Homosexuality, Orthodox Judaism and shaving
Matisyahu and Y-love are engaged with their religious journeys. It’s time that we all began our own.
Yitz Jordan, known as Y-Love, converted to Judaism in 2000.
Photo by Courtesy of Shemspeed
A self-portrait posted by Matisyahu on Twitter announcing he had shaved his beard.
Photo by Matisyahu
Yitz Jordan has been known by a number of names. His stage name is Y-love, but he’s been known as the African-American Hassidic Rapper, and the African-American Ex-Hassidic Rapper. He has now come out of the closet, and will inevitably be known as the Gay African-American Ex-Hassidic Rapper. In the relatively small world of Religiously Jewish Pop Music, Yitz Jordan is likely to be compared to Matisyahu: born Mathew Miller, he became Matisyahu, the Lubavitch reggae star, and metamorphosed into the post-Lubavitch, neo-Hassidic pop-rock star. He then posted an infamous photo on twitter of his newly de-bearded face, declaring, “No more Chassidic reggae superstar. Sorry folks, all you get is me”.
Within Orthodoxy, there are those who still promote the notion of
“curing” people of their homosexuality. This stance is becoming harder
to defend. The most respectable research supporting the notion of
“treatment” for unwanted “same-sex desire” has just been retracted by
its eminent author, who has become convinced of its unreliably. Homosexuality, much like heterosexuality, is not chosen, and it can’t be changed.
Rabbis around the world routinely invite Shabbat violators to their
dinner tables; they routinely invite intermarried couples, on the
grounds that it’s better to keep the Jewish half of the couple close
than to push them away; I have even been to synagogues and seen
seemingly unrepentant adulterers being called up to the Torah. Openly
gay Jews, on the other hand, don’t get too many invites. Orthodoxy is
bound to view the homosexual act as a sin, but we have no excuse, other
than homophobia, for the sort of isolation that our communities all too
often inflict upon the openly gay.
The recent statement of principles, however, signed by many leading Orthodox educators, is a testament to the fact that progress is being made. "I fully expected to lose most of my Orthodox fan base," Y-love wrote in an e-mail to Haaretz.
"Not only has this not been the case, but I am seeing an outpouring of
support which has completely taken me aback". This provides us with
further, refreshing, evidence that attitudes are changing within
Orthodoxy.
Y-love realises that he’ll never be welcome in the ultra-Orthodox world
to which he once belonged. But, he can still strive to observe Jewish
law without their embrace. "Do I still perform mitzvot?” he asked, “Yes,
of course; but I know that the Haredi/ultra-Orthodox world will never
consider me 'observant' if I'm out.”
Why he felt he had to make his sexual preferences public is a matter
for him alone. Certain desires literally define the contours of your
identity. Perhaps he felt that, in the closet, he was living some sort
of lie. He talks about the tensions that led him to contemplate and
attempt suicide, as well as his aborted heterosexual marriage and his
damaging attempts to “treat” his homosexuality psychologically. This is a
man who has been and continues to go through tremendous psychological
strain as he seeks to juggle his deeply held religious convictions with
his most human desire to live within an intimate and loving
relationship. Orthodoxy has to learn how to embrace people who are in
such a situation without judging them, and, slowly slowly, with lots of hiccups along the way, I think that we, in the Modern Orthodox camp, are learning.
I want to change the focus of this discussion. I want to ask, why do we
care so much about Y-love’s sexual orientation; why do we care so much
about the state of Matisyahu’s facial hair? Having a clean-shaven face
is not, given some qualifications, something that the Torah forbids.
Nonetheless, I had a number of students talking to me, into the small
hours of the morning, about their reaction to Matisyahu’s shaving. Some
of them weren’t bothered at all, but some of them were deeply troubled.
Why?
Matisyahu and Y-love are in the unenviable position of having their
painful religious journeys followed by thousands of onlookers. Any
sincere religious journey is painful. The person of faith is filled with
desire for God and yet the chasm between our finitude and His
infinitude often seems unbridgeable. As Rav Soloveitchik wrote,
“Religion is not, at the outset, a refuge of grace and mercy for the
despondent and desperate”; the religious journey “is not the royal road,
but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep
mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the traveller’s feet.”
So, Matisyahu and Y-love are not alone in their painful soul-searching,
but unlike them, we don’t have the prying eyes of thousands of
interested onlookers, as we thread our way past the abyss. We don’t have
people writing blogs about us on Haaretz.
Why are we interested? Why were some of my students, who happened to be
clean shaven themselves, so disturbed by a person shaving?
I grew up in a small community in England. One of the most learned
rabbis that ever graced our community was a Modern Orthodox graduate of
the Yeshiva in which I now study. Like me, he would, from time to time,
go to the cinema. This does not stand in contradiction to any Jewish
law, providing the film that you’re watching is appropriate. The same
Rabbi also went to a mixed gym, the only local health training he could
afford, in accordance with the advice of his doctor and his own rabbi in
Israel. A certain member of the community was furious. “Rabbis
shouldn’t go the gym!” I heard him declare. “Rabbi’s shouldn’t go the
cinema.” Of course, the Jew in question went to the gym and the cinema
himself. He just didn’t think that rabbis should do it. He had his own,
albeit ill-informed, interpretation of Judaism, and though he didn’t
want to live by it, he did want to make sure that the Rabbi employed by
his community lived by it. For some of their fans, Matisyahu and Y-love
were living their religion for them. Their twists and turns ushered all
of their fans along that narrow, twisting footway with them. People were
living out their religious commitments vicariously. This isn’t the job
of a singer or a rapper.
When Shavuot comes this year, we stand again at the bottom of Mount
Sinai. Moses can’t keep the commandments for us. That’s not his job.
That kind of dependence on others leads to the creation of golden calves
– Moses didn’t come down in time, so we created a replacement.
Matisyahu and Y-love are engaged with their religious journeys. It’s
time that we all began our own.
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