This week's suggested topic is about "casting one's lot" with the Jewish people and about personally receiving the Torah. I wrote about personally receiving the Torah Week 8 - not sure how I was that off base, maybe I was looking at the wrong page of the syllabus?? Well, I can still make a post about the first part of the topic!
Belonging to the Jewish people, even in New York City and Long Island, is belonging to a cultural and religious minority. "Casting my lot" with the Jewish people to me means fully identifying as Jewish and not trying to "pass." In the LGBTQ community, "passing" is the ability (whether you want it or not) of blending into the non-queer majority. For the brief period when I grew my hair out for my wedding, I passed a lot better than I do now that I went back to my short (and sometimes spiky) 'do. Sometimes this helped me feel safer and more comfortable - other times it made me feel excluded from my own community, unable to exchange the sort of knowing glances or supportive smiles with other visible queers that I had become accustomed to and appreciated. Now that my hair is short again but I wear more feminine clothing than I did last time it was short, I sometimes pass and sometimes don't. But I try never to hide or intentionally blend. For example, I don't use vague terms or pronouns when referring to my wife. Many bisexual individuals feel a similar struggle when they are in opposite-sex relationships - I experienced this myself when I first identified as bisexual while with my long-time boyfriend and felt like I was enjoying "straight privilege."
Casting my lot with the Jewish people means for me that I am not trying to "pass" as non-Jewish. This is something I've already begun to exercise by sort of "coming out" about my conversion when it comes up. For instance, I had to be open with my supervisor early on about having class on Thursday evenings, as it makes me unavailable for certain things. I also had to tell one of our secretaries that I can only take weekday on-call shifts instead of weekends since I feel commanded to observe Shabbat. When the director of my program asked how I spent my "day off" for Yom Kippur, I told him that I was in temple most of the day, which started a conversation I wasn't sure I was prepared to have.
Yes, I'm coming out as a Jew-to-be. It's not always comfortable, especially since religion in general is never something I have talked openly about with peers or colleagues. Growing up Catholic in the south, I was uncomfortable with how freely Southern Baptist and Born-Again Christians spoke about "being saved," for example, a concept my religion didn't endorse in the same way. Subsequently, I tended to just keep my thoughts on religion private. But Judaism is more than a religion. I've realized that I'm taking on an entire community, culture, and way of life that can't be reduced to a weekly service and holiday celebrations. It's a very essential part of who I am - already! - and my new family and the traditions we are establishing together. I have to take my people on as mine, and stand with them even when it's not easy.
There will be many opportunities for me still to "pass." Aside from temple, I don't have a strong central Jewish group to which I belong. Even Nicole's family is not observant, and I only have two Jewish friends, who are not an integral part of my everyday life. My family, my in-laws, and most of my friends and colleagues are not Jewish or are not observant Jews. The people close to me know that I am converting, but there will always be people in any arena of life who don't. It may never come up, and it doesn't always have to. But if there is an opportunity for it to and I make roads around it to intentionally avoid it, that is separating myself from the Jewish people.
Rabbi R said at a recent lunch-and-learn that, in this day and age, when the idea of a Jewish community (school, neighbors, shopowners, etc. being primarily Jewish) and living in a Jewish bubble has dissolved, everyone is a Jew-by-choice. Most Jews, whether by birth or conversion, have to make an active choice to live out the Jewish faith through their actions and lifestyle, a choice not to assimilate and just blend in with the mainstream.
"Casting my lot" with the Jewish people will not always be easy, but it will always be fulfilling.
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