The Queen is in This Field

Where Are You?

It’s just a few weeks until Rosh HaShanah, our Jewish New Year.
We are in Elul, the month when we reflect and reconnect and reconsider and pray and commit to change and give tzedakah and get ready to greet it.

We remember what we’ve done that was good, that made life better for us and for others, that was us being the most all that we are.

We remember what we’ve done that wasn’t good, that made life harder for us and for others, that hurt or distanced or neglected, that was us being something less than ourselves. 

We think about where we’ve been, and where we are, and where we hope to go.

וַיִּקְרָ֛א יי אֱלֹקִ֖ים אֶל־הָֽאָדָ֑ם וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ל֖וֹ אַיֶּֽכָּה׃

And God called out to that human, va’yikra Adonai Elohim el-haAdam, and said, vayomer, “Where are you?” Ayekah?

And the human replied, I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because of all of the things I knew, because of my cracked open eyes and mind. 

So I hid.

Of course, it’s typically translated that the human was afraid because of their nakedness. But the thing about that word, naked, arum, in this text is that it is the same word that is used for the mental workings of the snake. So is it that the snake is cunning, or is it that the snake is naked, or is it that the snake knows things and knows it knows? Is it that the human is naked, or that the human’s knowledge is somehow exposed? It seems God knew.

“Who told you that you were naked?” God asks. “Did you eat from the tree?”

So God knew, and now the human knows that the human knows . . . things . . . too. 

But maybe Chava, Eve, actually knew, too. 

וַתֵּ֣רֶא הָֽאִשָּׁ֡ה כִּ֣י טוֹב֩ הָעֵ֨ץ לְמַאֲכָ֜ל וְכִ֧י תַֽאֲוָה־ה֣וּא לָעֵינַ֗יִם וְנֶחְמָ֤ד הָעֵץ֙ לְהַשְׂכִּ֔יל וַתִּקַּ֥ח מִפִּרְי֖וֹ וַתֹּאכַ֑ל וַתִּתֵּ֧ן גַּם־לְאִישָׁ֛הּ עִמָּ֖הּ וַיֹּאכַֽל׃ 

When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

When is when? When the woman saw - when did she see? Did she only see after the snake told her? And who gives animals the ability to talk in the context of the Torah anyway? Stories are often better with talking animals. God knows.
Anyway, maybe Chava knew that she knew before she ate the fruit, or at least knew that she knew something. Maybe something Adam didn’t know. Adam, that human who said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, so I hid, because I was afraid.”
 Adam who hid maybe because he knew what he knew.
Out there. In the garden.

One of my favorite Jewish teachings about God comes from Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (9/4/1745 - 12/15/1812). I knew he was a Lithuanian rebbe and the founder of Chabad, but realized recently that I didn’t know much else about him so I did just a little reading. I learned that he was a descendant of the mystic and philosopher Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel and possibly also a distant descendent of Hai Gaon making him also a descendent of the Davidic dynasty. His father was Baruch, a laborer who preferred to earn a living as a gardener rather than accept a post as a community rabbi. As the story goes, by the time he was 8 years old, he had written an inclusive commentary on the Torah. He distinguished himself as a Talmudist by age 12 when he delivered a discourse concerning complicated laws and was granted the title “Rav” by the people of the town. At 15 Rabbi Zalman married Sterna Segal and devoted himself entirely to study. His learning included: mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. He became adept in Isaac Luria’s system of Kabbalah. In 1767 at the age of 22 he was appointed maggid - a skilled itinerant preacher - of Liozna, a position he held until 1801. 

All of which is to say, Rabbi Zalman knew his Torah, he knew his Talmud, he knew the sciences, and from his travels as an itinerant preacher he probably also knew people. 
Here’s what he taught: 

The king's usual place is in the capital city, in the royal palace. Anyone wishing to approach the king must go through the appropriate channels in the palace bureaucracy and gain the approval of a succession of secretaries and ministers. They must journey to the capital and pass through the many gates, corridors and antechambers that lead to the throne room. Their presentation must be meticulously prepared, and they must adhere to an exacting code of dress, speech and mannerism upon entering into the royal presence.
However, there are times when the king comes out to the fields outside the city. At such times, anyone can approach him; the king receives them all with a smiling face and a radiant countenance. 

The month of Elul, taught Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is when the King, God, is in the field.

Or maybe, I think, wandering about the Garden and calling “Ayekah?” - Where are you?

The general trend in recent scholarship recognizes the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity to have been completed during the Persian period (539-333 BCE). Some scholars place its final compilation later, in the Hellenistic period (333-164 BCE). Many of our oral stories were written down and preserved in exile. 

“Where are we?” I imagine our ancestors thinking. “Out here. We are out here. Out here in time so long since Creation. Out here in space, so far from our ancestral home. And out here we know things, and we know we know things. We know what it is to feel far from You. We know what it is to wonder if You exist at all. We know what it is to ask, ‘Where are You?’ We know how hard it is to keep looking for You.” And I imagine their answer being to write this story with God going out to find us and calling to us, “Ayekah?” - Where are you? 

Centuries later, Rabbi Zalman wrote it new. 

In place of a Garden, we have a field.
In place of the explicitly named God we have a King.

And we have a month when the King leaves the Palace to come looking for us, the children of the king. Royalty. Working in the field, yes, but also residents of the Palace. Inside and outside the Garden at the same time. 

In the past, these ideas have been enough for me.
All I needed.
My relationship with my father (z”l) was anything but tender or close, but when I sang Avinu Malkeinu, our father our king every year, I sang it with the tenderness of what parental love can and should feel like. During this season, not during the rest of the year, but during this season, the language of melech of king and of sovereign worked for me. The masculine language didn’t concern me because I heard it inside the vapor of the feminine language of womb and birth and the contractions of Elul and the delivery of Creation into the new light of the world. We’re celebrating a birth on Rosh HaShanah, the birthday of the world. And in this swirl of masculine and feminine imagery in which I can fully hold birthing fathers and mother kings and parents and royals . . . it was enough for me.

Then this year, out here in the field, I came upon another text. 

It was shared on Facebook by a friend of mine, but was originally posted by someone else, and that person was sharing the words of someone who calls themself caffeineecold on TUMBLR.

“Nothing has been more important to my being queer than when i went to my first pride parade, got separated from my group, had a panic attack about it and was sitting on the side of the road holding a tiny genderfluid flag and freaking out. then this six foot five drag queen in four inch heels appeared from literally nowhere and sat down next to me. i, this scared-shitless trans bi kid at pride for the first time, very nervously told her she looked pretty and i told her my name and that i got lost and didn't feel like i should be at pride and she held my hand and said "oh, honey, everybody deserves to be here, especially you. pride is for everybody who's ever gotten lost, who's been scared of who they are or where they are. you think we never been scared before? pride's for you, honey, because you're scared. you don't have to be proud right now, but you're gonna be one day, honey, i'm sure of it."

i found my group soon after that and i never saw that queen again but to this day i am convinced i met an angel.”

Now, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t imagine caffeineecold intended for this to become a Jewish text or for it to be about God, although they did invoke the idea of angels. For me, though? For me this text is everything Elul and Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are all in one paragraph and a coda. 

I want to share it with you through my heart. Look closely with me.

i was in the field for the first time. Or. For the first time, i knew that I was in the field. I was separated from what i thought i’d known. i was separated from other people i knew. My amygdala took over, i thought i was going to die, my heart was racing, my hands were cold and sweaty, i couldn’t breathe. i was sitting on the side of the road clinging to who i thought i might be and i was freaking out. i was so small. 

Then. Out of nowhere. i mean, i didn’t go anywhere. i didn’t even look up. And this very, very tall Queen in four inch heels appeared from literally nowhere and she sat down next to me. i, this scared-shitless trans bi kid in the field for the first time. She sat down. By me. 

i very nervously told her she looked pretty.

i told her my name and that i got lost and didn’t feel like i should be here.

And she said, “Oh, Honey, everybody deserves to be here, especially you. This place is for everybody who's ever gotten lost, who’s been scared of who they are or where they are.”

To be honest, God as a 6 foot 5 drag queen isn’t a radically new idea for me.

Of course God is a birthing parent and a royal with a throne and a palace and a 6 foot 5 drag queen. 

What is new for me is thinking about Rabbi Zalman’s King with his radiance and his smile still waiting for us to come to him. He’s in the field, and he’s waiting. But in the Garden, God didn’t wait. “Where are you?” God called to us. And we were hiding and God found us anyway. The Queen doesn’t wait, either. She sees us in our field, feeling small, and she sits down next to us and says, “Oh, Honey.” And she tells us this field is here for us because sometimes we are scared, because sometimes we hide. Because sometimes we know and aren’t ready to know that we know . . . whatever it is we know. And she comforts us not by saying we’ll be okay, but that we’ll be proud. In queer-speak, that is code for things like we’ll love ourselves, we won’t feel small, we will be who we are and we will be blessed in all that we are. 

In just a few weeks, it will be Rosh HaShanah, our New Year.
We are in Elul, the month when we reflect and reconnect and reconsider and pray and commit to change and give tzedakah. We remember what we’ve done that was good, that made life better for us and for others, that was us being the most all that we are.
We remember what we’ve done that wasn’t good, that made life harder for us and for others, that hurt or distanced or neglected, that was us being something less than ourselves. We think about where we’ve been, and where we are, and where we hope to go.

We are out here in the field.
This field that is here for us.

Shana Tova.