Why I am Marching at the Pride Parade

I was mentioning to someone that I am marching at the Pride parade under a City Shul banner. We’ll be marching with Kulanu, Toronto’s Jewish LGBTQ social, cultural and educational group. We’ll be wearing rainbow kipot knitted by Mayan women in Guatemala. 

“But you aren’t gay!” the person exclaimed. "And City Shul isn't a 'gay synagogue!'" Right. And I guess if I’m not homeless, I shouldn’t march for better conditions for homeless folk. And if I’m not Darfurian I shouldn’t march for Darfur. And if I'm not a settler I shouldn't pray for the kidnapped Israeli teens. And if I don’t keep kosher I shouldn’t care when they start talking about outlawing kosher slaughtering in Denmark. And if I’m a man I shouldn't worry about sexism. And if I’m a Christian I shouldn't protest what they say about Jews and...you get the picture.

No, I am not going to the parade in order to outshout Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. They may or may not be there and though I find their participation in the parade and their message wrong, biased, and ludicrous, their presence doesn’t determine whether or why I go. I'm not going to show support for Israel, the most gay-friendly country in the Middle East, even though I do support Israel and am proud of its LGBTQ inclusion. I am not going to be politically correct. I'll be honest—there are things about the parade I really don’t like: the sexual nature of some of the clothing and floats, the excess, the plastic beads lying around the city for days afterwards, the proof of your being “properly pc” if you do go. I actually don’t like parades; they are long, hot, dusty, loud, filled with a kind of over-the-top revelry, and I’m not really into crowd scenes. But I’m going, and I’m marching.

I am marching because as a Jew I support Pride for being who you are. So many Jews have no pride in being Jewish. So many Jews are ashamed of their Jewishness, and they let the world’s caricatures and ignorance define them. Shame, self-loathing, and self-doubt are in the Jew’s spiritual vocabulary and lived experience, as they are in the gay world. So Pride is a Jewish concept I really “get”. We champion it for every minority, every oppressed group, every human who feels stripped of his or her selfhood in the light of the vast and strong Other. Yet when it comes to Jews who aren’t heterosexual, we suddenly become squeamish. 

If pride is an awareness of our own dignity and worth, a deep pleasure from our own and others’ achievements, and a delight in who we are and what we do—then I cannot help but feel aligned as a Jew. As Gabrielle Orcha wrote in the Jewish Women’s Archive, “At its best, it’s inherently part of the Jewish make-up, the feminist fabric, minority’s manuscript... for thousands of years systematic attempts have been made to strip us of our pride , and yet, we are here, all of us standing, many of us wearing the mantle of our Jewish identity with: pride.” We Jews have had to reclaim our self-worth time and time again. We too have been closeted, shut out, trying to “pass,” expected to assimilate and “fit in”, advised to tone it down, change our style, be like everyone else. Our very existence has been a thorn in many sides. I am marching because I know what it’s like to feel like a thorn.

I am marching because I remember as a woman what it meant to be told I cannot, I should not, I must not. I remember breaking glass ceilings so that others would not have to cut their heads. I remember the fear, the surprise, the shock, the anger, the verbal and public dismissals of my personhood and my place in the Jewish community time and time again, not so very long ago. 

I am marching for the Jewish kids who grew up hearing in shul that homosexuality was an "abomination" and then dutifully squashed it out of themselves until they were twisted inside and considered their lives not worth living.

I am marching for the Jewish men and women who must still hide their true selves behind the mask of traditional marriage and then seek satisfaction outside that marriage, betraying and even physically endangering their partners.

I am marching for the desire of a Jewish couple to have a chupah, sign a ketubah, and break a glass to declare publicly the building of yet another stable and loving Jewish home. 

I am marching to say that Jewish life doesn’t look just one way or like just one type of person. It’s not all mom, dad, 2.2 kids and a dog. We don’t all wear shtriemels and we don’t all eat gefilte fish. We aren’t all white. We aren’t all married. We aren’t all successful middle class businesspeople. We aren’t all heterosexual. The Jewish community is as complex as we human beings all are. I am marching because the Jewish community should—and  could—be as vibrant and diverse as this wonderfully diverse city.

I am marching for the right of every human being to love and be loved, as it says in Genesis 2:18: "לא טוב היות האדם לבדו: It is not good for a human to be alone."

And I am marching because it reminds me that G-d’s Image is mysterious and manifold, and does not look only like me.

Thoughts on My Mother's Shloshim

Shloshim

Time takes on new meaning when you are a mourner.

My days used to be bounded by what time my work out class is; now they are bounded by what time minyan is. I counted the Omer different last year; this year I count the Omer by what minyan it is, keeping a minyan journal every day of where and when I say Kaddish: Minyan 1 the day after the funeral; minyan 30, today.

The day of my mother’s death moved very slowly- I was walking in quicksand. The shiva moved at a snail’s pace and now I can hardly believe shloshim is ending.

A mourner lives in between 2 worlds- this one and the one their loved one is in. Shiva keeps us in that limbo world, but Shloshim pulls us back, slowly but surely, to live again in this world. At shiva we are curled up like fetuses, craving protection and wating to go back into the womb. In shlsohim we are like babies just learning to crawl. The 11 months will teach us how to walk again. Wen we are done, we will hopefully stand upright and be “among the living.”

Judaism is all about sacred times: Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, festivals. Abraham Heschel reminds us that Jews do not live in the world of space: cathedrals and sanctuaries. We lost our “space”—the Temple—and so we cling even more tightly to time. 

We Jews seem to start our days backwards: from the night. Our world started in darkness, in chaos and disorder. Sanctifying time brings light and order into the world. The end of shloshim marks the first sight of light. Tomorrow I will see a sliver of the moon, and I will be commanded to know that celebration is once again possible, even if difficult.

Tradition has it that Rosh Chodesh Sivan is the day on which the Jewish people camped before Mount Sinai in preparation for receiving the Torah. When describing this encampment, the Torah emphasizes that it came after the Jews left Mitzrayim, the narrow place. It is hard to imagine leaving this narrow place of mourning, which has become comfortable, but in order to receive revelation, I absolutely must.

When we leave the narrow place, time once again expands.   

Pirke Avot 2:15 we read,

משנה טו

[יד] רבי טרפון אומר היום קצר והמלאכה מרובה והפועלים עצלים והשכר הרבה ובעל הבית דוחק:

“Rabbi Tarfon would say: The day is short, the work is much, the workers are lazy, the reward is great, and the Master is pressing.”

This phrase marks the end of shloshim for me. Hayom katzar. The day is short—but—lets read it differently, with just a twist of a vowel. Katzar=katzir, harvest. 

In the short days of shloshim I tried to reap from the harvest of support of friends, community, and the daily recitation of Kaddish.

In the days ahead, I will take comfort from the words of Psalm 126:5: Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.

 הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה--    בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ.

10 Tips for "Surviving" The Seders

1. Do Song Parodies
2. Autographs: each guests signs the inside cover of their haggadah. That way, you have an ongoing record of who shared the holiday with you in past years. It’s also fun to see who used your haggadah before you.
3. Have each guest bring a different haggadah and offer insights from “their” haggadah.
4. Fond Memories: Go around the table and share your fondest memory of Passover as a kid.
5. Assign parts to each guest (e.g. 4 questions, 4 chldren) and tell them to come prepared with a song, a skit, a question, an activity for that section.
6. Ask interesting questions throughout. Examples: If you were a film director and could hire any actors you wanted, who would you have star as Moses, Miriam, Pharaoh? If you could invite anyone in the world to this Seder, who would you invite and why?
7. Iron Chef charoset: have each guest bring a different ethnic charoset and have a “contest.”
8. “New” Seder plates: what would today’s symbols of slavery be and who are the oppressed? Example: chocolate, coffee, etc.
9. Do Torah study at “Arami oved avi.”
10. Don’t use a haggadah at all- write up the “rubrics” and improvise!

WITH KIDS

1. Personalized Mats: Use large, white poster board or construction paper to create place mats decorated with Passover games and age-appropriate questions. 
2. A maze (children can use their fingers to trace their way from slavery to freedom).
3. Matzah Man, and other silly stuff: Draw a blank square and say it’s a piece of matzah. Or give each kid a square of matza. See if the child can imagine ten, twenty or thirty different ideas as to what the square could become. Matzah Man? A matza house? etc.
4. Purchase some dollar store “prizes” for kids. When they ask a good question (which is the point!), they get a prize.
5. Build “tents in the desert” out of sheets etc and let the kids climb in, have time out, come back in. Stock the tents with toys and even sand to play in!
6. Paper bag drama: Gather together various household items (a tennis ball, a sponge, a timer, a remote control, a sock, a light bulb, a bar of soap, etc.) together into a bag.  At various points during the seder, invite someone to pull an item out and offer an explanation of how the item fits into the Passover story!
7. Passover “mad libs”
8. Passover “taboo”- make cards with Passover themes (e.g Pharoah, charoset) and the person has to describe them without using hint words (e.g. leader, apples) while others guess what they are.
9. Have kids walk around and “wash” everyone’s hands at Urchatz.
10. Afikomen: have the kids hide it and adults have to find it!!

This Ain't Your Father's Reform

A few Shabbatot ago I prayed at a Baptist-style tent-revival Amen-Halleluyah neo-Hasidic Jewish service. Yes, that was Biennial Shabbat and although I was prepared for the spirit of it based on my years at NFTY, I wasn’t quite prepared for the spiritual of it.

I grew up in the Reform movement, through Eisner Camp and youth group. But something shifted in me while in university and I felt myself move slowly away. Maybe it was going to Brandeis and meeting all those deeply committed Conservative and Orthodox students, while my Reform friends drifted away and stopped coming to services, stopped celebrating Shabbat. Maybe it was the year in Israel where I studied in yeshiva and went to the Wall regularly and davenned in traditional circles. Or maybe it was the memory of my Confirmation class when my teacher said “Kashrut was for health in those days. Nowadays its outdated and dumb. No Reform Jew needs to practice it.” Or the day of Confirmation itself when the Rabbi flatly refused to let a classmate wear a kipa. (We were rebellious in those days. As the strains of “God is in His Holy Temple” began on the organ, each one of us—girls included, which was still unheard of— drew a kipa out of our robe pocket and put it on as we marched down the aisle.) Our parents sent us to URJ camps – what was then UAHC– but the Rabbis made fun of our new-found passion for Judaism by telling us we were bordering on “Conservative.” The youth group joyfully did Havdala before our movie nights but the presidents of our congregations refused to add Havdala before a Saturday night social for families, saying it was “too religious.” The Reform I grew up with was, quite frankly, more concerned with not looking Orthodox than with teaching me any positive value of being Reform. 

I tried being Orthodox for awhile, but my feminism got in the way. I tried being Reconstructionist but my strong supernatural concept of God got in the way. I tried Jewish Renewal but I fall asleep in meditation and I’d rather shuckle than do yoga. I never toyed with being Conservative because my need for consistency got in the way. I just couldn’t grasp hold of a positive, joyful, traditional and spiritual Judaism within any of the movements and I wandered around for many years looking for home.

This past Biennial helped me find it. First, they sang O Canada and put up a Canadian flag which opened my now-Canadian heart. Then they said we could sit for Shema if thats our custom— a custom I’ve practiced for 20 years and one that I instituted at my synagogue— which publicly valued and normatized that choice. Then the gathering of tzitzit on my tallit, something I’ve done silently and privately all these years. Then asking mourners to rise separately, something I longed to do at a Biennial many years ago when I was in the year of mourning myself. Ok, it was also the clapping and dancing and 13 Torah reading tables and Bibliodrama along with a silent Amidah. My traditional side was finally recognized. My spiritual side was finally satiated.

I came to Biennial with trepidation, as it was not universally accepted in my new synagogue for us to be Reform affiliated. Many members doubted this idea and many still identify with the Conservative movement. They did not feel moved during the application process no matter how I preached the vision of Reform and it’s “best practices.” They fear the Reform they remember as being churchy and sterile. They fear the Reform they remember of lack of kipot and lack of Hebrew. Traditional Canadians, they honestly worry about flying the flag of Reform in a community where Conservative still is the norm. I knew the workshops and plenaries would be fine. I knew the call to tikkun olam would be loud and clear. I knew the speakers would be powerful. But would the davenning be davenning, or would it be “services”?  Would “we rise and recite the watchword of our faith?” Would we sit for the standing prayer? Would we drone on in responsive readings? The chair of our Leadership Team came with me, with some degree of doubt. I couldn’t quite explain how far the Reform movement had come for him. He had to see it with his own two eyes. His response? “This is awesome. Next Biennial our whole Team should come.”

This ain’t my father’s Reform. It can finally be mine.