Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal
Because if I have to trip over this pseudo-alt tripe everywhere I go (e.g. - a cafeteria cashier was reading pages between customers while a co-worker was gushingly singing its praises), then it's nice to have a smart, nuanced Jewish response out there...

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal
Because if I have to trip over this pseudo-alt tripe everywhere I go (e.g. - a cafeteria cashier was reading pages between customers while a co-worker was gushingly singing its praises), then it's nice to have a smart, nuanced Jewish response out there...

What is my worth as a childless single Jew?

1 Elul 5772

So lately I have been wondering what my communal and individual worth is as a single childless Jew.

I know (thanks to some very long nights with the Internet’s glow as my only nightlight) and acknowledge and appreciate that I am neither the first nor the only Jew to have asked this question. What solace I derive from this, while being poignant, also feels somewhat scant. Some Friday nights all I can do is sit awkwardly among the families and couples during Shabbat services, or note how I was the only single childless person at my last Pesach, or even amid the High Holy Day crowds. (I was blessed when, having fainted during last year’s Yom Kippur – yes, I was that person whose new meds and adherence to fasting landed me in an ER – I had an impromptu escort from the congregation who knew I was without family and did not want me to be alone. Just one more reason why I heart my temple.)

This ache of mine comes with an exacting irony. For the longest time being childless was my narrative. Various aspects of my past informed this personal chronicle. While I won't share all the details I will say that seeing so many family members and friends end up divorced was influential. (Honestly, how many times can you sit with someone who has either cheated on, or been cheated on by, their spouse and not wonder if being single is the equivalent of dodging the proverbial bullet?) Also - and this is hard to admit – I was sure I would make the world’s worst parent. I had my fair share of personal excesses, which while never landing me in jail or causing anyone else harm certainly made my judgment questionable at the time. Additionally, I existed for the longest time in the back corner of what felt like the universe’s deepest, darkest closet, shackled by shame over who I was. How could I expect to raise a child to grow into their best potential Self if I could not do the very same thing? Hypocrisy and I make for some very poor sleeping mates. (If you're reading this, sorry hypocrisy.)

Some of my partners had children and we got along pretty well, although I was often told that as I was not their biological parent, what did I expect? All the same it was a particular gut-wrenching anguish to have the children I watched grow up during the course of a thirteen year relationship turn away when I came out. It felt doubly so to be told not to contact most of my nieces and nephews during this same time.

Finally, I was given the opportunity to correct a long-standing medical problem – but in exchange I would lose my reproductive abilities. If you have been reading so far you can probably guess what my decision was. I made my choice convinced I had no regrets (if by “convinced” I mean ignoring and ultimately justifying away all the doubtful twinges).

So here was my narrative - childless-by-choice, wiser than the average divorcee - a story written chapter by chapter, decade after decade. I refuse to label this a “fiction” as I think that diminishes its importance. Instead I will call it a necessary false-consciousness which I eventually convinced myself was my truth. (The sociological equivalent term for this is known as developing a “taste of necessity”.) Looking around at all the ruined marriages and relationships (including my own), seeing how the coming-out process had stripped me of so much family, I felt comfortable that I had safely distanced myself from so much costly damage and eventual wreckage.

Then I converted to Reform Judaism and so many things changed.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Well, ye-ah”. (I know I would be.) But whoa nelly, not so fast. At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, while I certainly expected some changes and I even expected some unexpected changes, I did not think these particular feelings were going to float to the surface and make themselves known.

   

IMPORTANT WAIVER HERE!!!! I have to tell you that my temple, from the clergy and board members to the congregants and staff, have never made me feel less-than in ANY way shape or form. I can tell you that I currently carry forward more self-esteem than ever before, in no small part because of my spiritual family. This diminishment does not stem from my environment but from me.

Yet I would be disingenuous if I said that this very same environment did not give significant importance to family-making and had no effect on me. I would be telling untruths if I said that being a happy witness to weekly Jewish life-cycle acknowledgements such as marriage blessings, baby-namings and bat/bar mitzvahs Kiddush chanting hasn't made me more aware that I am without a family. I would be less than honest if I told you that when the rabbi said I would raise my children as Jews during my blessing my heart didn't lurch in a profoundly sad way. I would be lying if I told you I never felt like a Jew with limited worth. Not all the time, mind you. Perhaps not even often. But yeah.

Of course, Jewish worth is not based upon one’s capacity to mother, father or raise a household but by I would imagine one’s being a good Jew. And apparently there have been quite a few remarkable good childless Jews before me (including my Biblical namesakes). There are also quite a few commentaries, for example here, here, and here. (Trigger warning: some promote the idea and attitude that not having children or being single is a singular “disadvantage”, which tells you something of the author’s sense of normative.)

I wish I had some clever denouement to leave you with but honestly, being this transparent saps away any potential wit. Here’s what I know as today’s end credits roll: I remain grateful for my spiritual family; I am grateful and proud to be a Jew, and I cannot believe the worth of these two truths can and/or will be solely defined for me by the capacity to have or raise a family. So I leave you with this: Rabbi Harold Kushner writes in his book To Life! that being a good Jew isn’t defined by the amount of prayers you pray or how many times you end up at your synagogue (or, I imagine, how many children live under your roof) but rather, by always striving to be a better Jew. 

I may not know where any of my answers await but just for today, that goal seems like a good place to start from.

Shavua tov!    

Five Things That Make Us Go Ummm

Five Things That Make Us Go Ummm


(Keshet is a national grassroots organization with offices in Boston, Denver, and the Bay Area that works for the full inclusion and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews in all facets of Jewish life-- synagogues, Hebrew schools, day schools, youth groups, summer camps, social service organizations, and other communal agencies. Led and supported by LGBT Jews and straight allies, Keshet offers resources, trainings, and technical assistance to create inclusive Jewish communities nationwide.
www.keshetonline.org)