Unconditionally Sacred Love

By J. D’ror Chankin-Gould
Pitzer College, 2006

Rebecca and I take deep breaths. We’re absorbing all the strength that our souls and our God have to offer us so that we can tackle this awesome, necessary, sacred, and terrifying task. Rabbi Amy Eilberg, one of my personal heroes, has just finished speaking and Rebecca and I rise to make an announcement at the 2006 KOACH Kallah in Columbus, Ohio. We announce, together, that we will be holding an anonymous meeting for gay and lesbian students. We do not announce the location for fear that students entering seminaries or USY work would be “outed” and lose their positions or, worse, their dignity. Yes, in the year 2006, the Conservative movement is a terribly frightening place to be openly gay. KOACH, to my great pride and delight, is one of the few safe havens that this movement has to offer. As we finish making our announcement, Rebecca and I are jointly startled to see that Neshama Carlebach has been crying our tears.

I am an openly gay Conservative Jewish man. As a boy I wondered whether God could still love me even though my heart loved men. I was deathly afraid that God could not. I delved into all sorts of intellectual arguments that would justify the feelings of my soul. I could offer those arguments here, but I choose to offer something else instead: my feelings. A friend and mentor, Gabriel, told me once that there would come a time when I would accept two undeniable aspects of my being: I am a Jew and I am gay. Thankfully, I reached that point a number of years ago.

When I was 17, I traveled to Israel for the first time. I stood alone in the Negev, on a cliff, overlooking the vastly silent desert. I began to weep. I asked God if I could still be loved. I felt so small and so cut off. And then, this amazing thing happened: a powerful wind came out of nowhere; it brushed my hair, swirled about my body, and embraced me. I never doubted God’s love for me again. My life changed not because I accepted my sexuality via an intellectual argument, but because I listened hard enough to God’s whispered call: I love you.

Later that summer I came out to my group of madrikhim and fellow travelers. I held the hands of friends who knew me already and waited for the shock, the blows, the rejection. Instead, I got a lot of hugs that night, and a blessing or two. One of my counselors, Ronit, a shomeret-negiyah (following an Orthodox statute limiting physical contact between men and women) woman, touched me for the first time: Can I bless you D’ror? She placed her hands on my head and told me: I want to bless you that you should always have the courage you showed tonight, and that everyone should love you as much as I love you now. Five years later, a student at my college came out following Shabbat services. I blessed her in the same way I was blessed.

All too often, the Conservative Movement, the Movement in which I was raised, the one in which I seek spiritual leadership, the one that speaks to my intellectual and emotional conceptions of law, community, Israel, God, and Torah, asks us to ponder “the issue of homosexuality.” I offer my stories here because it is not an issue. It is my soul.

At the aforementioned KOACH Kallah meeting we jointly laughed and cried. We celebrated the possibility of internal freedom, of faith, of a community of love. We rejoiced in the acceptance we found in the hearts of Rabbi Amy Eilberg and Rabbi Elyse Winick. And we cried. We cried a lot. Stories of self hatred, of rejection, of desperation, of isolation, of fear, and of faith being lost, circled the room. These people, so in need of spiritual guidance, do not have a movement to which they can turn, and their hearts broke; my heart broke.

And yet, while I do not seek to sugar coat the pain and sorrow, there was also a feeling of joy and hope in that room. It is a feeling I cling to in my darkest moments. God loves all God’s children, exactly as they are. All love is sacred and oh so joyous. I know that now. I’ve learned it from God, from my rabbis, from my family, from my innermost core.

My prayer that I offer is this: May all Jews, and all people, somehow, someday, come to this vital understanding - every human heart is sacred and God unconditionally loves each one. May we some day, come to share in a piece of that life-giving love. Amen.

D'ror Chankin-Gould is an alumnus of Pitzer College in Claremont, California. D'ror grew up in Long Beach, California, attending the supplemental school LA Hebrew High and being actively involved in his Conservative shul, Temple Beth Shalom of Long Beach. In high school D'ror traveled to Israel via 'Nesiya' and in college his studies brought him both to Quito, Ecuador and to Haifa, Israel. D'ror will begin his work as the JCSC Fellow at Columbia University this fall and, eventually, hopes to enter the rabbinate.

[Posted 6/22/06]