In June 2023, New Voices published a series of micro-stories about “Queer Jewish Joy”. As hostility toward trans and queer people persists across the country, we can derive strength from the moments that remind us how beautiful it is to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community. As we continue to fight for justice, stories of queer love, laughter, friendship, celebration, spirituality, and chosen family are as important as ever.
To love is to gamble on the promise that our todays will envy our tomorrows.
But what if loving meant gambling on yesterdays just as boundless, not with fear of what was, but with unrelenting hope?
I’m no stranger to excavating worn, washed out threads, transforming them into strings strong enough to weave memories into a quilt as intimate as skin on skin. To quote the whimsical, queer joy-full show Amphibia, “I love the found family trope!”
However, I had given up looking for a foundation of joy within my community, especially when it came to love. When I was derided for even floating the possibility that I was genderqueer,
Enter Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish, two souls intertwined in their thirst for wisdom, their fervor for what is just, for their families and for their pride, two souls transfixed by each other’s beauty of the mind and left to suffer.
Upon reading this text, snippets of conversation floated through the room:
“Oh my god this is so homoerotic!”
“It’s giving Song of Achilles…”
Until that delightfully chaotic, heart-cradling session of Yale’s Jewish Learning Fellowship, I didn’t think I could gush about tragic MLM stories in the context of Judaism . I didn’t think I could find queer Joy within my roots, much less roots dating 2000 years back.
What had seemed miracle or museum transformed paper and ink into home, transformed love into a collection of yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows smiling upon each other for another 2000 years and 2000 hearts to come.
