For queer people (and our family and friends), all this wedding fever can come with mixed emotions. Some of us may wonder when we (or our children) will find the right person, or worry that we never will. Some of us feel sad or angry knowing that our communities won’t celebrate our own weddings in the same ways that they recognize straight weddings. Some of us may not have all the people we want celebrating with us on such an important day.
If you’re a parent, join the Parent Chaburah group this week for a discussion on “What’s Up with Wedding Season?” If you’re looking for resources to plan a wedding, or want to offer help to others doing so, reach out to info@eshelonline.org to join our Eshel weddings WhatsApp group! For more ideas, you can browse resources and wedding ceremonies designed by dozens of couples collected by Kol Sasson.
There are a multitude of ways that beautiful, meaningful, celebratory, Jewish and queer weddings can look. This past weekend, Eshel screened The Holy Closet at the Vilna Shul in Boston. The film’s wedding scene is one of the most beautiful and moving moments. A wedding like this, attended and celebrated by family and friends, might have been unimaginable for many of us just a few years ago – and still is for some of us. At the wedding, one of the grooms shared under the chuppah “Thanks to you, I see more light in the world, and for you I strive to be the best I can be…and so that others also know, so that others believe, and see, there is love in the world, and it is great and very powerful. It’s a joy to embark on our journey together, on a path that is yet unpaved, through the desert, in a barren land.”
Far too many LGBTQ+ individuals and couples feel that they are alone in their journey, that they are making a path where no one has been before. And yet the frum LGBTQ+ community has been navigating all of these journeys for many years. This film is a testament to the beautiful ways queer and religious identities can be woven together. As Eshel brings this film to more cities across North America, I am so excited to show LGBTQ+ people, parents, siblings, allies, and leaders what it means to imagine this kind of future. If we can envision it, it is no dream.
Sara Singer