THE YOUNG STUDENT: PAINFUL LOSSES

This article originally appeared in Tri-Quarterly: Tri-Quarterly

I am twenty-three. I’m only out of college for a couple of years. I used to be frum (observant) but now I am off-the-derech (irreligious; literally, “off the road”). 

 In college, I was an observant Jew. I wanted to be part of Chabad, so right at the beginning of my college experience, I moved to a frum neighborhood and became integrated into the Chabad community. I boarded in a Chassidic rabbi’s home, and I worked for a frum family and for a Jewish educational organization. Basically, my life was the Chabad community. But then, over the past year, I became unhappy with how fake I had to be, to be a part of Chabad. It wasn’t just the queer thing—I’m gay, and that had to stay under wraps—but  also I was questioning how I wanted to relate to Judaism.

Accepting the fact of being gay has always been a challenge for me, but it’s even more so for me as a religious person. In college, I realized I probably wasn’t going to be straight, although I really hoped I could be bisexual and get married and go about having a normal Jewish life. But that didn’t happen.

In the last few months when I was staying in the basement of the rabbi’s house, I came to the decision that I didn’t want to be shomer shabbos [observant of the strict Sabbatical laws] anymore, but my roommate found out and called her rov [rabbi]. Her rov told her to tell my rebbetzin [rabbi’s wife], who called me. She was like, “Call me!” That’s never a good thing to hear from your rebbetzin!

She said she knew I wasn’t keeping shabbos, and she wanted to let me know what that would entail. She explained that it meant I couldn’t cook in anyone’s kitchen, and that consequence was the natural outcome of my decision to be less observant. She said people would not be able to trust me to keep their standard of kashrus [kosher]. I decided it would be simpler to keep things as they were. Even after I left the rabbi’s basement and moved to my next home, I kept everything [shomer shabbos] for the sake of the children I took care of. I didn’t want to have my relationship with them compromised in any way. I am their caregiver, and I feel I need to stay frum for them, because they have gone through a lot of trauma already.

Unfortunately, last week I had to go to another state to take care of my sister, but those kids all call me and I read them bedtime stories over the phone—kosher stories from kosher publishers. Hopefully, I will be back soon and be able to work with them again. I definitely want to keep a connection with them, because their mother passed away almost five years ago, and their father is very sick, too. Two of the kids have special needs, and there are a lot of challenges in their home. Mostly, though, there is the trauma of losing their mother.

I was originally hired because they needed a female presence in the house. It was funny to me that I, of all people, was that person. It was a natural thing for those five little kids to see me in the role of Mommy. It was really important work. I was terribly important in their lives, and so, after a while, I couldn’t come out to them, not as gay and not as not-so-frum anymore, either. It would change our interactions. It would be another huge loss for them, and I just can’t do it to them. It would be cruel.

They still don’t know I am queer. No one knows. I hope not, anyway. It would have a very negative impact on the way I am perceived and the way people decide to interact with me. Orthodox Jews view being gay as a challenge you are meant to overcome. That view is so pervasive. I haven’t seen any gay frum people interacting with regular frum people, but I do know it happens. Just not in front of me.

I’m horribly afraid of rejection. Those people in the community mean a lot to me. I would be devastated if I lost the love of my rebbetzin’s family, and I don’t care if they are homophobic. I know if they knew I was gay, they wouldn’t receive me the same way, but they are like parents to me! I don’t want to lose them. And I really love the children who lost their mother. I want to be a part of their lives, and I would really hate for that to be taken away from me or for me to be taken away from them. We have formed a really significant bond, and it would be horrible for all of us if that were severed.

Even if the families were accepting, and they didn’t give me the whole “Overcome this challenge” speech, they wouldn’t want me around their kids because, in their minds, being gay is contagious, and it sets a bad example for the kids. People have hidden beliefs when they are Chassidic. There’s a ton of esoteric concepts, and it wouldn’t just be as obvious as “Your actions are influencing my kids.” It would be “Your neshomah [soul] is influencing my family, your soul is flawed. You are full of klipah [spiritual impurity], and it would drag down my home.” I don’t want people to be disgusted by me like that. I don’t want to be different. I don’t want to be judged.

In the frum community there is always a lot of pressure to get married and have a large family. To me, it felt very bad. I was seeing someone, a woman, but I couldn’t bring my partner to a shabbos table and have the same happy and enthusiastic reception. If I had brought a gay girlfriend to my rebbetzin, if I had been out about it, she would probably have taken me aside and given me a big talk about halacha [Jewish law] and challenges, and my needing to make sane decisions about my future, and since she has daughters, she would have been freaked out that I’d stayed in the same bedroom as her girls. She would have been horrified.

It was weird having a girlfriend while I lived in the frum community. I was very closeted, but half an hour away, in [the local gay area], I was super out. I certainly wasn’t very smart about it. I had my girlfriend come over for visits as my “friend,” and then, one shabbos, when my roommate was out of town, it was different. I had her sleep over. After the meal, we were just out walking, but my girlfriend had a tiny pride button on her coat. I made her hide it. And then, after shabbos, we were hanging out late at night, when everyone was sleeping. We were just sitting in my car, and she leaned over and kissed me, and I had a fit! It was 3:00 a.m., but I was so afraid we would get caught. She laughed at me. Who would see? I was so paranoid, I started coming up with a list. “A jogger!” I said. “Someone who works in a bakery!” Who knows? That’s how it is when you could lose everything. I was very clear about it. I knew I could lose my job, my finances, my housing, my friends, my community, my adopted family. And I couldn’t afford to lose all that.

Anyway, when I had already been part of the Chabad community for a while, my rebbetzin sent me away to a religious seminary. The seminary rabbi gave an explanation for why people are gay. That was so uncomfortable! It was the worst explanation ever! He said, “If either the husband or the wife in a marriage is repulsed by their spouse, it can cause the child born from them to be gay.”” If the husband isn’t into his wife, then the son is going to be attracted to men. Wow! I kept on hearing these dumb explanations: “It’s a choice!”” “H-shem [G-d] doesn’t give you challenges you can’t handle.” I davened [prayed] so long and so hard to have this problem go away, but nothing changed. I couldn’t handle it, but I still had the challenge!

Also, in the seminary, trans people and sexuality in general were always made fun of and looked down on. They were discussed as disgusting things to be shunned. One person asked, “Which side of the mechitza does a trans woman sit on?” and Rabbi B [an internationally known rabbi] said, “That’s like a person who wants to be an elephant.” He turned it into a joke. It was so upsetting. Anyone who happened to be part of the queer spectrum would have been pushed far away from Yiddishkeit by Rabbi B’s response.

Even then, I knew Jewish trans people. All queer people have so many struggles, and trying to fit into the frum community is difficult for them, but it’s infinitely more challenging for trans people. As a result of the seminary rabbi, I became alienated and distanced. I felt like I wasn’t going to fit into the Chabad community, no matter how I behaved, or that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Eventually, I felt suicidal and ended up in hospital for a while, trying to work through my feelings about queerness and Judaism. The rabbi in whose house I lived at that time wasn’t too excited about my being sick, and his family barely spoke to me after that. It was part of the reason I had to move out of that house. And afterward, I was different, not as involved in Chabad life, but still connected.

So many people in [the local gay area] have had bad experiences with religion and want nothing to do with it. So, in that area, I can’t be out about being Orthodox! I don’t fit in anywhere. All I want is to fit in and be normal . . . frum and gay. And not stigmatized. I still don’t know how to reconcile these two parts of myself. Before I had to leave to take care of my sister, I hung out with people who used to be frum. We got together on Friday night. We made kiddush, we made a seuda [meal] on shabbos day, but we went out on dates right afterward.

Even now that I don’t eat kosher, I’m completely unwilling to eat treif [nonkosher] meat. I don’t keep shabbos, but I wouldn’t ever light after licht bentshen [the time to light candles on Friday evening]. I still daven shacharis and mincha [pray the morning and afternoon services, about an hour’s worth of prayer] every day. My partner is upset at how religious I am, and at me being shomer shabbos. It feels like I can never satisfy both parts of myself.

My partner and some of my non-frum friends ask me why I don’t just do all the mitzvos, or do none and trick the people I work for. I couldn’t do that. My rebbetzin is very honest herself. Most frum Jews are very careful about that, but she is special. She asks me to be honest about my level of observance, to understand what I could lose by not being frum. She innocently trusts me to say the truth about whether or not I am shomer shabbos. I can’t betray that trust. Now that I am living with my sister, my rebbetzin calls me up and asks me to keep shabbos and go to shul [synagogue].

I wish I could come out to her, but once, my roommate was at a shabbos meal with me, at my rebbetzin’s house. One of her little girls was playing with my roommate’s ring. The girl took it off my roommate’s finger and then put it back on again and said, “Harei at mekudeshes li [“Behold! You are consecrated to me,” the traditional words at a Jewish wedding ceremony]. We are married now!” My rebbetzin laughed and then frowned and said, “How would that even work with two girls? It’s impossible!” My rebbetzin made being a lesbian into a joke! It’s crazy, because she knows women who are lesbians, even women who are lesbians in the frum community. She had a very close friend who turned out to be a frum lesbian.

I know two lesbians in the local Chassidic community. One of them is the head of an organization for gay frum Jews. When I didn’t know anyone frum and gay, I somehow found the book Keep Your Wives Away from Them. I looked at all the contributors’ info, and then I searched the names until I found a phone number for one of them. I called her up, and she was really understanding. I was in seminary at the time, so we met clandestinely. I met her wife, too, and we had a whole conversation about being queer and frum. She gave me the contact information for a frum lesbian in my community. It was all word of mouth.

When I went to the frum lesbian’s house for a shabbos meal, it was the most authentic meal I’d ever been to. It was beautiful! Then, when I returned to my rebbetzin’s house, I realized how closed down I had to be in her house, and how much I didn’t want to be like that. My rebbetzin’s home is open and inviting, as long as you fit their picture.

In my experience, there has only been one rabbi who was compassionate to my whole situation. Because of his accepting attitude, I came out to him. I wanted to ask him what I should do. I told him I struggled with attractions that are inappropriate, and he said, “To women?” He said it’s not the most important thing to get married and have a family. He said there are other things you can do as a Jewish woman. He also referenced a gay man who got married and had a kid. He didn’t freak out at me, but he still had this idea that if I really wanted to, I could change. He was a baal teshuva [returnee to Judaism], and he was supposedly a hippie before he became frum, so that might have affected his worldview.

Maybe hippies really have it right. I’m a big fan of Ve’ahavta lerei’echa kamoicha [Love your neighbor as yourself]. There aren’t any strings attached to that. There’s no “so long as your fellow Jew is . . . ” It’s not, Love these Jews but not those Jews. That’s the whole point. My rebbetzin really stressed the idea of the community waiting for everybody to be back from the Bais Hamikdash [Temple] before davening for rain. We wait for everyone, and everyone is important, no matter who they are or what their level of observance is, no matter what their challenges are. That was inclusive instead of exclusive. I want the community to be like that. You can’t be afraid of other people, and exclude them, and have this negative view, and really be holy. 

NB. These photos are only used for illustrative (or humourous) purposes and do not represent the people described in this article.

TO BE A PLAYER

Hi M. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Can you tell our readers something about yourself?

I am involved with gay programming and advocacy at the United Nations, and I have private patients as a social worker.  And I founded and run a non-profit organization supporting LGBT Jews and their families in the Orthodox community. I think that being Jewish is very essential to who I am. Those are the values of the household I grew up in. My relationship to spirituality is seen through a Jewish light and with Jewish language.

                                Whoops. Wrong conservative religion...

When I think about being gay, I think about people being lonely. I think about a young kid questioning, trying to understand, being lost.  Consequently, being gay to me took on a sense of duty, it became my communal life and communal calling. My community is very much a queer life. Most of my friends identify as LGBTQ or queer. I think about this as my communal life, and this has become my contribution to Jewish community.

Ironically, I don't really think about my own romantic life when I think of my gay identity. Don't get me wrong, I want to be in love with somebody, and I hope that person is as wonderful as can be. I hope to be part of a couple and part of a family, but the gender of the participants of that family could never define it. Based on practicality, given who I am, that person is probably going to be a man. However, I may meet a non-gendered person and fall completely in love with that person. Would I then be gay? Who knows! But much like my Jewish identity is inextricably tied to the destiny of the Jewish people, my gay identity ties me to my beloved LGBT community. 

What was it like, growing up in your family?

I have parents who are still together after getting married at twenty and twenty-one, and I am the first of five children. I have two sisters and two brothers. Both my parents are from orthodox rabbinic families. I guess my family is quite a rabbinic family, with a yeshivish bent. All of my grandparents identify more as misnagdim, Lithuanian, except for my grandmother who grew up in Poland and was part of the Belz dynasty.

Who wore it best?

Yichus! So who were you closest to?

As a child, I was very close with my mother. As I started to learn mishnayos and gemorrah, though, I became very close with my father because he used to learn with me, and then as an adolescent, I wasn’t so close to anyone! Normal! In my twenties I became close to my mother again, and in my late twenties closer to my father and now I am close to both.

Are you close to your siblings?

I am very close to all of my siblings. We are all very close.

 What is your favourite childhood memory?

Turning six! I love Miss Piggy and my mother invited my whole class to my birthday party. She bought me a huge Miss Piggy ice cream cake. I felt, then, like my mother really saw me. She GOT me, and I felt so proud. It was a wonderfully happy time.

What was your coming out process like in such a frum family?

For me, when I was about three and a half, I began identifying as someone who was really a girl and not a boy. I would tell that to anyone who would listen to me. I would tell the shabbos guests! I believed I would go to sleep and wake up as a girl. 

I identified as a girl! In terms of me coming out as non-gender conforming, I was always able to express myself, even as a young child. 

I did not talk about my sexuality to my parents until much later. 

It wasn’t until I was twenty-one that I remember being in the car with my mother, driving to Brooklyn, and my sisters were beginning to shidduch date, and I casually told my mother that if I happened to be dating a boy, and that person was not invited to any of my sisters’ weddings, then I would not come either. That’s how I came out to my family!

In terms of coming out to myself, because I was so gender non-conforming so young, gender was always fluid to me. I didn’t see myself as a gay man for most of my childhood. I saw myself as someone gender non-conforming. I saw my sexuality through that lens. I also didn’t know any other gay people. It was very innocent and very personal. In later years in college, I felt more comfortable identifying as a gay man.

When I was twenty, I became very close with a woman who went to Stern College. It was non sexual/non-romantic, but one day, she challenged me. She said, “I’ve known you for four months, and you’ve never identified as a gay man, but it seems sad that you don’t feel comfortable saying it. But if you ever just need to call someone on the phone, even in the middle of the night, then call me and say, “I AM A GAY MAN!” And I will be very supportive.”

I did not come out right then, but I did eventually. I told her my concerns about having children and what my family would look like, and at the end of the evening, I finally vocally admitted to being a gay man, and I began to be comfortable with that identity. It was not until I met other gay men and saw how we were so similar, and when I learned more about the gay community, all of that solidified my identity as a gay man. But it took a while.

                                Where have you been all my life?
Did you have hopes and dreams that needed to be rethought when you came out as gay, and how do they fit with your Jewish identity?

My hope and dream of having a family and having children doesn’t need to be rethought, because I still hope for that. But what did need to change was the Jewishness of that hope and that dream. I think for a long time the image of this dream involved a Jewish wedding, a chassunah, as central to the beginning of my family life, and it did involve all of the traditional, meaningful elements. I had to give that up. It’s still hard to give that up. (There is a long silence) Even if I date and marry a man, there will be no walking around my partner seven times, and no badeken, and so I wouldn’t be able to have those in my wedding. Having to give that up is hard. It was always a powerful image in my mind. Whatever I have would be different looking wedding and the meaning of the wedding would be different.

How did your parents have to reshape their world?

My parents had to rethink almost everything. They had always seen me as their firstborn who would give them a lot of nachas. They are dealing with giving up and mourning that dream, but then re imagining a new dream and realizing that too. It’s a huge challenge. I really feel for my parents in term of that process because there’s no clear path, no one they know has done this before. And me being their son, I can’t help that much. They probably need outside help. It breaks my heart.

My son and my son-in-law, the Rabbi, such a cute couple!

Do you have a dream about some kind of formalized future plan for gay Jews?

Yes. I think the best of Jewish history tells the story of people who were valued for what made them special. We have a lot of special and different children, and we have learned to appreciate them in the schools and in the homes and in the larger community. That which makes them different makes them valued. I believe that gay kids, or gender- non-conforming kids can still have value within the community. We, meaning the Jewish community, can learn to be a system that values differences. If you are left handed and the majority of the kids are righties, then you will have a hard time working in a company with all right handed equipment. It would be great if the company gave them special jobs, suited to who they are and their special abilities. It’s not necessary to rip out the old equipment.

                                That could be painful...

What do you think Frum Gay families could look like in your dream for the future?

I would hope that their dreams would be rooted in reality. The people who are shaping that dream are the role models for the community today. It may be tempting to think of Frum Gay People (FGPs) adopting the dream of the classic Jewish home with children in yeshiva and a picket fence, but some of those fantasies are based on a hetero-normative model. I think there’s something that is dishonest about that dream. It’s uninformed. I just don’t know what works for gay Jews now. I’m looking very hard and specifically to LGBT adults and the way that they are living their lives and for what works for them and through those narratives, we can hopefully construct a dream. Until then, I try to hold off on formalizing or defining the family construct for frum gay Jews. I think families need to be based in some sense of history. As we see the gay community receive their rights and prejudice goes away, we can begin constructing these family units, and we can learn what we can do to avoid mistakes. Let’s hope that process is mostly supportive and positive. Hopefully families are all in this together, and since we love each other, we should be in this together.

                                Is this way mizrach?
Do you have particular role models?

Well, today is the anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech, so it's been on my mind. I am so inspired by Martin Luther King, his speech and the struggle for civil rights. It’s something that is so recent and it’s a source of endless inspiration. 

                                I have a dream too!
But in terms of people, I am inspired religiously by Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. I often ask my friends whether they had a Rabbi who inspired them religiously; who, when they heard that person’s thoughts, they were spiritually aroused. Sadly, few of my friends have had that experience. In Rabbi Soloveitchik, I am lucky enough to have had that throughout my teenage years, listening to the thousands of tapes my grandfather owned of the Rav's shiurim in hashkafa. I was so inspired and turned on and felt connected to his messages and philosophy. I still am.

My grandparents inspire me. My father’s father was very poor but he built a few businesses, and eventually, he built communities. “If you want to make change you have to be a player”. To him, a “player” is someone who is involved and identified with that involvement. A player has a voice and a vested interest. He takes responsibility for his surroundings and community. He is not just someone who lives in the community. He is someone who shapes the community. My grandfather’s way was through philanthropy, and when he came to a community, he would invest in it and immediately become a “player.” He was the president of a school and shul and one of the builders of the Orthodox community. Someone who people really listened to.

                                Shaping the world from a young age.
My other grandfather, my mother's father, was a renaissance man. He was a Rosh Yeshiva, and close to many of the Gedolim, but he also went to Princeton and the opera, and he enjoyed the great novels and listened to Barbra Streisand! 

All of his boys ended up learning in Lakewood. He straddled many different communities and he made it seem so easy and beautiful. He did it so gracefully. It has always been a struggle for me to balance those things, and yet he made it into a dance. A thing of beauty.

                               Nanuim with a chossid
What are you afraid of?

I am afraid of not knowing my grandchildren. The biological timeline doesn’t look good for me in terms of really having a relationship with my grandchildren. Given the influence that my grandparents had on me, it's terrifying and sad to think that I won't be able to have that with my own grandchildren. Let's face it, if people still live for the amount of time they live for currently, it doesn’t leave me a lot of time to connect with my grandchildren. I’m thirty-four years old. I think that if I have children in five years, then by the time that child is thirty, I will be almost seventy. And that’s when my child would be thinking of having children. The math just doesn’t look good. That makes me sad.

 What makes you very happy?

I love performing. I love musical theater, telling over a story with words and song. And I love my friends; I love experiencing good things with my friends, good music, the beach, good food. And I love the idea that I may, in some way, be able to make a difference.

What is your favourite current memory?

A really happy, exulted time is when the Rabbinical Council of America publicly put out a statement taking down their endorsement of Jonah (* a type of damaging reparative therapy). It was a personal goal of mine to change the policy of the RCA. I had worked on that for almost four years. I wanted to get the endorsement off so badly, and four years later, it happened! I remember the night when I got a text, and I saw the RCA statement. I was so happy and proud of my community, the RCA and myself. I was so proud of what we did. I felt that I made a difference.

What have you accomplished in your life?

I saw a potential world that could happen sooner. I always knew there could be a world where LGBT people could live and have a place, and I saw that we didn’t have to wait until so much more damage could happen. And I knew it from when I was twenty. I saw the possibility, and it helped with making it happen sooner. The world always bends towards tolerance. Whatever amount of suffering was alleviated because of me, because of what I’ve been able to create, that is my greatest accomplishment. I am confident and proud that this safe space for LGBT people in the Orthodox world happened sooner, in part because of my efforts.

I think that too often people are satisfied with a sense that it will all change, eventually!

There are so many people who are not ok. Who are oppressed. You need people to demand to be heard, to create a pressure to change, to create momentum, and I was part of that. I helped with the energy to make that happen. I made support resources for LBGT youth in the Orthodox world, and now Jewish Queer Youth ( JQY) is almost bar mitzvah. In those thirteen years, so much has happened in such a short time in terms of resources: the support groups, the training for mental health professionals, the phone hot lines (551-JQY-HOPE (551-579-4673)), the youth groups, the orthodox high school groups, the creation of Temicha , a group for Orthodox parents of LGBT kids, the Jewish holiday parties with over three hundred people, the Purim party with over four hundred people, and it’s all kosher and beautiful! I helped found and organize the Eshel Shabbatons ( ESHEL) where people  are meeting each other, finding other queer Jews! Today, we are an active and dynamic LGBT community. It’s bubbling and boiling! It’s unbelievable. It's exciting! If that’s not an accomplishment, then I don’t know what is!

In terms of the changes within the rabbinate, there have been some real changes. It’s not as satisfying, though, because straight rabbis are not yet using words of acceptance and self esteem. However, at least their tone has changed. Approaching them is safer, reparative therapy has lost acceptance, and these are all positives. These are all big accomplishments. These are things to be proud of.

After one hundred and twenty years, what would you want your best friend to say as your hesped?

I’d want him to say that M was a player, but in the sense my grandfather meant, that I tried to make the world a better place for people who desperately needed it. That I was able to express emotions in a way completely unique to me, that I made people’s lives sweeter or better because of who I am, whether through words or song or performance. That I was a person of passion. That I was rooted in the rational, but I respected the passions that underlie life, whether they are explainable or not, and I found them holy and cultivated them That I respected gedolim. That I was a force to be reckoned with. For good! That I filled a niche. That I did something that was needed and that only I could do. I didn’t let the status quo stop me. If I saw something wrong, and thought it could be changed, that I created the pressure for change. I didn’t go along with the pack and instead, my will was enough to create a vision for a new way. And maybe, maybe, maybe, that I was a wonderful father, a wonderful parent, and that I could take all the love and specialness from my parents and grandparents, and put it forward to create my own family. It hasn’t happened yet, but maybe.

If you could ask the frum community one thing what would it be?

Um. Lets see. Ha ha. I think it would be a complicated request, but I’d try to …I would ask them to look in at their own community and see who has the least power and who has the smallest voices, and then ask how can we work to be the voices and the advocates of the powerless and the non-privileged, however threatening that may be. Structure and institutions can be threatened by the damage that victims may cause. While I understand the fear of what you worked on crumbling, what we work on isn't worth anything if it causes harm, even to one person. We cannot hurt the many on the backs of hurting some. We must empower the victims, especially those we are most threatened by.

Unfortunately, I see the opposite in orthodox institutions. We too often relate to the abuser and are threatened by the abused. This is an endemic problem in Orthodoxy and must be addressed. I think we can do better than accusing the weakest and the least powerful. It’s not Jewish. It’s not the way we need to behave as ethical Jews. We need to somehow know how to help those who have no power, and those who are suffering in the communities we build.

Honestly, those who are in power don’t need as much help. Can we re-prioritize from helping those with privilege? Let’s start talking about those who have been harmed, those who are telling us they are hurting. Maybe they don’t even have a voice: Women, LGBT folks, abused children, people with intellectual or mental health challenges, any of those people. Hear their protests, admit our possible role in their suffering, and let the infrastructure help the powerless, rather than protecting the privileged.

                                Helping the weak makes you strong