volume 5: goy diaries
shame, judaism and other things caught between my loins
I am still thinking about dying. Perhaps as I approach my quarter life landmark — or as I realize that 25 is probably more like my third life landmark. Or as I wonder about monkey pox. Or my womb. (Do I have endometriosis? Will it even work?) As I think about lucky number 7 years in Toronto. Since the end of babyhood, leaving the nest and flying 200km due north. As I think about roommates and whether I will have them forever. Or if one day I might own that witchy stone fortress, tucked in behind the pine trees, a generous distance from the sidewalk, covered in ivy and perfectly old. With rainbow walls and rainbow rooms, where I’ll eat painfully crunchy sourdough toast (knives) for breakfast in the backyard, surrounded by the fluffiest grass as my childhood home bred me to crave. I will be able to afford it. And it will be summer forever. Or at least, summer, fall, Christmas and then summer again.
I’ve been thinking about dying and time. Good time. Bad time. Time that sneaks up on you and time that is boring and best sped through. How some time I wish went on forever and how some is better temporary. Whether I am running out of time. Wasting time. Spending too much time in my head. Time in love and time in tears. Time in tears in love. How life is about love and time spent loving (people/places/things). How time creates knowing. And how good it feels to know and be known in love. How lately I long to be known.
I am thinking about dying and shame. And time spent in shame. And whether I will carry this bowl of shame with me forever. To No Frills, to the mall, to my boyfriend’s house. In my belly button, in my bare hands or in my black eyes. Up my sleeve, upstairs, up to the heavens. Whether I am still in synagogue or Hebrew school or USY. Why it is Shabbat and there are no candles, no Challah, and no God.
I forget how religious my body is. Until, I’m standing in a sex shop, comparing silicone lube brands, wiping my slippery hands on a Kleenex and I feel God. I think I carry him/her/them/it somewhere in my pelvis. Beneath my loins. Slotted in between my spinal chord disks is a passover seder and the fear of disappointing my Rabbi.
(Look at me spelling God earnestly. As opposed to the favourable, more sarcastic spelling: G-d.)
I’ve realized my Orthodox Jewish childhood is the weirdest thing about me. Weirder then growing boobs at 10 years old (more like mole hills, but still) or being an only (lonely) child or being Black. Weird because my conscious adult self is in rejection of religion. Of idolization. Of crabby elitist white people. Of the London Community Hebrew Day School. Of long itchy knee length skirts.
It’s weird because I forget I speak Hebrew. And that it used to be a big deal to eat outside my house. Or that I had a strong, consistent, meaningful relationship with my Lubavitch (the New York City kind of Jewish) Rabbi and Rebbetzin and their 6 children growing up.
The weirdness is also extrinsically imposed somewhere between “I didn’t know Black people could be Jewish” and “Your Black dad obviously converted”. Typically, communicated through the eyes, but sometimes, more bravely through the mouth. Coupled with “Okay, but how Jewish are you?” Requesting my resume. My Judaism isn’t implied. Despite the evidence in my name: Shuli Yael Grosman-Gray (Gray, a name of slaveowners and gentiles).
In But I’m a Cheerleader the head of the conversion centre pushes the teens to source their “root” — the reason they stand before her, shiny and gay. I think my root might be Congregation B*th T*filah. Not for any biblically forbidden goings on. But, in the ingrained rigidity of Orthodox Judaism. There is just something so queer about keeping Kosher.
I tell people I’m Jewish all the time, but I often omit the cold hard facts of my experience, because a) it is the size of a whale, and b) I often forget where I came from. The details are chaotic and shocking and truly ridiculous. Religion, while “beautiful” and “spiritual” and “purposeful” is so deeply silly. So random XD.
To enlighten the goyim (derogatory), here is a list of childhood experiences that do not hold water out of context —
Ritualistically pre-ripping squares of toilet paper before sundown on Friday. !Must not rip toilet paper on Shabbat!
Preparing lies in my head about having braided my hair specifically before sundown on Friday, as not to reveal that I had actually braided my hair Shabbat morning and therefore, sinned by mimicking the act of bundling wheat. Farming: strictly forbidden on the Sabbath.
Men and women (including girls and boys over 12) seated for prayer on separate sides of an ornate 4 foot tiny see-through wooden divider (Mechitza).
Balancing the perfect volume of singing as not to stand out in the congregation or at my Rabbi’s dinner table and potentially turn-on or distract the men with my sexy little voice.
The weightiness of Friday nights. Re: family Shabbat Dinner. The most popular high school party evening. And my inability to participate in Friday Night culture in all of high school.
Rabbis performing circumcision, live on the synagogue stage. A tiny Kleenex full of Manishewitz, the only pain reliever. Followed by a gorgeous array of bagels and lox.
Not being able to turn on or off the lights on Shabbat.
Waiting specifically 1 hour from eating dairy before eating meat, or 6 hours from eating meat before eating dairy.
Post Bat Mitzvah, being specifically seated at my Rabbi’s dinner table out of direct eye contact with their eldest son, my direct peer. A formerly permitted friendship in childhood. Now immodest.
Sometimes, as a rebellion, my still Orthodox, but not Lubavitch, friends and I would see how long we could stand in a room alone with him before he would leave.
My parents still live in this world. Of sacred Fridays and pre-ripped toilet paper and clocking time between meat and dairy. That feels really hard to grasp. The men and women at my synagogue, frozen on either side of the Mechitza. Me, in Toronto.
At day camp, we used to sing “Hashem is here. Hashem is there. Hashem is truly everywhere. Up up. Down Down. Right, left, all around. Here there and everywhere. That’s where he can be found”. (Typed from memory, no google.) As my friend Jake very astutely points out, at no fault to this very catchy song, this is a high concept for children to grasp. God’s spirituality, all knowing-ness, transcendence.
However complicated for tiny campers to grasp, this concept etches a permanent sense of being watched/monitored/recorded. My slutty party outfit. My shame. My Gay. My parents can see. My Rabbi can see. God can see. Through the hive mind. Binoculars.
In my rejection, I look back and laugh and miss the food. I miss warm, potato-y, beefy, barley-y, Cholent. The way the Rebetzen makes it. Admitting that makes my eyes wet. My mind knows how warm it felt to be looked after in such an earnest and stable way by my Rabbi’s family. Regardless of whether it’s the kind of love I truly needed.
There’s this concept of the Yezter Hara (Bad Inclination) and Yetzer HaTov (Good Inclination) — I was told the two inclinations live inside me like tiny angels, deciding with every action whether I will move towards or against the will of God. The Yetzer Hara being less of a devil and more of a tiny voice inviting me to move towards the life of secular, metropolitan life. The life away from God. Bosoms, tequila shots, radical feminism, and promiscuous reality television. The life of freedom. The life I like. The Bad Inclination is inherent, it is stronger and it is craved by the physical body. But, with the commitment to God and the Torah, you can move towards the Yetzer HaTov and see the benefits of the mutual exchange.
I think when I feel my shame, deep in my pelvis, I am actually feeling the grief of rejecting the Yetzer HaTov. He cries for me. And I cry too. As I choose his death, over and over and over again.
This month, I thought I would paint a picture of truly religious Shuli, through a brief set of photos. Here are some photos of me in my God era.
They say if you look back on the years that define you, they span the course of a very short period in time. The same is true here. A very defining 5 or so years.
