Torah, Blintzes, and Queer Youth Homelessness
As the CBST community assembled for Tikkun Leyl Shavuot and prepared to receive Torah, we examined the epidemic of queer youth homelessness through a Jewish lens. For me, the tikkun was inspiring as it created a space in which our religious practice and social justice work could come together, each informing the other.
Members of our Koleinu Marriage Equality & LGBT Rights Action Team led the first session. Our text study, based on excerpts from the Book of Ruth, focused on the complex experience of journeying to or from a home -- what does it mean to have or not have a home? In what ways is homelessness about lacking a physical space, and in what ways is it about the loss of essential relationships? After hearing a personal narrative from one of our members, and reflecting on our own stories, we considered the ways in which our experiences -- and those we find in Jewish texts -- can make fighting for justice with homeless LGBTQ youth personally meaningful.
We reviewed the facts about youth homelessness in New York City as well as concrete actions that CBST members can take through Koleinu’s campaign to end LGBTQ youth homelessness. We signed a community letter to Gov. Cuomo and made personal commitments such as having a one-to-one meeting with a Koleinu leader, joining us at the next action team meeting , and calling Gov. Cuomo’s office to demand adequate funding for essential shelter beds.
The theme of queer youth homelessness continued into the night as Social Justice Rabbinical Intern Guy Austrian facilitated a session about receiving and studying Torah. We considered the importance of studying not only torah sh’b’ktav (written torah) but also torah sh’baal peh (oral torah). In our social justice work, this means not only looking at policy documents and statistics but actually bringing the voices of queer youth to the table and allowing their experiences and perspectives to guide our work as allies.
This point was a perfect segue into Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern Ari Lev Fornari’s teaching, in which we studied the t’filat haderech (traveler’s prayer) along with excerpts from Kicked Out , an anthology written by current and formerly homeless LGBTQ youth. In studying these texts we were invited to think about our own journeys as well as those recounted in the text.
Our tikkun was deeply religious and deeply queer, text-based and also action-oriented. I felt honored to be a part of this program and blessed to experience it with such an amazing community.
