Hi. I’m A, and I am an Orthodox lesbian. I am 38 and I have a wonderful
wife as my partner, two amazing kids which are my pride and joy and am
fortunate enough to live in a an Orthodox community that has been very warm and
welcoming to me and my family.
I first realized I was a lesbian when I was 16… well… really my
first big crush was when I was 12, but the first time I knew without a doubt
that I was a lesbian was when I was in a relationship with a girl when I was
16. At that point I was just becoming
frum and had a huge internal struggle that lasted years about whether I should
become frum or give it up and be true to my heart. I concluded that giving up Yiddishkeit was like giving up
air and I eventually joined a chareidi community, married a man and started a
family. I told only the man I
married, but not the rest of the community that I was a lesbian. We were married 11 years, but
ultimately it didn’t work out.
Yeah… it’s like that.
Tell us about your connection to Judaism?
I’ve always seen Judaism as a means to connect and communicate
with our Creator. One of my earliest memories as a child was sitting in
my bedroom when I was about two and thinking it odd that there was someone
there in the room with me, though the room was empty. I used to talk to
that presence and tell it about my thoughts. Later when I was taught
about what G-d was, it was clear to me that that was who I had been talking to.
I’ve always felt very close to Hashem, like He’s right there next
to me every minute of every day.
What do you love about Jewish life?
I love being a part of community and connecting with mitzvot.
I’m a very tactile hands-on kind of person. I love when I get to use my
hands to do mitzvot like building sukkas or putting up an eruv. I also
love doing things where you can really see the ways in which your actions help
individuals. I love building and creating community. I’ve always
felt myself a pawn in Hashem’s plans and I love when I can see that Hashem’s put
me in places in life to be able to step in and make a difference in another person’s
Jewish experience. I think I really like HaKadosh Baruchu’s world and His
people. I love connecting with that. It brings me joy. It makes me feel like
there is something important I can do with life. I think a lot of life is
really difficult and muddy and complicated and complex. I think I find
that I tend to focus my efforts on the mitzvot that seem really clear and
simple to me.
What do you mean somethings are complicated?
Well… I think there are a lot of opportunities to do mitzvot and
we all just do our best to fulfill them all to the best of our abilities.
Sometimes I worry about whether I’m doing it all right, doing it
correctly. For example, one conversation I had with someone recently… How do
you know when you are helping someone or hurting someone by giving
tzedakah? If a man on the street
is clearly a drunk, comes up to you asking for a dollar to buy a sandwich, is
giving that dollar helping him or giving him more opportunity to drink in
excess? We do our best and Torah
guides us, but some things I find muddier then others. But things like Hachnasas orchim on Shabbat are easier…just invite everybody and whoever shows up shows up!
What is Shabbos like at your house?
Well, in our shul there is a hosting committee. A group of
community members who are in charge of making sure everyone who needs a meal
for Shabbos has one and we rotate shabbatot . My wife and I are on the
rotation and when it’s our turn (and often when it’s not) we like to fill our
dining room up with as many guests as we can. Especially on Yomim Tovim!
Often times we host a person or two over to sleep at our house for
Shabbat who would otherwise have too long a walk to shule from their house or
who is visiting from out of town.
What’s the craziest Shabbat you’ve ever hosted?
Well, that would have to be Teva Shabbat. A few years
ago my shul was doing a Shabbaton program about Jewish ethics around Tikun
Olam, Sustainability and building stronger communities through community
gardening. We called it Educating from the Earth and we brought in two
speakers for Shabbat, a Rabbi Greenberg from CLALwho would discuss Jewish ethics
around sustainability and caring for the Earth Hashem has given us as well as
one of the founders of the Jewish Farm School, Nati Passow, to talk about ways
young Jews were finding a deeper connection with their Judaism through
farming.
Quite a full household… but what made it really crazy was when my
housemate came up to me and told me with great excitement that we were
apparently fortunate enough to have the Topsy Turvy Teva Bus passing though that very weekend and they wanted to come to our program for Shabbat and
needed someplace to crash. So, besides the people already staying at
the house we made room for another 6 more to join us as well, with their double
decker bus parked in our driveway.
But here’s the thing with that crazy story… As one of the
coordinators I was on the phone with the Rabbi from CLAL and the founder of the
Farm School coordinating who was speaking during the dinner and who was
speaking during the lunch and what the program was going to look like and it
hit me in the middle of the conversation… The Rabbi from CLAL, wasn’t just any
R. Greenberg… it was R. Steve Greenberg from the movie “Trembling Before G-d”.
What did that feel like for you?
There were two different feelings for me. I felt good, as a community organizer,
knowing that I had done something positive, and that something was made better
by giving these people the opportunity to connect to one another. And
secondly, as an individual experiencing the moment, I felt empowered.
Whenever I go through an experience like that, I stop and look at myself in the
past, and remember when I felt alone, thinking that there couldn’t possibly be
anyone else like me… I lived with that loneliness for a long time. When
moments like that Seudah Shlishit happen… of having so many other LGBT / Queer
Orthodox Jews around me I take that memory of sadness and loneliness and bring
it into the in the light of the present and with that light shatter the sad memory.
It’s a feeling of relief, not having to question whether G-d loves me, cares
for me, and has a plan for me.
You mentioned
that your shule is welcoming to you and your family, what do you think it is
about them that makes them a welcoming community?
I don’t know. I
think there’s just a culture there of being sensitive to difference in
general. There’s a commitment to
really making sure every Yid who wants to be there has a space to be
there. There are some folks in the shul who have trouble making it
up the flight of stairs to the 2nd floor where the davening is, so
my shul schedules a Shabbat once a month in the 1st floor
auditorium so these folks can be included. There’s a person in my shul who’s allergic to perfume and
rather than telling her too bad, the shul puts up signs that explain that someone
is allergic to perfume and that if someone has come into the shul with perfume
they should please go wash it off before entering the davening. In as much as is reasonable, they make
sure everyone has a way to access the shul and the community. I think at first there were some in the
community who were uncomfortable and it took time for these folks to warm
up. But after a little while I was
just another community member like everyone else.
What do you think
it was that helped those community members to warm up who seemed uncomfortable
at first?
I think being physically present and just going about being
unabashedly there as a member of the community changed their minds to some
extent. I think time helped. I think time gave them the chance to get
to know me as a person and that made it hard for them to see me as just an
issue. I think also having little kids running around the shul helped. It’s
hard to see children as just a by-product of an issue. And my kids are pretty
charming.
What were you
afraid of when you came out to your community?
I was afraid of the unknown when I first came out. I was afraid I
wouldn’t have a place to be. I was afraid I was going to lose my Judaism because
there’d be no community that would accept me, no place where I could still hold
onto Torah and mitzvot, and I was afraid I would be pushed out of any places
where I could experience Jewish life.
I started off in a chareidi community. I knew many people that I
really loved and cared for in that community. I was part of that community for
almost 20 years. When I was
getting a divorce, knowing full well that I was not going to try marrying a man
again it seemed perfectly clear to me that there was NO HOPE with maintaining
connection and friendships within that community. The first thing I did after I
got divorced was try to find a different community. I never tried to connect within my first community once I
knew I was going to be out. I ran.
I was convinced that I wasn’t
safe.
In hind sight, do
you think that that was the right decision?
If I had to do it again, with all the knowledge I have now, I’d
like to hope that I would try to gather the courage to ask the people I cared
about whether or not they would accept me before deciding for them.
What do you like
about being Frum and Gay?
I like myself. I always have. Even from a young age, I always
liked who I was. When I was
married to a man I felt I had to cut off a huge part of myself in order to have
access to my Judaism which was another huge part of myself. I felt like I was missing myself and
unable to be solid and real. The best part of being frum and gay is being able
to be whole. I know who I am. I know what my strengths are. I know what my
weaknesses are, and I get to bring the whole me, all of me, exactly as Hashem
made me, everywhere I go.
What do you worry
about?
I do worry about other gay Jews in places where they can’t find
the ability to love and accept themselves, or find family and friends with the
ability to love and accept them. I know what that does to a person. I’ve lived it. I’ve been very lucky in life to have
ultimately found a community that accepts me and welcomes me, and I think that
obligates me to make myself available to help others who don’t have that.
Can you share
with me a story about being able to help other Frum Gay Jews?
Hmmm… There are
several online support groups for Orthodox gay Jews, and I try to connect with
new people who show up in these groups.
There was one young man who came online during a very busy point in my
life and I missed his introduction. The only thing he said was, “Is there
anybody in [and he named the city I live in]?” and I totally missed it! I was
dealing with some other stuff, but one of my friends, who knew I was in that city,
gave Y [the young man online] my email address directly, and I invited him over
for Shabbat. We weren’t sure if we would meet at shul or at my house, because
he was walking from the other side of town, so I waited at shul for a while,
and then walked home and there he was, sitting in the glider on my front porch and
the first words out of his mouth were…. “You’re real.” I knew exactly how he felt.
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