference is positive.  We pray to stay queer.

נברך את מעין חיינו חי העולמים שומעת תפילה

30 June 2013

Tzom Qasheh

The Seventeenth of Tammuz is a minor fast day in Jewish tradition which commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  Being a post-biblical minor fast, I did not observe it from the age of thirteen.  The day starts a three-week mourning period between it and Tisha B'av, the day the Second Temple was destroyed.  Tisha B'av is the saddest day of the Jewish year, and many other national tragedies are also commemorated on that day.  I started observing it at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute, which was one of the first observances that made me more frum than my parents.  However, previous to this year, I had never observed Tzom Tammuz or the three-week period called bein hameitzarim (between the narrow places).

Last year, one of the women I am blessed to call "my rabbi" framed bein hameitzarim as the beginning of the trajectory to the High Holy Days.  We hit a communal rock bottom which allows us to do the spiritual work of t'shuvah and reconcile with God during yamim noraim.  So this year, I decided to try fasting for Tzom Tammuz.  Minor fasts are observed from sunup to sundown, and the timing of Tzom Tammuz made it a fast between about 5:15 AM and 9:15 PM.  But due to poor planning, I ended up accidentally fasting for about 28 hours.  Jewish law permits self-care exemptions to fasting, so I did take my medicine.

I wasn't feeling well the day of Tzom Tammuz and stayed home from work.  I spent a large part of the day, lying down, wishing the pain I was feeling would go away, and not really being able to eat even if I had wanted to.  It felt like the world was breaking, which, I suppose is the point.  When the day was over, a neighbor who is a good friend offered to feed me, which was good, because I wasn't sure if I could stand up for long enough to cook something.

As far as how the three weeks are going, I haven't felt too much in a mournful mood.  Although certain things in my life are not desirable (my significant other is very ill), I feel like the events of the week are those of celebration for the most part.  I don't mean to slight to the damage that repealing part of the Voting Rights Act or the limiting of what constitutes a supervisor for harassment cases does to society.  These are unfortunate losses in the fight for equal dignity.  But the Supreme Court asserted that people in same-sex relationships are human.  I didn't need a court to tell me this, but it sure helps that they did.  I feel grateful and victorious, not mournful and sad.  And the coincidence with Pride celebrations just added to my internalization of the collective effervescence.  Additionally, this year, Canada Day, American Independence Day, and Bastille Day all fall during the Three Weeks.  My love's yahrzeit will fall in the Three Weeks this year, but even that does not make me feel spiritually low.  I feel b'midbar, in the wilderness on the slow and steady march to Freedom Land.  We may not be there yet, but we can see it from the mountain top.  That makes me feel spiritually elevated.  I know that I am on the right path, and my community is too.  But then again, perhaps that was my rabbi's point anyway.

26 May 2013

Blogging again

The last few posts I wrote had been in the works for a long time.  I am hoping that a new more flexible schedule will help me post on a more regular basis.  Let's see, major life updates: seeing someone extremely special whose codenames include Mr. Train Man, Mr. Boy, B^2, Mac, and dearheart.  So look out for those.  I'm about to move, which is exciting, except for the part where I don't yet know whereto.  I am working for an amazing start-up, a job that after one week I love.  Other than that, life has the same charms and challenges as usual.

25 May 2013

Secular Jews and Religious Jews - Critique of Rabbi Eric Yoffie's Huffington Post Article

I was going to excoriate Rabbi Eric Yoffie for his comments about secular Jews in the attached article, but I won't.  Inspired by my friend Chana, who writes at The Merely Real, I am making an effort not to participate in a call-out culture that is fundamentally counterproductive to the projects of humanity and understanding.  Instead, in an effort to steel-man R' Yoffie's argument, I have tried to understand him to be calling for solidarity among progressive Jews.  R' Yoffie is the former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, and is invested in securing the Jewish future, and securing the voice of progressive Jews as a part of Jewish continuity.

NB: I do not subscribe to the binary of secular vs. religious.  Nor do I subscribe to the binary of atheist vs. religious.  In order to simplify my take on R' Yoffie's position and cultivate a charitable attitude toward his arguments, I am borrowing the binary of secular vs. religious for the sake of the below alone.  There are plenty of people who consider themselves secular who have deep religious sensibilities and vice versa.  Please also note that R' Yoffie equates atheism with secularism in his article.  Although I find that a much more problematic standpoint, I use the term secular below to denote secular atheist when not obvious from the context.

On the face of it, R' Yoffie argues that community involvement and cultural identification are tantamount to believing in God.  Perhaps he just didn't have the benefit of a great class on Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life like I did, because he confuses what is holy with what is sacred.  Read the book for the background; I promise it's worth it.  Religious folks can learn much from the way secular folks and atheists revere religious spaces as sacred in the Durkheimian sense.  Secular folks view religious practices as set apart, or sacred.  They view cultural and national identities as important, like most people.  And they know that part of identity is not determined by them, but by the society around them.  Rather than fight against a Jewish identity, secular Jews claim the term Jew, almost better than their religious counterparts, because they choose to maintain a problematic, persecuted identity without believing that Mr. Deity will have their back.  Many secular Jews not only participate in Judaism through national, ethnic, and cultural identity but also through the system of ethics that comes out of what religious Jews see as religious Judaisms.  Of course, there are secular Jews who are assholes, but there are also religious Jews who are assholes.  R' Yoffie sees identification with the Jewish people as a form of belief in God because it takes strength and a belief that maintaining that identification, especially in the face of persecution, is important and more beneficial in the future.  But that belief is not equivalent to believing in a supreme being.  It is rather akin to the belief that the high probability that the earth will keep revolving around the sun and not spin off its orbit can be translated effectively to an always.  However, I digress.  And to get distracted by R' Yoffie's conflation of the two ideas is to miss the good point he could have made if he weren't so distracted by theology.

Judaism and Jewish culture are meant to be progressive.  If you don't believe me, ask my teacher, Rabbi Benay Lappe, who will gladly explain how radical the early rabbinic tradition was.  The ultra-orthodox voice in Judaism has a voice much bigger than its market share in America and Israel, the biggest centers of Jewish life.  Progressive religious Jews and progressive secular Jews should not see themselves as opposed but rather as a joint force against the coopting of a radically interpretive tradition by those who would like to see it stay static and oppressive.  R' Yoffie is right that secular Jews and progressive religious Jews aren't so different, but it isn't because secular Jews actually believe in God like religious Jews do.  It's because secular Jews act similarly and care about similar things as do progressive Jews.  The common view of mentschlichkeit and of viewing Judaism as valuable and meaningful beyond an all-or-nothing list of rules including not mixing wool and linen is something that progressive Jews, religious or secular, should unite in promoting.  Then will we be able to put our actions where our mouths are in terms of pluralism.

So, Rabbi Yoffie, if you were intending to deride the practice of secular Jews as inconsistent, recognize that inconsistency is part of the human condition.  But if your aim was to say that we need to talk about Judaism in all the ways it manifests, then I join you in saying:

יש יותר מדרך אחד להיות יהודי

20 May 2013

Life of the Mind and Care of the Body

My alma mater, the University of Chicago, recently abolished its requirements for physical fitness, swimming competency, or physical education and swimming classes.  I'd say I don't like to play the nerdier-than-thou card or the back-in-my-day card, but I love to play them both, especially in conjunction with each other.  So, back in my day, when the University was actually filled with nerds, we were required to display physical competency and knowledge of swimming or to take courses (for no academic credit) in swimming and physical fitness or physical activities.  For my part, I passed the swim test, but took Conditioning and Yoga.  And the party line was that in order to cultivate the life of the mind, one must recognize that your mind is not a brain in a vat (or at least does not seem like one).  Rather, your mind is connected to your body, and learning to train your body helps your train your mind.  That party line is a good one because it's true.

John Boyer, perpetual Dean of the College, who has been elected to yet another term in the position, argues that the physical education requirement was not established until 1953 and never was associated with academic credit, so the abolishment of required courses (or testing out of them) is really preserving the overall character of the university.  Furthermore, offering a wider variety of voluntary courses is good for students.  However, this hides the athletic roots of the place, and ignores the truth that left to our own devices, we don't choose gym courses. The University was home to the finest coach in football history, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and the first Heisman Trophy winner, Jay Berwanger.  One of our most revered scholars, Edwin Hubble, was most known in his college days as a track star and a basketball champion.  A U of C - affliated astronaut brought a game ball with him on a mission to repair the athlete's namesake.  (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/437780main_image_1629_946-710.jpg)  And before varsity sports were abolished in the College in 1939, the culture of athletics was so pervasive it was problematic.  Walking into Bartlett hall, you see the IM records of the early days of the university, and a banner "For the Glory of Manly Sports".  When the physical education requirement was established, enough time had passed for athletics to be missed on campus.  In fourteen years, complacency about the care of the body had afflicted the life of the mind.  Must we afflict the life of the mind again?

Reform Judaism and Obligation(s)

The Reform Movement in Judaism has wonderful discourse about a variety of topics, and fantastic justified pride in its discourse about some.  Reform Jews are great at discussing ethics, meaning, freedom, choice, and equality.  Reform Judaism has been involved in larger discussions of racism, sexism, and homophobia.  Reform congregations talk a good game about inclusion and welcoming interfaith families, Jews-by-choice, and same-gender couples.  But we do a horrible job about discussing personal and communal religious practice and obligations.

I grew up steeped in Reform Movement formal and informal education.  I learned that Reform Judaism is not bound by halakhah the way Orthodox and Conservative Judaisms are.  I learned that I get to choose my own religious observance level based on intellectual and emotional meaning in particular observance.  I learned that if I don't find a practice meaningful, I don't have to do it.  And I learned that this process is called "choice through knowledge."  This child-friendly naming of something I've since recognized as informed consent is a great slogan and gets people to learn about religious ritual and ideas in a way they would not experience otherwise.  However, this policy unchecked allows for moral relativism in a way that most Reform Jews would abhor.

I believe Reform Judaism as a whole and Reform Jews individually have a concept of right action.  I know I do, and sometimes I do things that are not personally meaningful or fulfilling because they are right or obligated.  And these may not have been things that I have chosen to do for myself through research and trial in previous situation.  And my religion on which I base my actions has no way of talking about that.

I call my parents once a week before Shabbat.  Sometimes, I want to talk to them, but mostly, I feel obligated to tell them once a week that I'm alive and not dead and listen to what's going on in their lives.  I wish them Shabbat Shalom, and I feel yotzei on the mitzvah of honoring my father and mother even when I don't find the practice meaningful or fulfilling.  By a rubric of informed consent, I know that talking to my parents, most of the time, will frustrate me.  But I do it anyway.  And the Reform Jewish framework has no term for this, even though the experience is a common one.

We need to be comfortable talking about obligation and obligations and being obligated even outside of a halakhicly-binding framework.  We cannot resign ourselves to be so morally relativistic we have no ground to stand on.  We need to be able to speak about actions that compel us to do them as well as actions we find compelling, and we need to have a philosophical viewpoint that means something other than hedonism.

Anyway, rant over.