Before G-d

It is not G-d who is lost, it is I.

Last Summer I had a wee little break down. I took a bit of time off, though my institution made me feel like shit about it. They told me I was unreliable and irresponsible and not self aware. Once again my dream, my identity was chipped away by the people I thought were here to build me up.

I thought I was unreasonable when anxiety completely disabled me last Fall. I had just ended a year of long distance, I was doing better in school, I had just gotten engaged, all good things. But all change. I love my other half and never doubt our relationship for a second, but our relationship and my commitment to her does change how I relate to the world. Suddenly, I cannot console myself with dreams of running away when I the voice in my head tells me I will inevitably fail. I can't tell myself I can live on the streets which is the natural end to the series of perceived failures I have whenever anxiety takes over the thinking and verbalizing parts of my brain. By moving yet again, I have to re acclimate to a million little things. The building, the commute, the non-romantic network I have: small things that add up. And while I fought through this with the help of my friends, therapy, my rabbi, my family, one relationship really took back seat. My relationship with G-d.

How can I relate to the Almighty, when I have no time? When it seems like the place to where the Deity had steered me was a trap? When getting out of bed and eating take so much out of me, how can I pray? I've prayed pretty consistently for my whole life, but that is what I had to set down to make it through this year. When work violated Shabbat for me. When holidays were plastic bags suffocating me. When my soul returning to me sometimes felt like waking up in a prison. I could not thank G-d for such miracles. I could not be grateful to arrive at each new season.

I'm doing better. School and work are over soon and I am taking a Summer off. And this time, the institution cannot make me feel guilty. My life is more in my control.

Occasionally, throughout this troublesome year, I went to prayer at school or on a night off. I heard the whisper of G-d. I saw a flash of what I once felt. But never while alone. I've been edging closer for weeks. But I've fallen out of the habit. Prayer is a commitment. Relationships take time and effort.

First Rebbe Nachman helped me through the days, if he had to take one day at a time, so could I—while building myself back up:

Then he reminded me “Use every means to build your faith. This includes finding ways to build solid faith in a righteous teacher...and in yourself” RNW 141). My rabbi helped keep my dream alive but at some point, it was up to me to dust off that part of myself.

Like any relationship, G-d is not there to fix me. I needed to meet G-d with a better version of myself, much like I hope G-d meets me. But I'm studying to be a Rabbi. What does it mean that I haven't prayed in so long?

It means I want to pray well. Heschel quoting Maimonides:

“[They] whose thoughts are wandering or occupied with other things need not pray until [they have] recovered [their] mental composure.”

The example he gives is of someone who has returned from a journey and needs to recover for three days. I was on a journey but maybe it took more than three days.

So today, I prayed by myself for the first time in months.

Blessed are you, our G-d, sovereign of the Universe, who fashioned human beings with wisdom, and created in them many pathways and openings, it is well known before your seat of glory that if one of them were wrongly opened or closed, it would be impossible to endure and stand before you.......

Something in me was wrongly opened and wrongly closed. We are not required to perform commandments which we cannot perform.

So many prayer spaces have ''Know Before Whom You Stand” written on them. I know G-d pretty well, we've been close for years, but this year I've discovered that it's just as important to 'know who is standing before'. So despite what members of my institution accused me of, I feel pretty self aware. Aware enough to work on myself so that I may have a better relationship with my spouse, my family and the One who made us all.

Dressing Up

Here is a sermon I wrote for homiletics that I will not have a chance to give.

This week we interrupt our previously scheduled Torah portion with a cameo by Deuteronomy. In Shabbat Zachor we remember that villian Amalek comes to us in each generation in a new disguise.

I don't believe that I'm being coy when I say disguise because most of us prefer the side of purim in which we wear costumes than when the story calls for genocide. The Megillah gets pretty dicey in the end there. Not that it starts out terrific.

Zachor, whose hebrew root Zayin, Kaf and Resh, we might recognizer from the commandment z'chor et ha shabbat. Or alternatively in the Yizker service where we remember our loved ones. Though this root combination also appears in the unrelated to memory, zachar, which means male. As in Genesis when we read “male and female [G-d] made them” And just like Genesis we meet quite the cast of characters in our purim story all very much being magnified by their gender. And the costume of their gender.

We start with Queen Vashti, who counter to our costume culture of the holiday, is told to bare all. Her husband, the king, commands her to degrade herself for the amusement of a crowd of debauched men. She wears no costume, just her clothes and her dignity, to her death. But what about this husband who behaved so reprehensibly? Is that just a costume that the King wears among his peers? Is that all the king is? Can the king change or is he bound by the costume of his position in society and the kingdom?

Esther could not have gotten into the palace without a certain amount of costuming up. Both hiding her Jewish identity and a lengthy period of annointing and primping. And for some that primping was a festive party of friends. But perhaps for some their families forced them to try to enter the king's herem no matter the cost to them. Perhaps they were living out Vashti's nightmare, which she refused on penalty of her death. It is through Ester's first costume that she enters safely into the place, the palace, she needs to be, and by removing her costume that she saves us all.

I remember growing up and pretty much worshiping my older brothers. And fighting with my parents about wearing a dress on the holidays. I remember my father occasionally slapping a hat off of my brother at the dinner table when they didn't remember to take it off in the house. I do not remember noticing that my brothers had to fight about wearing dresses. I've mostly grown comfortable with the pantsless ness of a dress. I was honored to be my friend's best man this summer and since the wedding was outside in Missouri, opted to wear a dress to stay cool when I could have worn whatever I wanted. I have gone from feeling like Vashti to feeling more like Ester in this particular guise.

I often think of a description of Purim that I had heard years ago. How in the revelry of the holiday even an orthodox rabbi will wear women's clothing. And that's a halachic deal since in Deuteronomy women are prohibited from mens' clothing and vise versa. It was a fact related to me to hype up the karnival-esque of the holiday but why should changing our clothing, our costumes be so outlandish?

“cross dressing” which is not always the best term but I hope will work here, was not just illegal in Jewish law but also in American law. We're not so far away from Stonewall Bar where the mere act of a woman wearing pants or a man wearing a skirt was grounds for police brutality. And like Mordechai, many refused to bow down for who they were. Like Ester they placed themselves in great danger by removing the costume and revealing themselves. Like the Jews, they lived in a space where they were othere'd and developed their own culture.

Some of them wore the costume of a different gender in order to hide on a night out, being mistaken as a boy-girl couple. Some of them were truly just living their best selves. If the streets New York would teach me, I'd believe that one could now wear whatever they want wherever they go. Unfortunately, that dream is outlandish.

While some of our human siblings do not feel safe because society presents us with a ''right way'' to look, they smother their souls with the costumes of their assigned sex. Those who would walk free find themselves confronted with too many modern-day Hamans. He, an ancestor of Amalek, dressed up his hatred in fear and convinced the king to attempt slaughtering an entire people. Today these hamans hide in a similar costume of fear mongering and bathroom laws. And like Purim their lies are topsy-turvey. It is so much more dangerous for beautiful humans to stand tall, and use whatever form of lavatory they feel comfortable in.

so in this time when we are regressing to ridiculous, hurtful, violent norms, we must stand proud and undegraded like Mordechai and Vashti and we must be brave like Esther. The entire story pivots on her revealing her true self, and now we must do whatever we can to let others do the same.