“Definitions have their uses in much the same way that road signs make it easy to travel; they point out the directions. But you don’t get where you’re going when you just stand underneath some sign, waiting for it to tell you what to do.”
– Kate Bornstein
The most difficult part about writing a spiritual autobiography is that I’ve had no faith in a divine presence until this last yamim noraim, that there was nothing I considered ‘spiritual’ in my life. My Judaism was firmly based in human needs and the deep Jewish sense of community. I often jokingly flipped the script, stating “I’m not spiritual, I’m religious,” to those denigrating ‘organized’ faith systems.
And so I’m left with the question, how can one write about the presence of the spiritual in a life that did not believe in the spiritual? How does one chart the absence of thing?
What did my precocious and sheltered childhood teach me, unable to speak until 4 years old, but reading before 5? What of the spiritual lessons being a 10 year caught in Hurricane Andrew – now reclassified as a category 5, but then an otherworldly Cat 4 – when it taught me the impermanence of home and how shockingly unsteady all the supposed safety of life is? Nearly dying just out of college from lack of health insurance and being hospitalized for a near-septic gallbladder certainly taught me humility and humanity, showed me that even good health and young age is no guarantee against danger and death.
What lessons of being trans and queer in the south are there that people haven’t already heard – the fear, the anger, the constant guard. Teaching myself to hide in plain sight from people who I knew and who didn’t recognize me? Watching others cheer for “marriage equality” while I knew there was no safety when other protections didn’t exist? Was being maliciously doxed for my trans-ness the point I lost my faith in humans and institutions? Or was it when Trump was elected and the clear path towards fascism congealed?
But what of the joy and warmth that kept me down south? What of Sheila at my Mississippi synagogue, who’d known me since college, quietly asking if I was using a new name when I showed up with fresh acne and a deep voice from hormone replacement? Or my Rabbi’s explicit unending support – somehow ensuring I never heard a negative word or unpleasant question about my trans status. It was certainly in the time I spent as a cantor, warmly leading my beloved shul in song and trying to get more people to move with the rhythm. It was even in Ira’s death, in the complicated kindness of being requested for his chevra kadisha, in the deep despair present throughout the community at his passing.
What of those particulars, those strange moments that have surely compelled me to the Jewish life I have now? How did a vaguely Protestant girl-child turn into a firmly Jewish queer/trans guy? Was it the Aryeh Kaplan book I bought in college at an incense-filled New Age bookstore down in New Orleans, despite having only a cultural Christian knowledge of Judaism and not even knowing the word kabbalah? Or the class I audited on a whim, that ended with me shyly broaching conversion with the two women rabbis who taught it? Did it start earlier? What did my soul learn watching Fiddler and Mel Brooks and feeling some unnamable connection, the same spark upon seeing a butch woman when I was a tomboy child – that electric, blue streak of outsider recognition? Was it that childhood moment when a Southern Baptist taught us New Orleans deserved hurricanes for its ungodly ways that finally pushed me out of Christianity? Or the time my Sunday school teacher ratted me out for skipping services to literally read the Bible? Was it the free bagels that got me to Torah study or watching the intense arguments followed by friendly lunch, a way of existence my non-confrontary family wouldn’t comprehend?
The spiritual lessons of my life have been deep, revolving around humanity, around our betterment, around the sacredness of all life. Every small moment, forgotten and remembered, accumulated to bring me to this place. They have broken me apart, cracked me out of a shell I built long ago, torn down fortresses in my heart. Judaism has taught me how to be a human, how to have a body, how to be in community and communication with others. Judaism gave me a point to stand on, that indestructible pintele yid. But those lessons had never felt spiritual, had never seemed divine.
I’ve had a full life already at 39, one I had planned to keep slowly but steadily working on.
I had escaped the swamp of the deep south, where I cut my Jewish and trans teeth, and moved to Seattle five years ago hoping to find more trans friends, more queer comrades, more Jews. I was excited to get another chance to begin again.
At this point just a couple of years ago, I felt remarkably secure in my Self and my Judaism. Though I felt lonely without my old shul, I was still finding queer and trans Jews to make little temporary homes with – little sukkot in time – never permanent, but always joyful and open. I was happily, slowly integrating more Jewish practice into my home life to balance the lack of a synagogue. I had found myself in Judaism, in Jewish community; what else did I need?
Many of the rocky moments I’d had in my life were personal – difficult break ups, dear friends moving away, being a person without certain political safeties. Or they were societal – constantly butting my head against racism and capitalism and patriarchy. But in none of these rocky moments did I feel compelled to turn to divinity. These were simply parts of having a human life and my lack of divine connection meant I dealt with them in human ways – time, friends, therapy.
—–
As the yamim noraim approached in 2020, marking the end of a difficult Jewish year, I felt myself inching closer to despair and fear of the world. Each day was filled with the news of people who hated me and mine and who had so much power to harm. As we drew closer to the election, I felt such intense sadness at the gleeful cruelty of people eschewing masks and the most basic societal niceties.
My anchor partner Molly and I signed up for Kadima Reconstructionist Community’s online Elul and Tishrei offerings, happy to have some Jewish connection. But within 5 minutes of being online with all those beautiful Jewish faces, I snapped. I started crying uncontrollably. Something that I had been desperately holding off finally fell apart. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the shining faces and how so many people in the world support our harm, of the synagogue shootings, of my own partner’s experience at the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting in 2006. I rushed from the room, mumbling excuses, sobbing.
My partner quickly followed and sat with me while I rocked on the floor. I eventually was able to talk, but it was so difficult to find words for the deep despair, the lost point of hope I never even realized I possessed.
For the next 9 days, I cried every day. Sometimes multiple times. I cried when talking about how difficult Rosh Hashannah services were. I cried joyfully talking about how much I loved my housemate Haven. I cried in beauty at the moon. I cried in anger at a story my friend Yoshimi told about her childhood, one in which her parents were cruel. I even learned to talk in the midst of tears, often using this newfound ability to reassure my housemates that I was okay despite constant weeping.
It was all a blur. I had to work, so I contained my feelings when necessary. Though there were still crying jags, years of compartmentalization and covering emotions came in handy when I had to function. But the edge was always there, just visible in my periphery.
For Kol Nidre, I was invited to a socially distanced outdoor service at Rabbi Fern Feldman’s house. I was already in a strange headspace on the way there. So much crying and emotional intensity was wearing my entire being out. In that beautiful service, distanced and masked, just over a minyan of Jews experienced Kol Nidre together and davened Ma’ariv. I started crying early and could not seem to stop. I cried while singing Kol Nidre. I cried all through the Shema. I cried clutching my partner’s hand because my heart was breaking for the world.
I had no hope left. Everything seemed beyond repair, no matter how beautiful those shining faces, like angels, around me. The world was a narrow bridge, the edge of a sword, and I wasn’t afraid.
I was desolate.
And no matter how safe and stable my life was, the world was falling apart and I was too.
The next day on Yom Kippur, I faced an internal death. I had lost all hope – in myself, in the world, in every atom of humanity. The tears finally stopped, stood still on that holiest day. I felt as if death could come and I would leave quietly. Finally, after 26 hours of no water and no food and no touch, after curling up under my blanket and calling out as Jonah “You cast me into the depths! I am sinking to the base of the mountains!,” after surrendering up my hope, I went into our yard to pray Ne’ilah. The stars were already out. I still wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I only wanted to curl back up and never open myself to feeling again. The gates were already shut. Why would I call out to open them?
But still, I cried to the sky the whispered words we stole from the angels “Baruch shem kavod malkhuto.” I hoarsely whispered the final verse seven times “Hashem is g-d. Adonai hu haelohim” and let my tekiah gadol blast slowly bleed out.
In the silence after, somehow kneeling in the grass without remembering the fall, I breathed in the cooling night air. I saw the moon coming back, growing more full since Rosh Hashannah. I gently pulled a deep-orange cherry tomato from our garden and ate it, breaking the fast. I begin crying again, quiet tears pouring down my face. A dam had burst; and instead of despair, I wept in happiness and pleasure at such a small perfect thing – the moon and the stars and this tiny miracle I had grown from dirt.
—–
A week later, in ways I still don’t grasp, I saw the divine.
What was it? A psychic break down, my mind trying to find meaning in the chaos of how raw my heart was? Was it a vision? A dream? I was awake, but I still don’t know. All I do know is for one brief flash I felt the infinitesimal point of beginning and divinity was there.
And now I find myself at a confusing crossroads. Having never before cared one whit for g-d, suddenly I long for a re-connection. I find myself trying mitzvot that previously held no interest, slowly translating through siddurim Hebrew piece by piece for deeper understanding, creating a little Jewish shrine to focus my intention. All things far beyond the purview of my previous long-standing Jewish practices.
My personal practice had always been … well, personal. Isolated. Alone. While it is not good for HaAdam to be alone, my night shift schedule and my small Mississippi Jewish beginnings made the studying I longed for difficult – few others in my community even wanted to study Talmud, much less the Sefer Yetzirah or the writings of the Esh Kodesh.
My strongest Judaism was and is in studying Torah, in the commentary and the books. While I certainly prayed in community, I never prayed alone unless it was a singular bracha. Even my Shabbat practice was uneven at best. While I read Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (זצ״ל) and Aviva Gottleib Zornberg and Rabbi Nachman’s stories and even bought various siddurim to peruse, my own spiritual practice consisted only of reading these spiritually charged authors. While I am still fascinated by their deep insightful readings of Torah, there had been no divinity present for me. Simply the beauty of words and human thoughts bringing down another 70 faces from Torah.
I met Reb Zalman’s (זצ״ל) work – like many – through my readings, through Rodger Kamenetz’s “A Jew in the Lotus.” My feelings towards Reb Zalman were similar – clearly a compassionate and intensely curious soul, with an overwhelming breadth and depth of Jewish knowledge rarely seen outside the chassidic world. I found videos and interviews of him fascinating, but his books often seemed to lack the charm I read in other’s stories and saw in the online clips. And yet, despite being a person often won over by written words, I’ve been slowly completely won over by his gentle focus and great world-encompassing spirit.
Many Jews and many non-Jews believe the two main types of Judaism are Orthodox and non-Orthodox. But Modern Orthodoxy is shockingly closer to the Reform movement than to the Chassidic. In my mind the two main current branches of Judaism are Chassidic and the shattered variants of Misnagdim. And while many non-Orthodox liberal and progressive branches quote Chassidic masters – the Baal Shem Tov – and use kabbalah toward social justice – Tikkun Olam sub committee anyone? – they seem to not always have grasped the full beauty of the Chassidic lesson. Joy.
To be Jewish is a great joy. To enact the mitzvot is a celebration. To be with other Jews in Jewish time/space is a delight. And it is a great sadness that many Jews do not see this life affirming pleasure of Judaism. In Reb Zalman, I see unbounded joy with being Jewish. And in Renewal I see that the great depths of knowledge and the vast heights of innovation still can hold immense incalculable bliss. Reb Zalman’s great vision of the fourth turning, something I only learned about in this last month, calls to me. As a Jew whose life would not have been possible at any other point in history, this rapid revolution of human technology and human consciousness demands that Judaism be able to expand to fill the new g-d spaces our minds are creating. And I want to be there within Renewal at the space of expansion.
—–
This yamim noraim was intense in ways I have never experienced before and may never again. I cried at least once a day for nine days, a feat I can’t have done since I was a baby.
I cried because I felt like I had lost hope, that a part of my self had been further deadened by the world and especially by the recent fast-track rise in fascism. I cried because I missed being with other souls on Shabbos, on holy days, missed that inherent communal aspect of Judaism. I cried because I’m getting older and was more fearful of the future. I cried through my turn reading a print-out prayer, my tears smudging the words. An overflow of emotion kept welling up and would not stop flooding.
Truthfully, I have long lived without hope. It never seemed something for me. I had hope for other people, for the world rarely, but little to none for myself. I was happy to live my life without this thing that seems to lift up, only to smash itself on the rocks. I sometimes wondered if I had already spent up my personal treasure trove of young hope on changing my gender and converting to Judaism – as if they were such large things that to do them required a lifetime’s store.
But now? Now I have found some kind of hope beyond hope. Now I’ve learned that I cannot be killed in any meaningful way, that the beauty of the world will continue on without me, even without humans. It has been the most humbling experience of my life. And within that humbling experience of bittul, I conversely want to do more, engage deeper, be more present in the Judaisms I treasure.
I have dreamed for some time of rabbinical school, of the learning and the community, of what I might give back. But fear stopped me – fear of failure, of money lost and time wasted, fear that this was not – above all – practical. But I am beyond that practicality now, beyond those fears and beyond my lack of hope. I am throwing open the gates of my heart and that heart wants rabbinical school, to be a teacher and a rabbi and a helper. The parts of myself I’ve guarded so fiercely long to be free; they tire of the atrophy of security. I want to share Jewish Joy with other Jews.
Judaism is my bread. Torah is my water. I cannot live without it. And while I don’t expect others to feel this way, I want them to have a taste of the depths and the beauty of our traditions. I want the world to see a Jewish movement bring the streams of Judaism together in harmony and commit to the great work of creating a Judaism for our changing world.
I want to teach. I want to mentor. I want to dance with a circle of yidden under the new moon and hold their hands too in times of grief. I want to be a Jewish presence that I longed for as a young person. I want to be the Jewish presence I hope I can be. I want more Torah – more study, more doing, more being. And I want to bring these to more people than just myself.
It is difficult in this time of personal upheaval for me to truly pinpoint what I want from “being a rabbi.” Just as it’s difficult to pinpoint my relationship with g-d when 6 months ago I didn’t believe in Their existence. But what I can pinpoint is my commitment to Judaism, my years-deep longing for rabbinical school, and my hopeful excitement about the world we must try to build.
“The kabbalist is not content with being confined to what they are. Their desire is not only to know more than what ordinary reason has to offer, but to be more than what they are.”
– Abraham J. Heschel – The Mystical Element in Judaism
eish zarah 