My, how much has changed in four years.
I still don't believe in God. But the factor of belief or disbelief has grown fainter with time. Less important. I stress about it less. Sometime in 2019 I realized I'd rather imagine God as someone who loves everyone, or at least doesn't pointlessly punish people. Or, put another way, no God of mine would push people away because of ancient precepts.
And coming in contact with people on the un-privileged side of things really helped me understand how much of religion is not about your faith, but in the faith of others in you. What kind of God rejects LBTQ+ people who want to be practicing Jews? What kind of messed-up Judaism is it where congregants refuse to give men who are known to be gay, aliyot? Burn it up and start over, for the trappings of religion are too far gone.
To wear a kippah is a statement, a statement that yes, I do stress about often. Because I still wear one, everywhere. It is my Star of David on a necklace. For how can I escape it? Get stoned? Talk about religion. Take psychedelics? Talk about religion. I have glasses and a Semitic face, how could I escape it?
Plus, to wear a kippah is an undeniable statement of faith. At least to me. And yet it annoys me, every time I get classified as some sort of square just because of this circle of fabric on my hair. At get togethers, birthday parties, even at shul. I'm the odd person out because of the kippah, the marker of Orthodoxy, and thanks to my intolerant brethren, of intolerance. And then for some reason people get surprised when I think a little different.
Six months ago I moved to New York City. Suddenly, lifted from my community and friends, I found myself in a strange place where the Jews were all smug and unbelievably comfortable. When mentioning my hometown, all people could talk about was guns. And with time I've grown to anticipate these meals with trepidation, reverting to bad habits of trying to prod information out of people, turn the conversation somewhere interesting. Somehow NYC has made me more proud to be from Houston, a Jew in a place where it's not quite as easy to be Jewish as in NYC, a place where the community is smaller, people know each other. It's more tight-knit.
But, I also found a nightclub in Bushwick, an hour by two subways. I came wanting to listen to more Chicago House sets, but instead discovered something totally different. A world of dancing to endless music sets, hours at a time, immersed in a room either full of fog, or clear, for early morning and afternoon raves. A world where, sometimes with the guide of edibles, I practiced shaking off anxiety, a childhood fear of moving to the beat, practiced self-expression, removing self-doubt. Feeling comfortable with the space, I bop, bounce, tap, and sway, all the while keeping to the hard, grinding, 4-to-the-floor beats of techno house, trying to will my legs into movement, keeping them going however possible, turning long hours of cycling into long hours of dancing, counting the steps, staying on beat no matter what. Once I'm on the floor, where phones are forbidden, no one will truly care who I am or what I'm doing. It won't be weird, it won't be funny, no one cares and no one will take video of me being myself.
And yes, I wear a kippah there. (Except the two times I've gone on a Friday night, to experiment, and even then it was in my pocket and I wore a baseball cap.) Just like all the queer people who frequent this nightclub, I have an identity, and I don't need body piercings, bright neon hair color, fishnets or puppy play outfits to show who I am. I'm Jewish. And it's funny when people see that and tell you they're Jewish.
And I can be myself, 100%. No one to judge me to my face, for wearing a kippah. And I have stamina, iterated through practice, have a routine (eat buckwheat in advance, back stretches, clif bars, gu gels, for sustenance, IV powder for micronutrients, disposable deoderant napkins), I can show people that even a Jew with a kippah can get down.
And now that I'm here, I wonder: what, besides for the need for Tefillin, prohibits Jews from coming here? Is it too far off the beaten path? Too strange, too unusual? What is particularly un-Jewish about this activity?
I try to explain the concept of dancing for hours in a nightclub in the daytime, or foggy nighttime, to Jewish friends I've made, and wonder why the gulf is so far apart between our two conceptions.
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