#because many of the people in our congregation were Full-On Adults in the early 90s

[nonstandardrepertoire]

Parashat Pinəḥas, 5784

(This dəvar was originally given at Kolot Chayeinu on the morning of Saturday, 27 July, 2024.)

Today's Torah portion comes from the book of Numbers, which is called that in English because it has so many lists of numbers of things. Several of those lists occur in today's portion, including a second census of all the Israelites in the wilderness. You may remember a similar census being taken way back at the beginning of the book, some forty years ago or so; we have to do another one here because the entire generation that was counted in that first census has since died. Or, well, that entire generation minus Mosheh (for now), Yəhoshú’a and Kaleiv, and everyone who wasn't yet 20 the first time around. But still, close enough. An entire generation, give or take, minus those spared by G-d or fate or what have you.

Perhaps because it's a census of the next generation, this list of Israelite adults contains some little nuggets of history along with the tribal tallies. We hear about Qóraḥ's rebellion, for example, and then we hear that the sons of Qóraḥ did not die.

It gets an entire verse all to itself, Numbers 26:11: And the sons of Qóraḥ did not die.

What do we make of this?

One approach is to take it very literally: Qóraḥ had some sons, they didn't rebel with him, they didn't die. That's the approach Ibn Ezra — a scholar from early twelfth-century Spain — takes. He notes that several psalms are attributed to the tribe of Qóraḥ, surmises that these must be Qóraḥ's descendants, and explains that some of Qóraḥ's kids must therefore have survived. Easy enough.

But if you know anything about our tradition, you know that our sages of blessed memory are seldom satisfied with a simple surface reading, and they have some wild things to extrapolate from this one verse. The Babylonian Talmud, in tractate Sanhedrin, page 110a, records a story from Rabba bar bar Ḥanah. He says he met a guy this one time who brought him to a crack in the earth that belched steam and heat so intense it could singe wet wool when passed over it at spear's length. And yet when bar bar Ḥanah listened, he heard the sons of Qóraḥ singing songs of praise from the underworld.

The Talmud doesn't cite a Biblical prooftext for this story, but we can find an allusion to it in Numbers 26:11 itself: If you take the first letter of each word in the verse, you get ו, ק, ל, ם, which together spell vəqolam, "and their voice". The sons of Qóraḥ did not die, and neither did their voice. If you listen, perhaps you can still hear it today.

What does that voice tell us? If you take Mosheh's side of the dispute, which the sages certainly do, this is a warning that no victory is final, that there will never be a perfectly stable society where no one seeks to challenge the status quo. It's a warning against resting on your laurels, a warning that leadership requires constant attention to discontent among those you hope to lead.

If you take Qóraḥ's side, tho, it suggests that defeat need not be final either, that a setback, however ruinous, to the cause of pursuing justice is never the end of the story — the sons of Qóraḥ did not die; another generation will come and carry on the fight.

This reading echoes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's quip that dissents speak to a future age, that the dissenter's hope is that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.[1] Dissents like these remind us that the past is not flat, that the majority or official opinions aren't the only ones that existed, and that the world does not always move in a tidy line from less to more just.

Our tradition is full of dissents such as these. One that I come back to regularly as I build my own Jewish life is a dissent from Rabbi Howard Handler from 1992. At the time, Rabbi Handler was a member of the Conservative Movement's halakhic authority, the Committee for Jewish Law and Standards, which was debating whether to alter the traditional ban on homosexuality. The majority opinions adopted by the Committee reflect the ambient homophobia of the time — the consensus position includes a clause saying they will not accept "avowed homosexuals'' into the movement's rabbinical school, for example — but Rabbi Handler's dissent is having none of it. He writes:

The CJLS has made gay and lesbian Jews second-class citizens or, even worse, a tolerated minority. . . . The policies are discriminatory at best and profoundly oppressive in any event. There is no reason for us to hesitate in accepting gays and lesbians into our community with complete equality.[2]

In some ways, this dissent, with its insistence on full equality for queer Jews, goes further than the Committee would go some fourteen years later, in 2006, when the Committee finally approved a təshuvah abrogating their halakhic ban.[3] His dissent is a reminder of what could have been, that there is a radical tradition there for us in the past, no matter how hard some have tried to bury it.

Rabbi Handler wrote these words some ten years into the AIDS crisis. Despite Fukuyama's "End of History", it was a time of tremendous upheaval, uncertainty, and death. In my undergraduate gay and lesbian history class, the lecture on the early years of the crisis was the one lecture my professor asked us not to take notes on. Instead of his usual academic analysis, he just showed us pictures from when he was in college, some 40 years ago or so, pictures of his friends, with little annecdotes about each of them in turn. This one would always make sure you got home safe from the party, no matter how drunk you were. This one was so beautiful, but so annoying to be in class with. This one sang so enthusiastically, even if he wasn't always the most in tune. Each of these stories, a whole hour's worth of them, ended in the same way: And he died. And he died. And he died. A whole generation, give or take, minus those spared by G-d or fate or what have you.

In 1993, Rabbi Handler was outed and fired from the congregation where he had had a pulpit. He was kicked off the Committee for Jewish Law and Standards, and his former colleagues debated whether the movement should help him find a new job. In a decision stark in its cruelty, fourteen of these rabbis voted to deny him that help. He was left without a rabbinical position.

But the sons of Qóraḥ did not die.

Queer Jews did not simply go away. We certainly didn't get any quieter. 1992 was not the first time we asserted our halakhic rights, and it would not be the last. The struggle is far from over, but more and more, these days, it's the people who would shame us who are themselves shamed instead.

We are living in a time of tremendous upheaval, uncertainty, and death. (When are we not!) I don't know how it will all turn out. I don't know what the ledger will say when the final case has been tried and decided, the final verdict rendered with no appeal left in any court human or Divine. I don't know where things will stand when history truly, finally ends. I don't know what happens when that day comes.

But I do know it won't come for a while yet. And so even when the prospects seem bleak, when I am in despair and the possibility of bending the universe towards justice seems faint, remote, impossible, even then I keep working, keep putting my little voice out into the world. Because I want there to be a record of it. Because I want people to know I was here. Because, even if things don't all turn out the way I hope they will, perhaps another generation in some future age will be able to say "Look! Even back then, there were people who thought like this, who fought for these ideals, however imperfectly and unsuccessfully.''

Because the sons of Qóraḥ will not die.

Shabbat shalom.

This quote has been widely repeated, which makes it difficult to track down a precise source. If anyone can point me to the origin, I'd love to cite it more properly.

Rabbi Howard Handler, “In the Image of G-d: A Dissent in Favor of the Full Equality of Gay and Lesbian Jews into the Community of Conservative Judaism”, 25 Mar, 1992 (PDF)

In my experience, many Conservative shuls today go much further than even the most permissive ruling in 2006 would theoretically allow. The ruling in question explicitly says that bisexual Jews must only enter into relationships with Jews of the "opposite" binary gender, and bars gay and lesbian Jews from sanctifying their relationships with the rite of qidushin. (Instead, they create an alternate rite that heterosexual Jews are not supposed to use — it's very marriage vs civil union, honestly.[4]) I have been in many Conservative shuls in the past ~8 years where I would be, frankly, shocked if the suggestion that bisexuals halakhically ought to limit themselves to heterosexuality were met with anything other than shocked condemnation. There is the Law, and then there is the Community, and I think it's important to remember that they're not always in synch.[5]

Or at least, that's the theory. In 2017, the CJLS approved a təshuvah about trans people that, among other things, allows married Jews to stay married after one of them transitions, meaning that you can, in fact, have two men or two women joined in qidushin or a man and a woman joined with the bərit ahuvim after all. But I digress...

That said, from what I gather, both the 1992 and 2006 discussions of gay and lesbian Jews in the CJLS were acrimonious and distressing for most of those involved, so I understand why they're not exactly eager to dredge the whole thing up again.

[outhereontheprairie]

Streeter SDA Church

I’ve waited a very long time to write this post. Mainly because the first time I wrote it, when I was almost finished, tumblr malfunctioned and I lost all the writing. So today I’m going to try and recreate everything I wrote. This place is precious to me, and I want to do it justice. This place is the Streeter SDA church in North Dakota. And it’s empty now. But when I was a child it was home to one of my favorite summer activities - Vacation Bible School. The old fashioned way. 

In my wanderings, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to come upon an abandoned place that I once knew when it was not abandoned. And when I saw the Streeter church for the first time in many, many years back in May of 2018 I suddenly knew that feeling. It’s not a joyful feeling. It’s melancholy and nostalgia and sadness. But I’m so glad I got to capture it before it fell apart. 

When I was a child in the 90s, this church had a big VBS program. Even though it was way out in the country, kids who didn’t even belong to the church attended. And my mom drove brother and me all the way from Garrison ND each summer to take part. We stayed with our old family friends on their farm which was near to the church, and our moms both helped with the program. 

I got to explore the old church, now closed for years, with my friend Bethany who also attended VBS with me when we were kids. Her dad helped us get in, and my dad came along too. I can’t thank them all enough for giving me this opportunity to photograph and remember.

It was startling to see the amount of decay on the building right off the bat. This little country church was always kept immaculate when I attended. There was so much pride in this little house of worship. 

How many times did I skip through this door? Coming from playing red rover or the craft tent or going to the sanctuary or one of the classrooms...countless. But that day in 2018 I saw the toll time takes on empty buildings. It was sad.

First thing each morning we would arrive early to VBS because our moms were part of the program, lunch pails in hand. We took our lunches in old ice cream buckets. And we waited for VBS to start. 

Our lunch pails went on the shelving below, and if it was a chilly prairie morning our jackets were hung on hangers on the bar below. The classrooms were to the right, tiny half bath straight ahead. Sanctuary to the left. 

Through the door below was the sanctuary - which we will get to. 

Here is one of the classrooms. Nice high ceilings. There were tables here and we worked on Bible workbooks and such. 

Looking into the other classroom - there used to be a partition that could be pulled to separate the two rooms. Generally the younger kids went in one room and older kids in another. 

I can’t believe the piano and nice large cupboards are still here. The nice old piano sits silent now, but I remember when it was used.

Looking back into the first classroom. you can see some of the ceiling has fallen onto the carpet. There’s a hole in the wall. Nature is making its way in. 

Below is the tiny bathroom where we would line up to wash our hands before eating lunch out of our little ice cream lunch buckets. It was always very clean, kept so by ladies from the congregation. None that I knew were too proud for this job. And as VBS students we were taught to be respectful of everything and not dirty any room up too much. 

Out this door we would go for lunch and sit on the front steps or in the grass to eat our lunches, carefully packed by our moms. There were always good sandwiches and veggies and if we were really lucky an oreo or two, or a small baggie of cheetos. For some reason eating out of those old ice cream buckets out in the fresh summer grass and sun made everything taste better. Lunch was hard won after a long morning doing VBS activities. 

On a brief side note: our moms knew each other for ages and were room mates back in high school. So, while my dad always had to stay back in Garrison to work, my friend’s dad of course had to run the farm we stayed on so he was around. He also had known both of my parents and his wife since high school. They were all old friends. And his wife and my mom loved to play pranks on him. One day, they packed him a lunch because he would be out in the fields while we were at VBS. Instead of cheetos, they packed him packing peanuts that they colored with an orange marker. Which he ate. And then told them they must have expired! One of many pranks I remember the adults playing on each other. It was a fun environment to be in as a kid. And it made for some of the sweetest memories I have of childhood. Anyway, back to the church we go...

After lunch we would line up and go into the sanctuary. Older kids sat with older kids and younger with younger. I was startled to see, exploring it after it was empty, that the sanctuary had no more pews. 

The pastor or another church volunteer would lead us in all kinds of fun kids songs. A favorite was “I just wanna be a sheep, ba ba ba ba...” until the older kids got carried away with the “I don’t wanna be a hypocrite” where you were supposed to lightly bump hips...they full on hip checked! Which of course I found hilarious but the adults, not so much. 

Of course what I remember most is the music, and virtually none of the speaking. It’s just how my brain works. Other notable favorite songs (that I can remember) are “Do Lord”, “Deep and Wide”, “Zacchaeus”, “Give Me Oil in My Lamp”, “Father Abraham”, “This Little Light of Mine”, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, “I’ve Got the Joy”, “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock”, “My God is So Big”, “I’m in the Lord’s Army” - and many more my brain has long ago archived. I just remember we loved the upbeat songs and didn’t like the slower more reverent songs. Actually, it’s not that I didn’t like them but I more appreciated them in a formal, normal, church service instead of VBS which was for kids. 

At the end of the week of VBS we would always have a big final program for everyone’s parents to attend and usually my dad drove down from Garrison to attend so it felt like a big deal. It was the same feeling I would later get being in a play and arriving at the first performance or practicing in a choir and the time for the concert being eminent. A great feeling, to me. Our craft projects would be displayed in the craft tent. Our workbooks and such would be displayed in the classrooms, and we would put on a final program in the sanctuary with all the songs, lessons, and verses we learned. 

We would line up on this stage (and there were so many some of us would be off the stage) by age/class and sing our songs and recite our Bible verses. It was a thrilling feeling. Somewhere I’m sure our friends that live on the farm have a VHS tape of it. Maybe I can get my hands on it someday. 

All of this came flooding back into my brain when I stepped in that quiet, empty sanctuary. Bittersweet. So bittersweet. Because if I ever have children, they will never know the joy of an old fashioned VBS. There is just nothing like it. 

I also recall racing out of the sanctuary and out the front doors for recess time! That was a big deal, especially for a kid like me that had ADD. I loved to get out of the classroom and into the sunshine! 

And most always it was a beautiful prairie summer outside! (I can only remember a few instances of cold and rain.)

This empty space in front of the church always had rows and rows of cars parked. Now it’s so quiet. 

Around this side of the church is where we played our games! And the most memorable was Red Rover! We loved Red Rover. “Red rover, red rover send *NAME HERE* right over!” But the adults weren’t thrilled at how forcefully the older kids were playing the game when some of the little ones were involved so we couldn’t play Red Rover anymore. Which was a bummer. But we had all kinds of other fun games, some as simple as tag which was always a good time.

I could almost hear the children’s voices calling and laughing on that quiet spring day. I wondered if Bethany could feel it too. The memories were so close yet so far in the past at the same time. 

Below, in the distance, was the church graveyard. When I had extra time at recess or lunch I would wander over there and look at the graves and names and wonder about the people. It’s something I still do - I’m drawn to graveyards and always wonder about the people buried there. 

Below: this side of the church shows which way the weather comes from. The siding is slowly losing the white paint. You can see the roof isn’t in great shape either, anymore. 

The fields were always close at hand to this little country church. They surrounded it on its little plot of prairie. 

Below we have the space where the big old sturdy craft tent would go. Back then it felt like a big space. It’s where our moms worked most of the years, thinking up and executing crafts for the kids to do. And you know what? They were never the typical “let’s throw this away later” kid crafts either! They were always pretty or useful. We hot glued dried flowers to little colored glass vases and once we made a gingerbread man cork board with little tacks. All the crafts were always good and fun. I enjoyed craft time. 

The craft tent is also where I remember huddling in front of a very old and questionable heater on the few occasions it was cold and rainy. 

When we walked around this side of the church in 2018 we found pieces of the heavy old carpet they put down on the bottom of the craft tent. It was moldering away in the grass.

Below was a door we weren’t really allowed near because it lead to rooms behind the pulpit/stage that the pastor used. It’s funny what you remember. 

I was surprised to find that the old church sign was still up, and readable, out in the prairie grass. 

Perhaps someone should note that it’s closed now...

Thanks to Bethany’s mom, I have this old photo of what the church looked like back in its heyday, which was before even my time. It was such a modern little church, and clearly the partitioners were very proud of it. And look at those old cars and the fashions! 

It was a bit painful to leave the old church. I do wonder if I’ll ever see it again. But I’m so thankful I got one last tour and one last chance to photograph it. I know it doesn’t look like some of the older little country churches with steeples and such, but it is beautiful to me and dear to my heart. 

Long after the building is gone I’ll still have the memories of an old fashioned, country church VBS. They’re getting a little fuzzier as I get older, but these pictures and the old songs I can recall help me remember it all, at least a bit. 

Thank you so much to Bethany and family for taking me through the church, to dad for coming along, and to our dear old friends the Millers for hosting us each summer when I was little and helping make the VBS program what it was just so one last generation of kids could experience VBS as it should be.