Queer Pride and Shavuot

June is Pride Month. It's the month of the year that gay pride parades happen all over the world and when everything, from print ads to television commercials, are painted rainbow. When you can buy rainbow colored jock straps at Macy's of all places and you start seeing rainbow flags posted on the streets.

Emet and I recently went to the Castro in San Francisco, and it was like Pride all year round. Flags and couples out and about together all the time.

The Castro under construction. They are adding rainbow crosswalks...really.

As Shavuot approaches tonight, I've been thinking about how this holiday, the day of the giving of the Torah, and Queer Pride Month are related. Rabbi Sacks wrote in his discussion on Shavuot this week that the holiday is not given a calendar date. Shavuot is introduced in the Torah as follows:

"From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord . . . On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live." (Leviticus 23: 15-21)

This is the only holiday that is not given a date. For example, we know when Yom Kippur is because the Torah says "The tenth day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement" (Leviticus 23:26). Also, it is unclear which Shabbat this verse is discussing. The previous verses talk about Passover, not Shabbat. Finally, what is Shavuot really about? This verse simply states that we should hold a sacred assembly that day, but for what purpose? 

The rabbis of the Talmud have figured that Shavuot is about the giving of the Torah, the day of the revelation at Sinai and the day that the Israelites made a covenant with Gd. Other references to Shavuot are about agriculture and the wheat harvest.

There are a lot of traditions tied to Shavuot, but no one really knows why. We can only speculate. One, we should eat a dairy meal - because this is the day that the Israelites learned laws of kashrut. Two, we should stay up all night learning. (Read about my experience in Shavuot last year here.) Three, we should read the book of Ruth about conversion. According to Chabad, this is because we observe the yartzeit of King David, and the Book of Ruth records his ancestry. It is also because the scenes of harvesting described in the book are appropriate for the Festival of Harvest, and finally because Ruth was a sincere convert, on Shavuot, all Jews are converts, having accepted the Torah given by Gd on Mount Sinai. 

It is so clear to me how being queer and being Jewish intersect at Shavuot. We don't know why Gd chose this day of all the days to be Shavuot. I don't know why Gd chose me to be queer. On Shavuot, Jews feel proud to be Jewish, honored to have been given the Torah, and grateful that Gd gave us the opportunity and ability to learn and grow as Jews all our lives. I am proud to be queer, just as I am proud to be Jewish, and I thank Gd that I am who I am. I feel honored and grateful that I have the ability and opportunity to live an authentic life with my partner, as a queer Jew. It is on this holiday that I am remembering how lucky I am to have a supportive family and community to celebrate with, and that my queerness and Jewishness don't conflict. Instead, they thread together perfectly, like the wheat that is harvested during this festival.

To have the ability to live a life as a queer Jew, we should celebrate our intersecting identities and strive to live authentically. Just as we embrace Shavuot, regardless of the inability to understand the why's of celebrating the festival, we should embrace ourselves, regardless of the inability to understand the why's of being.

Chag Sameach and Happy Pride!