By Cantor Michelle Rubin
I have been a cantor for 24 years and a religious school director for the past 15 years and I love what I do. While I enjoy all aspects of my position, I particularly appreciate being able to pass my love and enthusiasm for Judaism, Jewish learning and Jewish prayer/music onto future generations through the religious school.
Part of what I most love about being a religious leader is making religion attainable, experiential and fun. We learn and teach a lot of values –Middot, in Hebrew. We help people map their own moral codes through the lens of Judaism.
As Jews and human beings, we’re taught that we’re supposed to look out for each other. We are taught in the Torah (Five Books of Moses) in Leviticus 19:18: v’ahavta l’rei·ekha, kamokha, translated as love your neighbor as yourself, which is understood as, treat others as you would want to be treated. As Jews, we should not just accept one another, but that we must go one step further and love and celebrate one another.
From the time my children were born and could understand, I have always told them that whatever they do in life, they know they have my love and support. My children know that I don’t love them “even if” or in spite of things I may not understand. But rather, they know that I love them just because they are who they are.
A few years ago, one of my twins came out as nonbinary and then recently, transgender and my other twin identifies as bisexual. On some level, it has been an adjustment, but in our home, it also isn’t a big deal because my kids know that I love them. Notice where the period is at the end of the previous sentence – I don’t love them even if they are LGBTQ; I love them. Period. I don’t just tolerate them or accept them. Following in my Jewish faith, I love and celebrate them.
I have always considered myself an LGBTQ ally, but even as an ally, it’s always an adjustment learning how to be the best possible ally I can be. For me, that means supporting and listening and learning. It also means raising my voice to help advocate so that my young adults and all in our community are safe to be themselves.
I believe that who you are should never be a secret. The Torah teaches us that we are made b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God (Gen 1:28). The God in which I believe would not make someone wrong or want them to hide who they are or who they love. Who you are in a relationship with or the gender with which one identifies in no one else’s business, yet no one should ever feel like they need to hide those things for fear of the judgment of others. Most importantly, we should not be othering one another. We should celebrate each other’s differences because we’re all made in God’s image and with God’s love.
While I treasure the many teachings from the Torah, Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic texts, I also find it troubling that Biblical verses are often used as a weapon to other people who are different or stand by while they are discriminated against.
There are so many commandments in the Torah that cannot be carried out today, verses that we ignore and the ones we cherry pick that we want to enforce. For instance, we don’t stone people for not observing the Sabbath. Our ancient religious laws were written in the Torah but also handed down orally and many have been reinterpreted over the years, as they were intended to. We have centuries of Rabbinical writing and opinions that have changed over time. Yet, we all pick and choose what we want to believe, and we sometimes have given in to social pressures to judge on those issues we might not understand. But when we do so, we risk harming those we should instead be loving in the process.
If we need a reason to embrace our LGBTQ neighbors, we need to look no further than history and what is going on right under our noses today.
A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching a lesson on the Holocaust to my 7th graders, and we watched a Tik Tok from a woman in Florida who spoke about how she and her girlfriend were leaving their home and state because of the barrage of anti-LGBTQ laws that just passed.
She relayed that her friends were saying,
“You’re overacting!”
She however explained that so many of her girlfriend’s family members died in the Holocaust because people said they were overreacting and that it would blow over. In fact, her great-grandfather worked for the Hungarian government, so he felt he was safe. Well, he wasn’t fine. Like millions of other Jews and people who were deemed less than, he was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz. Let us remember that the Nazis were the democratically elected party in power at the time in Germany.
We must not remain silent. If we sit back and do nothing, things like this will continue to happen.
They are happening in Florida, and they could start happening all over the country as well. It is up to us to stand up and speak out so that we stop the othering and hate, especially in God’s name. Don’t stand by and let somebody be treated in a way that you wouldn’t want to be treated. Let’s not just accept LGBTQ people – let’s celebrate them.
As our society has grown and changed, and many religious orders have become more affirming of our inherent differences, what hasn’t changed are some of the core tenets of Judeo-Christian religion, including perhaps the most important one, which tells us we must love one another.
If you need an excuse to start loving your LGBTQ friends and family and community members, it comes straight from the Bible – “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Pride Month this June is the perfect time to start.
Cantor Michelle Rubin is a Cantor and Religious School Director at Greenwich Reform Synagogue. She has been a cantor for 24 years and a religious school director for the past 15 years.
