The Kids Are More Than Alright
Pride Shabbat/Parshat Sh’lach 5783
As part of my work here at Ner Tamid, I teach eighth graders. Every Wednesday night when religious school is in session, I gather a group of 13- to 14-year-olds in my basement classroom and we talk Judaism. And let me tell you — it’s amazing. It’s a highlight of my week, every week. It’s one of my favorite parts of this internship, and that’s saying something, because I love this internship.
The eighth-grade curriculum is all about exploring what it means to be a Jew in America today. We look at major events through a Jewish lens. We see what Judaism has to say about particular issues. We did a lot together — the War in Ukraine and that whole mess with Kanye, disability and democracy. But this is Pride Shabbat, so I’m going to tell you about the gayest lesson we had last year.
David and Jonathan. King David, the King David who slew Goliath, who wrote the Psalms. Jonathan, Prince of Israel, son of King Saul. There are no explicit same-sex romances recorded in the Hebrew Bible. And that’s troubling for queer people, because that seems to suggest that we weren’t there. That we weren’t a part of our history. But history is written by those in power, and even today, in 2023, there are those in power trying to erase us. We have always been here, too often in the margins, hidden behind euphemisms and winks, sometimes only hinted at in empty spaces, only discernable in our blatant absence…
