Ruach Acheret – Shelach Pride Edition

וְעַבְדִּ֣י כָלֵ֗ב עֵ֣קֶב הָֽיְתָ֞ה ר֤וּחַ אַחֶ֙רֶת֙ עִמּ֔וֹ
But My servant Calev, because he was imbued with a different spirit …

While some commentators such as Ibn Ezra say this “different spirit” simply meant Caleb was of a different opinion than the other spies, Rashi brings up an interesting idea – that this “other” spirit refers to a dual, a twofold nature. Hello Gemini season!
Caleb was spying amongst the spies – “with one [spirit] in his mouth and another which he concealed in his heart.” How many of us in the Rainbow Community know the feeling, the dual nature of knowing in your heart what you can’t say? Of living amongst those unaligned with you?

And Caleb shows us the power of this great gift, this “ruach acheret” – by speaking up. White queers, this one is especially for us. Financially safe queers, its for you double. The spies were people with power in their family groups – “heads of Bnei Yisrael.” Caleb used that inherited power and didn’t stop speaking – even when no one else agreed, even when threatened by violence, even when confronted by extended family’s death threats.
Caleb spoke to deep hope for a home, spoke to land and comfort for this large band of weary freed slaves.
But the fear of the unknown is a powerful thing.
And the leeks and melons and fish of Mitzrayim were delicious.

When you are at your job, amongst the stranger, even yes in your places of worship – are you doing the work of embodying that ruach acheret, that other spirit? Are you individually ready, practicing, and willing to speak up against racism, ableism, classism? Use your power. Spy amongst the spies. Call out the things that keep us all from community connection, from diaspora home. Because a group that only protects queers with power? Is no real LBGTQ+ community.

Shelach, Tammuz, and Life through Exile

Shabbat shalom y’all.

This is the week we – the people, the children of Yisrael, the g-d wrestlers – have the decree handed down that we must wander 40 years, that the old parts of our selves must die and fall in the desert before we get to the promise. And we’re heading into a hard Jewish month, Tammuz. We’re heading into mourning, into the time of holy walls breached and shattered, into weeping.

It’s also the parsha for the commandment of challah and tzitzit, the laws that are everyday physical reminders of divinity. Those everyday practices, those small reminders bundled over and over, become what sustain us. More than the miracles, more than the mystical, more than even shame and punishment – they are what sustain us in times of trouble and heart ache.

What are your daily/weekly practices that sustain you? What are those things – beyond eating and basic body care – what do you do for yourself to find meaning and joy in the hard times? As someone who has few daily patterns, I’ve learned the power of doing the thing, the magic of repetition and cycle. And so I hope you have something in your life, some little focus, some point of daily joy. If you do, I hope you have some time to contemplate what it’s done for you, if change is needed, so that daily practice never becomes stale. If you don’t, I hope you think about what that could be, what will sustain you in this journey.

Much love to you, to yours, to this world were creating.

Pride and the Great Granfalloons

My ex and I would quote Dr Who at each other. It didn’t stop us from falling apart during conflict.
I have a trans aquatintence who loves Star Trek. It didn’t stop him from being a shitty abusive landlord.

Being part of the same fandom or the same community doesn’t always equate with personal connection. It simply means we’ve been grouped together. And ultimately, if there isn’t meaning between us as individuals, those communal labels won’t be anything beyond another way to organize humans.

I have learned in many ways – some easy, some heartbreaking – that those labels are not connections, that they do not mean anything beyond what they signify. I have learned I will get along better with someone of different interests whose center of being is compassion and growth. Far better than someone who shares every interest and every communal group, but who does not center care. I have learned this because I thought more shared labels meant more understanding. And I have sought people that share my labels only to be wounded and hurt at the disconnect – when those labels didn’t lead them where they had led me.

I tell you this because we need the language, we need the labels to find ourselves. And also, we deserve so so much more than just words and assumed connection.

This Pride I give you the things Pride taught me to cherish more than labels. I wish you all deeper connections with your whole Self. I hope for you communal support un-fetered from monogamy culture. I bless you with the greatest blessing and most beautiful curse queerness has to offer – uncertainty and the ability to change.