Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Teshuvah, Tzedakah, T'filah: Yom Kippur 5770

The ritual phrasing of the Unetaneh Tohkef prayer reads: "On Rosh HaShanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, how many will leave this world and how many will be born into it, who will live and who will die... But penitence, prayer and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree."

Teshuvah, above translated as penitence, is also about returning to the center, and aligning with the Center. In the world of 12-step, teshuvah and t'filah are a daily practice, reflected in the 9th, 10th and 11th step: making amends, reflecting and admitting our shortcomings and seeking to return to connection with the universal Higher Power through prayer and meditation. I like to think of the 10 day period of the days of awe as an experience of going thru all 12 steps in 10 days. And it's intense. 

I am not much of one for the mythology of the holiday: a hairy thunderer up above with a book of accounts. But as a metaphor it serves to remind me that no matter how much I might try to deny it, I am aware of every person I have harmed in some way, every way in which I have fallen short of the mark of living my values. And that denial only turns up physically in my body, or as a repeated pattern in the world with stronger consequences so that I get the lesson through my thick skull.

This is in fact the true meaning of karma, the fruit of sankhara.

May we all return to that universal Center. May our hearts be open in gratitude and may we all share our blessings so that that all beings are liberated.

5770: The new year and the power of intention, individual and communal

This is the last calendar day of the Judaic calendar year 5769. Tonight, at sunsets around the world Jews will gather in synagogues and around dinner tables to mark the change and to examine their lives in the hope of change.

Change. A word we heard a lot of in the last year. We have the quadrennial change of presidents (or administrations) this year. And it has been a momentous societal change that has also brought up stiff resistance. The election of an African-American president has lanced the boil of racism in our country, and all the pus is spilling out. The poisonous thinking and beliefs held by many has become a daily part of the public lack of discourse. It took no less a moral force than former president Carter to name the elephant in the room. And today House speaker Pelosi talked about the violence that is born when this kind of talk is not merely condoned, but whipped up, by media clowns whose only responsibility is to their ratings.

Since the vast majority of these people are Christians, their communal review is generally around the secular new year. But I think of the words in the first blessing said every morning during the Shaharit service: “day after day You renew Creation.”

The celebration of the new year could be at any moment in any season. We have the communal celebrations of tradition that come down to us based on seasonal and agricultural reasons. Based on the position of the sun in relation to our orbit around it. The Jewish new year usually falls close to the autumn equinox. The Western secular new year falls close to the winter solstice. Both are moments of transition in our relationship to the light of day. Both remind us that time moves forward, that darkness falls and that light returns, in nature and for our planet at least. But clearly we can chose any time of the day or night, and any date on the calendar to review our lives.

As a (Buddhist) Jew, at this time of year I usually find myself in a synagogue reciting a prayer that takes responsibility — the communal confession of the Ashamnu and the Al Het. The prayer is not: “I lie, I steal…” but “We lie, we steal….” It is said with the understanding that as a community we are responsible for our words and our actions.

In my community, one of the phrases we say is “We are zealots for bad causes.” And we are all guilty of this at times.

This is certainly a time when the entire country would do well to do some self-examination.  Here though is the rub. True zealots don’t do this kind of self-examination. And this is the trap Jay Michaelson has fallen into in his recent essay in the Forward on losing his love for Israel.

Jay says that it is “exhausting to maintain my ambivalence.”  Zealots don’t face this kind of exhaustion. Their monomaniacal dedication to their cause energizes them around a single “truth.” But because Jay sees the multiple truths, and the insane zealots on the Israeli side, he loses his resolve.

I understand completely. But this is what happened to Hamlet. When faced with the opportunity to act, his doubts caused him to lose his resolve. And instead of avenging his father and killing his uncle cleanly, everyone ends up dead. As Arjuna stand before his cousins about to go to war with them, and has his doubts, understanding the full horror and moral ambiguity of the situation, Krishna schools him on taking action whole-heartedly.

I am not pretending that I am able to do this. I just recognize the peril of ambivalence.

I have seen how in our support for good causes we have come to mirror the faults of those we oppose. You can see this in Keith Olbermann, who is as guilty of simplification and manipulation of the facts as many on the right, he just happens to be on the side I agree with — I still find him annoying. And more tragically, we can see it in the way Israel betrays it's ideals by slowly becoming what it was founded in reaction against. But at the same time, to come back to the subject of the president and the racism spilling out across America, this is where I lose my patience with Obama. So it looks like he just stands there and takes the punches while the wing-nut right goes to town. He talks of bipartisanship in a city where one party has the knives out for him. It isn’t easy to do that. It is insanely reasonable (there’s a phrase for you). It’s, pardon the expression, Christian. 

It’s how he was able to go the Islamic nations and speak to their issues in ways anyone rarely speaks out (or can in their societies without fear of imprisonment or worse). And how he was able to tell Israel off on the subject of the settlements.

It’s how he was able to go to the black churches and say he supports lgbt rights while at the same time pushing back on the lgbt community, and pushing our buttons by embracing so-called religious figures we see as divisive if not simply outright hateful.

The thing that seems to give Obama his strength is just his ability to hold the tensions and see the ambiguities. He isn’t ambivalent in the face of these things. Psychologist Arnold Mindell has made a career of studying the ability to stand in this position and gain strength from it. He calls it Worldwork.

It’s a way of finding strength in admitting and opening to the individual and community failures, and committing listening deeply to the other. Listening to what’s under some of the insane words: the fears that aren’t spoken because they are more threatening, and speaking to them.

I won’t say Obama is a master of this at all. He enrages me much of the time, and disappoints me. And I worry that his insanely reasonable attitude will lose the next election. But at the same time, I have to admire his unwavering commitment to staying open. He said it in his recent speech to Congress when he offered to work with others who were willing to constructively work together even it meant compromise and conflict. He doesn’t shy from that. But he did say that he would move ahead without them if they weren’t willing to do the work.

He is the adult in the room. I don’t know what his spiritual path is. He spent time in a madrasah in Indonesia. He joined a church in Chicago. Like me, he may well be a boundary crosser. And I don’t know what his process of review and self-examination is. What I do know is that now is the time we in my traditional faith community spends in examination of ourselves as a community and individuals.  

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have many of them. But I won’t let my misgivings over the real problems in Israel let me waver in my defense of it in the face of insane zealotry — both from within and without. Both against the haredi attacking the lgbt community and the surrounding countries attacking Israel’s right to exist. 

And in the meantime, I’ll spend the next ten days doing some of the spiritual work of the season, examining my intention, words and actions. But I have found the best season to do this work is always now. As the 10^th step of the 12 step tradition suggests: continue to take personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it.

I'm sure I've offended many with this. Well, that assumes many have read this, and have even read this far, and I know better. This is part of my own writing out of my internal struggle with these issues, in the hope that I can act with equanimity if not zealous certainty. I hope this challenges you to do your work. I welcome your comments, and of course...

May you all have a new year that is both sweet and free of high fructose corn syrup.  

Fundamentalists see violence as acceptable: Pinchas is the template for Haredi response

Voz Is Neias, the website of the Orthodox Jewish Community, reports today that youngsters putting up posters in Jerusalem to condemn the deadly shooting spree in a Tel Aviv gay youth center last week were attacked by haredim in Mea She'arim.

The comments in response to the report range from thoughtful to hateful with everything in between, as responses to hot button issues on a blog usually are. But make for interesting reading into the minds of a community (if a rather skewed view that can't be called representative.)

On the DL: The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan response to homosexual love.

How many queer folk who follow the Tibetan Buddhist way would still be on that path if they knew that the Dalai Lama said in an interview that he “rejects” the idea of homosexual love and that gay or lesbian sex is sexual misconduct.  Further, in a recent response to questions about this, a representative of the DL essentially compared the acceptance of homosexuals to the toleration of thieves.

Of course, his position from a human rights point of view is that queer folk should not be discriminated against in civil law. But along with masturbation or sex at night for anyone, gay sex is sexual misconduct from the Tibetan Buddhist POV. How does the celibate DL (doesn’t stand for Down Low) come to this understanding? By consulting a Tibetan treatise by another celibate monk from the 15th Century. A monk who also said that it is okay to pay for a prostitute yourself, but not to have sex with a prostitute that someone else has paid for.

Is your head spinning yet? In a recent issue of Buddhadharma, José Cabézon wrote about Western Buddhists (read Tibetan Buddhists in this specific case but it is generally true for all sects) have a simplistic understanding of a tradition they have signed on to, specifically around the issue of sexual expression.

One of the many reasons I walked away from Judaism when I was 13 (the day after the Bar Mitzvah) was that I knew I was gay, and I didn’t care for a religion that called my expression of love an abomination. And like many Jews, I eventually found myself in the Buddhist world.
I didn’t go for Zen practice, since I was living in Japan and the S&M inherent in the way the sensei would strike practitioners with a rod just didn’t sit well with me. And I didn’t go with the Tibetans, because the whole thing just looked to me like a medieval theocratic state without a country. And if I wanted that, I could have become an Orthodox Jew.

Of course, many queer people turn to Buddhism because there is the perception in the West that it’s a religion where anything goes sexually. Or at least where much is tolerated. Nothing could be further from the truth. But then, the word Buddhism is like the word Christianity — it covers a lot of territory, since there are so many sects in Japan alone that it can be dizzying to try and figure out what the reality it. Though certainly, what most varieties of Buddhists can agree on are the four truths taught by the Buddha:

1.    Life means suffering
2.    Attachment is the origin of suffering
3.    The end of suffering is attainable
4.    There is a path to the end of suffering

I ended up in the world of Theravada Buddhism, considered by scholars to be the closest to what the Buddha taught, though of course, like Christianity, over the centuries, and across cultures, lots of stuff happens to the original message. What is certain is that there were very clear injunctions about sex between monks from the very start.

After that, well, depends what tradition you’re talking about. In Japan, the custom was for older monks to have sex with younger acolytes. At least until Admiral Perry showed up. Of course, in Japan, monasteries also had standing armies and often went to war with each other. Not very Buddhist on either account I would say.

But lets stay with the Tibetans. Perhaps people believe the DL is cool with gay sex because Trungpa Rinpoche’s Shambhala organization has pretty much always been okay with it. Of course, the Shambhala organization also has had a history of extraordinary loose sexual boundaries that raise questions of ethics no matter what religion or path you follow (well, unless you’re a follower of Aleister Crowley).

Like the Jews, the Tibetans have a long scholastic tradition of commentaries that they refer to for guidance. Yes, the Tibetans are Talmudic. And one of the scholars whose authority the DL accepts on the subject of sexual misconduct is that of a 15th Century monk named Tsongkhapa. And according to this dead brown man, among the ways of determining sexual misconduct is the use of inappropriate body parts.

What body parts does he mean? What could possibly be inappropriate?

“The mouth, the anus, the calves or thighs pressed together, and the hand in motion,” according the Tsongkhapa’s book The Great Treatise on the Stages of The Path. So if you’re a follower of the Tibetan’s these are the rules you’ve signed on for.

And if you accept Tibetan Buddhism then you also believe that if you’re having this kind of sex you’re going to end up in a hell realm.

Paging Pope Benedict!

Of course, the vast majority of Western Buddhists don’t believe any of this. Like many mainstream Jews and Christians they take a pick and choose attitude to their spirituality. The problem is that many Western Buddhists are unaware of these beliefs on the part of their spiritual teachers.

But unlike the priests of the Catholic church who are (supposedly) divorced from any sexual expression (and reality), the Tibetans are not being repeatedly challenged by activists. Not that questions haven’t arisen. But from the response the DL gave in his recent Canadian interview, not much movement (or enlightenment) has occurred.

But gay activists aren’t protesting outside appearances by the DL, and some of the reason is that you don’t see Tibetan Buddhists lining up politically against gay marriage anywhere, unlike Catholics, Mormons and Haredi Jews. So they aren’t on the radar of political activists who are concerned only with civil rights.

But that doesn’t make the Tibetan position any less problematic. Because telling a gay man or lesbian they are going to hell because of the way they express their love is doing spiritual violence.

And what is interesting about Buddhism among other things, is that an action isn’t judged by the outcome or the form, but by the intentionality. Anyone experiencing lust of any kind is experiencing the suffering of attachment. Gay, straight, whatever.

Anyone having angry sex is both experiencing and creating suffering. For a Buddhist monk, any sex is attachment. For a lay person though, well, getting laid isn’t out of the question. It’s just a question of how sexual misconduct is defined by the tradition. And if the intention in expressing love physically is loving and open hearted, well, this then is the issue….

Like Judaism, the Tibetan tradition can evolve with scholars debating and discussing and coming to some decision. They just don’t. Today even Conservative Jews not only accept gay congregants, they even ordain gay and lesbian rabbis.

A few years ago, the Dalai Lama met with a number of rabbis from across the spectrum to ask the secret of Jewish survival for 2000 years after the loss of the national homeland. With the destruction of ancient Israel, the Temple cult (and animal sacrifice) ended. And Judaism had to change and evolve. It went from being a state religion in a theocracy to a more diffuse and democratic structure that continues to evolve across cultures and time while affirming its connection to tradition. Perhaps it’s time for the Tibetans to ask the Jews for help again. And perhaps the queer Western followers need to be a little more Western in their push to wake up the Vatican. Oh, sorry, I meant the Kuger Yigtsang.

How will Tibetan Buddhism rise to meet the challenge of having lost the Potala and Tibet? This question will be answered in many ways. But perhaps one test will be to see how it responds Western queer Buddhists in the ranks who are challenging a tradition that’s about as relevant as using the ashes of a red heifer for purification rituals.

Vigil for the Victims of the Attack on the GLBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv

This evening Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in NYC hosted a vigil for the victims of the attack last week in Tel Aviv. Co-sponsored by a list of groups that was so long you would think there would have been a vast crowd. Nope. Barely a third of the Westbeth yard was filled with people. It was heartening to see all the young people from the Center's youth program though — these kids live with the threat of violence on a daily basis in ways many of us older folk forget.

Speaking at the gathering were Rep. Jerry Nadler and Jay Michaelson of Nehirim among others. Christine Quinn spoke, though what she thought of the huge sign for Yetta Kurland in the window of her campaign HQ across the yard who knows.

Carl Siciliano of the Ali Forney Center spoke movingly of the plight of gay youth in this country. And David Saranga from the Israeli Consulate in NY spoke of Israel's commitment to full LGBT equality (though what that means in a country where only Orthodox rabbis can perform religious marriage ceremonies I don't know).

Here are the videos of Rep. Nadler and Jay Michaelson speaking:

Faigele, Feigele, Feygeleh, Shmegeleh - no matter how you spell it, there's a queer film festival coming up at the JCC in NY

NewFest may be ending on Thursday, but next Monday and Tuesday nights, the queer film programs continue with three movies about lgbt life in Israel at the JCC in Manhattan. And all of them deal with the complexities of being queer in a country where religious fanaticism is rising.  This is the 4th year in a row that the JCC has held this short festival during Pride month, and the JCC has become a real resource for the queer community extending beyond just the Jews. Out Professionals has held several events there.

To get tickets

This coming Monday you can see:

Veahavta—And Thou Shalt Love - June 15th, 7pm
Directed by Chaim Elbaum (30 min, Israel, 2008)
Winner of the coveted Wolgin Prize for Best Drama at the Jerusalem Film Festival, 2008. Ohad is a student in a hesder yeshiva who is secretly in love with his best friend. Torn between his homosexuality and his religion, Ohad must struggle between his love for God and his love for Nir.

Zirei Kayitz - Seeds of Summer  - June 15th, 7:30pm
Directed by Hen Lasker - (63 min, Israel, 2007)
Hen Lasker’s feature documentary takes us back to the place where she first fell in love with a woman—the Israeli Defense Forces. Baby-faced teen recruits transform into combat-ready soldiers by day and cry for their parents by night. Lasker takes a close look inside a little seen world, and ends up revealing part of herself.

And on Tuesday...

Jerusalem Is Proud To Present - June 16th, 7pm
Directed by Nitzan Gilady - (80 min, Israel, 2007)
In the summer of 2006, Jerusalem was to host the World Pride events and parade. The planned events stirred turmoil in the politically complex city, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders banding together in an uncompromising battle against what they said would “defile the holy city.” On the other side stood the activists of the Open House, Jerusalem’s LGBTQ community center. Steadfast in the face of anti-gay sentiment, they dealt with threats that extended beyond their right to march.

All this comes at an important time, since the tensions are rising as we approach this year's Pride in Jerusalem. And normally safe Tel Aviv is less so, with the report that  31 year old openly gay actor & singer Yehonathan, was mugged and robbed during the weekends pride events in Tel Aviv.

Encore Performance at NewFest: City of Borders, an important film about so much more than simply being queer in Jersusalem

The first in two posts: today NewFest, tomorrow The Feigele Film Festival at the JCC.

The next 7 days in New York City is a great time to see films about what it means to be queer in Israel today — from the point of view of queer Jews across the religious and political spectrum, from secular Zionists to the orthodox, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And the distance between those two cities can seem like the distance between the 21st Century and the Iron Age. 

First, there will be an encore screening of City of Borders at NewFest, the annual lgbt film festival, tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 10th at 6pm. It’s an amazing film that chronicles the story of Jerusalem’s only gay bar, through the eyes of its courageous owner (who also became a member of the city council) and its patrons — including a Palestinian man who would have to sneak into Israel to feel safe about being openly queer, and a young man from a settlement community who was one of the people stabbed by a crazed Haredi at the Pride parade in 2006. There is also a cross-national lesbian couple, Israeli and Palestinian, negotiating the rocky shoals of relationship with the added burden of war and oppression. This film asks all the right questions and shows Israeli society with all its beauty and ugliness, with its commitment to equality for all and the discrimination and danger faced by Muslim Israelis  by Queer Israelis. This is a fully nuanced view of the multi-faceted reality free of the sloganeering of the knee-jerk crowds on all sides of the issues. And as such, is a film that is important for everyone to see.

It’s all the more interesting to see in the context of the news. The Jerusalem Post reports that international Israel advocacy organization Stand With Us has invited prominent gay opinion-shapers from around the world to Tel Aviv for the Pride celebrations, to show the progressive face of the country and a view that shifts the focus away from the conflict between peoples.

This is clearly a concerted PR effort that has the government behind it, even as the city government in Jerusalem prepares for violence by the Haredi against the upcoming Pride march in that city two weeks from now. Certainly in the face of protests by gay groups in Toronto and elsewhere against Israeli policies towards the Palestinians this is meant to mark the difference between the two societies in treatment of sexual minorities, and to say to these protesters, pardon my French, “what the fuck?”

Of course, you can’t make grey white by comparing it to black. And let’s be clear, while it is certainly true that I’d rather be queer in Israel than in Cairo or Damascus or Ramallah, I sure wouldn’t want to be Palestinian in Tel Aviv.

What’s more I feel used. Not like a politically active gay man wouldn’t feel used in the US today (are you listening Barack? I think not). But last year, when there was a pro-Israel demonstration outside the United Nations against Iran's president Ahmadinejad, I was asked by a Jewish organization called The Council of Presidents to help out by writing a print ad to help draw crowds to the demo by appealing to people concerned about human rights. My copy made it clear that many people were oppressed in today’s Iran, from religious minorities to women to gay men. At first they were happy. But of course, when push came to shove, queer folk got shoved. They didn’t really care about human rights — it was about Israel, pure and simple. And while I support Israel, I am not interested in being used by the Jews in this way.

Yes, my marriage (if I were married) would be recognized in Israel. And I would be killed in Egypt. Makes being an Israel supporter feel like being a Democrat in the US, huh?

Celebrating Pride, Jewish Style

It’s Pride Month, and for Jews around the country — and around the world, it’s the time of year that has become traditional over the last couple of decades to celebrate a Pride Seder or a special Pride Shabbat.

This weekend in New York City there are a number of Queer Jewish Pride events. At Congregation Rodeph Shalom on the Upper West Side there is a dinner following Friday night services with Judy Gold as the Guest of Honor, you can register on the JCC site, or at this date best to call 646-505-5708.

At the Village Temple, the Pride Shabbat d’var will be given by Gabriel Blau on this weeks Torah reading, and titled "Building Open Tents, The Jewish Journey and Civil Rights."  I’d like to be at both of these events, but this weekend I’ll be at NewFest, where I’ve marked out about 22 films I want to see — which means I will probably see about 15.

Meanwhile, the Temple for Universal Judaism is screening the film Hineini, a documentary about a young woman coming out in a Jewish high school, following services.

New Jersey won’t be left out — after all, they’re ahead of New York state in partnership rights for same-gender couples. And at B’nai Keshet, a Reconstructionist congregation, there will be a Pride Seder tied to the cause of marriage equality (which was the focus of the last seder at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun). And speaking of marriage equality, there is a great posting on the Jewish case for marriage equality from Australia (where pride seders have been celebrated as well).

Next weekend, down in Miami, at Temple Israel of Greater Miami, there will be a Pride Seder. I am always thrilled when I read about Pride Seders, since we started doing them at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in 1995, based on the liturgy developed by the Queer Minyan in Berkeley. We expanded the text and added a number of rituals, calling it the Stonewall Seder.  And over the years, as the text was picked up at other synagogues with additions and edits, we revised our text to reflect what we liked that we saw elsewhere. I wish there were one place where all the texts were collected so that someone could study the evolution of this new tradition.

Also next weekend in Boston, what is perhaps the oldest Pride Seder in the country will be held at Temple Sinai, and is sponsored by Congregation Am Tikva, CJP GLBT Team, Keshet, Ohel Tzedek of Temple Israel, and the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality.

The text of the Stonewall Seder (which can be downloaded here) was particularly influenced by revisions made by Andrew Ramer and Joss Eldridge at Congregation Sha’ar ZaHav, which this year will be holding their seder on Saturday, June 20, 2009, 6:00 pm. And for those of you who can’t go to a seder, you can see clips from the last Stonewall Seder at B’nai Jeshurun on YouTube, with the complete speech given by the guest of honor, Lisa Kron, and selection from the readings over the course of the night. My favorites include readings about the objects on the seder plate and a very different set of four questions:

And speaking of video clips, also at the JCC in NYC later this month is the Feigele Film Festival, with some great movies about queer life in Israel, including Veahavta—And Thou Shalt Love, Winner of the coveted Wolgin Prize for Best Drama at the Jerusalem Film Festival, 2008 and also inlcuding a documentary about pride celebrations in Jerusalem and how finally all religions of the middle east finally united — around a message of intolerance.

However you celebrate Pride Month — as  Jew, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Jain…may it reflect the deep love that our expression of love in the world stands for.

Israel Tourism Goes Gay (not particularly lesbian)

A website has been launched to promote gay tourism in Israel. From the images on the home page, you would never guess that lesbians existed. But hey, I don't any websites from Egypt extolling Pride celebrations in cities all over the country, as this site does. (The very fact that I praise something while at the same time criticizing it is about as Jewish as you can get). And I've got to say, the site certainly makes a visit look like a lot of fun.

Places you don't want to be gay, Jewish or both...

Reports from South America today include a raid on a neo-Nazi group in Porto Alegre, Brazil where knives, clothes bearing swastikas and three homemade bombs were seized by police.  Paulo Cesar Jardim, a local police official said that material gathered in the raid showed that synagogues and gay-rights demonstrations being were being targeted. The group, called New Land, wanted to "kill several Jews and gays at the same time,” according the Jardim. The area has the third largest population of Jews in Brazil, and also is home to a rather large population of German descendants.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, thugs attacked a celebration of Israeli Independence day in Buenos Aires.

South America clearly needs more gay bare Mexican bears bearing snack foods to bring peace and love to the region. Or not.