No More Hiding

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#000000" VLINK="#000000" ALINK="#000000"> <CENTER><TABLE><TR><TD WIDTH=20% VALIGN="TOP"> <A NAME="top"> <P> <B><a href="http://betmish.org/text/kn5761drash.html">Text-Only Version</a></B> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/index.html">Home</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/whatsnew.html">What's New</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/calendar.html#July8">Coming Events</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/drashot.html">D'rashot</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/do.html">What We Do</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/who.html">Who We Are</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/contact.html">Contact Us</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/faq.html">Frequently Asked Questions</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/archives.html">Archives</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/links.html">Links</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/member.html">Membership</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/credits.html">Credits</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/addbook.html">Guest book</A></B></BIG> </FONT></TD> <TD ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="80%> <CENTER>    <table border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td align="center"> <a href="http://betmish.org/index.html" target="_top"><IMG border=0 src="http://betmish.org/images/banner2.gif" align=center height="104" width="512" hspace=5 alt="Bet Mishpachah banner"></a> </td> <td align="left"> <font size="-5"><a href="http://betmish.org/child/descriptions/banner.html">Banner<br>Description</a></font> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center"> <p><font size="-1"><i>Washington, DC's Egalitarian Synagogue</i><br> <i>Embracing a Diversity of Sexual and Gender Identities</i></font> </p> <p> <b><font face="Arial"><font size="+1">Rabbi Bob Saks<br> </font></font></b><br> <font face="Arial"><font size="-1"><i>Founded in 1975 by Members of the GLBT Community<font color="white" size="-4"> </font></i></font></font></p> </td> <td align="left"> <font size="-4" color="white"> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> <h1 align=center>No More Hiding</h1> <center>by Rabbi Leila Gal Berner <BR>Kol Nidre 5761</CENTER> <p>On a Shabbat afternoon, during my first year as a rabbi, a dark-haired man named José approached me after services. His deep black eyes penetrating into me in a way I had never experienced before. "Rabbi," he said, I must talk with you privately."</p> <p>Once we were alone, José spoke, almost in a whisper. "Rabbi, I am a Jew but I and my family have been in hiding for centuries. I don't want to hide any longer." </p> <p>Thus began my friendship with an "escondido," a hidden one, a member of my Jewish family whose own kin had been torn from their roots in Spain half a millenium earlier. </p> <p> In the late 1400's, José's family, like many thousands of Spain's Jews, faced death or conversion to Catholicism at the hands of Tomás de Torquemada. Grand Inquisitor in the service of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. </p> <p>So the family became the quintessential "wandering Jews," first publicly (but insincerely) converting, then leaving Spain for Portugal, and then sailing to the New World and ending their voyage in a small mountain village in Brazil.</p> <p>"Teach me what it means to be a Jew, Rabbi," José whispered eagerly. "I don't know much, only what my father told me as he was dying. " He continued: " My father told me that I, his eldest son, must now carry "the secret" that we are descended from Jews, that previous generations of our family had tried very hard to hold on to their Judaism, that little by little, from generation to generation, their grasp on our heritage had loosened - and only our family's sacred memory has survived - and this, too, has survived. "</p> <p>José took out a small box. I later learned that many escondido families have little boxes, passed from one generation to the next. José removed three items. . The first was a large brass key to José's family's ancestral home in Zaragoza, Spain. The second was a parchment document written in Latin, dating back more than five hundred years. It was the deed to José's family's home back in Spain. And the third item was a parchment remnant on which I could discern faded Hebrew letters, the first half of the words of "Sh'ma Yisrael." Sh'ma Yisra'el Adonai Eloheinu. . . That was all. The words, "Adonai Echad," God is One, were ripped away. At that moment, I truly felt as if the Oneness of God had been ripped apart, torn asunder - just as José's family had been torn apart, scattered and dispersed.</p> <p>As if he were reading my thoughts, José then said, "I don't feel whole, Rabbi. I don't feel at one with my God. I don't want to hide anymore. Help me." What José was really asking me, even though neither of us realized it at the time, was to help him restore the "Adonai Echad" to his life and to his family.</p> <p>José had another, very specific request. "Rabbi, teach me to chant the Kol Nidre."</p> <p>"Why especially that?" I asked. </p> <p>"There is a story," José said, "a story my father told me. I didn't understand it all, I only know that I must know how to chant Kol Nidre."</p> <p>B'yeshiva shel ma'alah u-vishiva shel matah . . . anu matirin l'hitpalel im ha avaryanim. With the authority of the heavenly court and with the authority of the earthly court, we hereby declare it permissible to pray together with the avaryanim, the transgressors. Thus begins the prelude to the Kol Nidre, which we heard just a short while ago. </p> <p>"There is a story," Jose had said. Now was the time to tell it to him again, to help him understand his profound need to learn Kol Nidre.</p> <p> There is indeed a story, a popular Jewish legend, that the Jews of Iberia, the iberyanim, are the "transgressors" to which the introductory words of the Kol Nidre refer. The legend suggests a subtle pun, a play on words - iberianim (Iberians) - avaryanim (transgressors).</p> <p>But why would we call transgressors those Jews who had suffered for their Judaism, many of them secretly practicing their faith, at great danger to their lives, while publicly professing Christianity?</p> <p>When the Jews finally left Iberia (ee-beriya), they scattered to the four corners of the world - and many sought to rejoin Jewish communities. Many of them cast off their public Christian veneer and came home to their people. As they entered the synagogues of Amsterdam, Rome and Constantinople, the local communities had to decide whether they would welcome them in. After all, hadn't these Spaniards converted to Christianity, baring their heads at the baptismal font? Some zealots said that they never should have converted, even if they were in grave danger. They said that they were avaryanim, transgressors of the worst kind.</p> <p>But others were more compassionate. As Scott reminded us before Kol Nidre, it is always important to balance din with chesed, to balance law with compassion. So many communities extended that chesed, that lovingkindness, to the Spanish exiles who yearned for Return.</p> <p>"Are we not all avaryanim, hasn't each of us sinned in some way before God?" they said. "We declare it permissible to pray with these Spanish Jews, these iberianim. For who can judge what we might have done in similar circumstances? Let God be the judge."</p> <p>This crucial moment in the history of our people teaches us one of the most important lessons of Judaism: though each of us is fallible, and each of us has sinned -- forgiveness, compassion and healing are always possible. It is never too late to come home - so, on this night, as each of us stands here in this room painfully aware of our own personal faults and weaknesses, we have given ourselves permission to return - to come home - to pray with others who are also avaryanim.</p> <p>After their expulsion from Spain, many Jews abandoned Christianity and came home to their people and Judaism. But many others did not; they remained in hiding, fearful that the long arm of the Inquisition would still find them, wherever they settled. For centuries they hid, pretending to be what they were not - and the painful wound of their exile festered inside them. </p> <p>After a few generations, the wound remained unhealed, fear still plagued them, and the hiding continued. José was a child of that wound, emerging now only cautiously from his hiding. "Teach me," he had said, "but don't tell anyone about this. This must remain a secret."</p> <p>So, even in his attempt to find wholeness, José was still an "escondido" - a hidden one.</p> <p>A year after my first encounter with José, my friend, Christie Balka, invited me to write an article for the anthology she was working on: Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian, Gay and Jewish. She wanted the perspective of a rabbi who was also a lesbian. </p> <p>I swallowed hard and told her : "I can't write an article like that. I'm closeted. I can't risk my position with my congregation." </p> <p>"So write under a pseudonym," Christie replied. "Just write. It's important."</p> <p>Waves of doubt and pain and shame came over me - and I felt physically ill. At that moment, I realized that I was just like José, an "escondida," a hidden one. I was in exile - My life was like the torn parchment of the Sh'ma - incomplete. I was ripped asunder from my own essence, from my own wholeness. At that moment, I began a journey that has led me here tonight, to pray with you, as an avaryanit, which nowadays, I translate not as "transgressor," but as one who had lost her true way. At that moment of realization, I began to walk a path that has not always been easy, that has sometimes been profoundly painful and even terrifying, but one that has also held moments of great joy, pride, reconciliation and liberation. That path has led me here, to this moment, as I stand before you in my wholeness - a lesbian, a feminist, a rabbi, a loving partner, an adoring mother, proud to declare that our daughter Kayla has two mommies, feeling strong enough to guide Kayla through a world that will not always cele brate her family, having faith that Kayla will grow up in a different world that Renee and I experienced. </p> <p>For me, the hiding is over. "Sh'ma Yisra'el, Adonai Eloheinu - and now, now I can mend the torn parchment - now I can say, "Adonai Echad," God is indeed One.</p> <p>Did you know that there is a Chassidic saying that Yom Ha-Kippurim (this Day of Atonement) is equivalent to "Yom k'Purim," a day like Purim? What an absurd statement! Yom Kippur like Purim? What could these two holidays possibly have in common? One is a day of fasting - the other, a day of feasting. One is a day for confronting one's mortality and confessing one's sins - the other, a day of clowning and making merry.</p> <p>There is one thing that Yom Kippur and Purim have in common: masks. On Purim, we don masks and we are to invert the world, so that everything seems opposite of what it really is. And on Yom Ha-Kippurim, we seek to take off our masks, and restore the world to its right and honest order. </p> <p>All of us wear masks, hiding our deepest essences from others, and sometimes even from ourselves. All of us wear masks almost all the time; Often our society forces the masquerade, often we inflict the disguises upon ourselves. We wear our masks so much that sometimes they become part of us, and then we lose ourselves, our wholeness is shattered.</p> <p>What are some of the masks we wear? <ul><li>The mask of a cynic who makes jokes in order to cover up fear and a deep sense of inadequacy;</li> <li>The mask of a "nice person," who never takes a stand and who always avoids controversy, in order to be liked by all;</li> <li>The mask of parents who never speak openly about their child's gayness, because they are ashamed;</li> <li>The mask of a daughter who never brings her female lover home to meet her family, because she fears rejection;</li> <li>The mask of a gay man who seeks to marry a woman in order to hide the truth of who he is;</li> <li>The mask of a Jew who never mentions it, in order to blend in, and not appear too "different";</li> <li>The mask of a friend, who betrays a friendship;</li> <li>The mask of a discreet person, who engages in gossip.</li> </ul> <p>All of us wear masks - Shm'a Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu. . . the parchment is still torn.</p> <p>Yom Kippur is a day to face ourselves as we really are, without pretense, without any cover-up. It is a day to confront the worst in ourselves, a day to acknowledge our brokenness.</p> <p>A day to acknowledge our brokenness. </p> <p>Each year, I eagerly await the sound of the shofar blasts - the sounds penetrate to a deep place within me. I am reminded of what they teach me:</p> <p>First, there is tekiyah! - a whole sound.<br> Next comes sh'varim - three separate sounds, whose name means "breakings."<br> "I started off whole, " the shofar tells me - Tekiya!<br> "And I became broken," - sh'varim - a-ah, a-ah, a-ah!<br> Then follows t'ruah! - a staccato series of blast fragments, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh. . . shouting, "and I was entirely shattered, smashed to pieces." <br> And then, comes that great tekiyah gedolah! - a great, long, whole, breath-taking sound, promising wholeness once more.</p> <p>The shofar cries out, "I was whole, I became broken, even smashed to bits, but I shall be whole again!" </p> <p>If Yom Kippur is a day to acknowledge our brokenness, it is also a day to be proud of who we really are, to embrace that last great tekiyah!, to embrace the best in ourselves, a day to move closer and closer to our wholeness. It is a day of At-One-ment, a time to try to heal the festering wound of being an "escondido," a hidden one. It is a time to end the hiding - from ourselves, from others, and from God.</p> <p>Three years after José first sought me out, it was Kol Nidre night. Everyone was assembled, dusk was descending. I stood on the bima, ready to speak the opening words of Kol Nidre. But the rest of the bima was empty, and my congregants began to wonder - who will chant Kol Nidre on this night?</p> <p> I began: B'yeshiva shel ma'alah u-vishiva shel matah . . . anu matirin l'hitpalel im ha avaryanim. With the authority of the heavenly court and with the authority of the earthly court, we hereby declare it permissible to pray together with the avaryanim, the transgressors. </p> <p>And then José stepped onto the bima, dressed all in white. Soon, his deep voice began: Kol Nidre, v'esarey, v'charamey. . .</p> <p>When he was finished, he came and we embraced, his tears mingling with my own. "I'm finally home now," he said. "I don't have to hide anymore. " </p> <p>Sh'ma Yisra'el, Adonai Eloheinu - Adonai Echad.</p> </TD></TR></TABLE></CENTER> <P><HR> <p align="center"><FONT face=Arial><small><small><b>For a description of any of the graphics on this page, click on the D next to the graphic. <BR>For more information, contact our office at <a href="mailto:office@betmishpachah.org?SUBJECT=Request for Information from Web Site">office@betmishpachah.org</a><br> Send comments about this site to <a href="mailto:webweaver@betmishpachah.org?SUBJECT=Comments About Web Site">webweaver@betmishpachah.org</a>.<br> Copyright 1996 - 2008 Bet Mishpachah.</b></small></small></FONT> <CENTER><font face=Arial size="-1" color="#999999"><small><small><P><b>This page last modified on Sunday, May 18, 2003 at 08:02 PM EDT.</b></small></small></font> </CENTER> </body>