For years I have grappled with the pasuk in this week’s parsha:
וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא׃
Starting around 13 years old, I began to feel immense guilt and shame whenever this pasuk was read aloud in shul, usually by the Rabbi, who also happened to be my father. I thought that Hashem was telling me there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Still, as I grew to understand that I was gay, and that no amount of tefillos would change that, I felt the need to be honest about who I was.
When I came out of the closet in 2009, the initial reactions I got didn’t express concern for my wellbeing. Instead, they compounded my pain as those I came out to threw this pasuk at me. “Don’t you know what the Torah says in Vayikra?”
What I wish I had told them was “How could I not know??” But my relationship with this pasuk, how I reconcile who I am with the difficult parts of the Torah, is between me and Hashem. What I didn’t need, on top of my internal struggles, was my community rejecting me.
Every time I went to shul, I would hear people whispering about me from a few seats away. “What is he doing here?” “Is it true?” “Did he really come out?” Those whispers stuck in my head. Their judgment followed me at Yeshiva University when Rabbis and peers put up signed letters demanding my removal from student government and student life on campus. I got the message loud and clear: you don’t belong here.
Unsurprisingly, my own mental health began to decline. I thought that what I needed was to protect my peace. I began to opt-out of the things that made me uncomfortable. I would skip shul for the reading of the arayot on Parshat Acharei Mot every year, and at Yom Kippur mincha. Slowly, skipping one pasuk, skipping one leyning, led to me spending less and less time in shul in order to avoid judgment and rejection. It was a slippery slope, until I stopped going to shul altogether.
What I’ve realized in the past year is that I didn’t need to protect my peace. What I needed was my community. Earlier this year, I wrote about returning to the community, “hanging up my discomfort” at the door, and reconnecting with Hashem in the shul space. I’ve been able to find frum spaces that don’t reject me. By allowing that door to open, I returned to the power of davening. I remembered the warmth and power of praying as a community, of being vulnerable instead of holding myself back. I rediscovered parts of myself I was scared I had lost – getting an aliyah to the Torah, being a Shaliach Tzibur, and leyning in the trope I studied with my father, who studied with his father.
A few weeks ago, when arranging the leyning for Parshat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim, I signed up to take an aliyah without thinking too much about it. Of course, as soon as I began to prepare I realized that I had signed up to read the verse used against LGBTQ+ people for years. Could I truly read these words, for the entire community? I quickly understood this was another bracha from Hashem – a chance to work through my personal discomfort, as a full member of the tzibbur.
Frum Jews who don’t understand the LGBTQ+ experience, or who haven’t taken the time to understand LGBTQ+ halacha, often resort to discrimination as an excuse not to understand us, and to kick us out of Torah spaces, even Yeshiva University. Using Leviticus 18:22 as a reason to create a blanket ban on LGBTQ+ students isn’t an honest engagement with the halacha – its laziness. Knowing that someone is LGBTQ+ provides no information about what takes place in their most intimate moments. I know now that I didn’t deserve the treatment I received from my community. Leyning this parsha now, being in close relationship with this Torah, I know that the discrimination I was subjected to, the whispers that followed me, was never coming from Hashem. It came from the discomfort and limitations of people.
I am more convinced than ever of the power of community and belonging, and inspired to continue to uplift and include the marginalized in all frum communities. As I head into this weekend’s parent retreat, I know there are so many LGBTQ+ families, adults, parents of youth, that are still uncomfortable with the way the words of the Torah are used against them. As I leyn those words out loud, I will do so knowing I am embodying Hashem’s true values. A living Torah has space for everyone.
תּוֹרַת ה’ תְּמִימָה, מְשִׁיבַת נָפֶשׁ
Hashem’s Torah is perfect, renewing life.
A true Torah life, an Orthodox life, means grappling with the holy words, the black fire on white fire, not running from them. I’m grateful to have found a Torah community that stands with me instead of pushing away, that supports me so that I can stay in relationship with them and with Hashem.
Ely Winkler
Director of Advancement