Flooded by Feelings and the Soft Light of the Moon

I woke up this morning, remembered what day it was, and immediately grabbed for my phone to check the results.

Shocked, is all I can say.

Not so much that Trump won, but that the results were so strong, the win so wide across the country, that there was no question.

I’d been prepared for a week of fighting—at least! Maybe a week of violence. I’d prepared to see the electoral college in his favor. But to see the map of the popular vote!

My immediate response was to jump out of bed and into the shower faster than I have allowed myself in the past couple of weeks. “Gotta keep moving,” I said inside my head.

I was flooded by feelings I wouldn’t let myself feel.

Maybe you’ve been wondering why you haven’t heard from me in a couple of weeks. (Or maybe you haven’t even noticed.)

I’m starting a new part-time gig, as I’d alluded to a while back (teaching and pastoral care…very exciting!), so it was a perfect time to take a break—at the beginning of a new Torah-reading cycle (and not knowing what my time will allow for…).

Less than two weeks ago on Sunday, just as we had gone back to the beginning, with the book of Genesis, and we were entering the second parsha of the year, Noah, I officiated a funeral for a gay guy. That day, as I made my way to meet a bus in front of Madison Square Garden, I found myself wading through a flood of MAGA hats and "Make America Great Again” paraphernalia.

My breath quickened and my heart started to flutter uncomfortably as I realized what was happening—and what would be happening later that day in that very place (Trump rally at Madison Square Garden!). Of course, the expected location of the bus was changed, and I had to find a new route, completely out of the way.

Looking back, it seems fitting. First, the Creation of the World (Genesis). Then, its destruction with the Great Flood (Noah). And God’s witnessing the destruction that he himself (Patriarchal God of the Bible) had wrought (plus God’s promise never to do such a thing again).

And now we find ourselves in the third parsha of the year, Lekh Lekha, when Abram is told to go forth from his father’s house, and is subsequently renamed Abraham. With this, we are to imagine Abraham as a new man, fundamentally changed, leaving behind the old.

So here I was, feeling myself swept up in a flood of hatred, having to find a new path forward, trying to get to the family, close friends, and supporters of this gay man who had been the partner of the deceased—in a sea of people that believe that rights for the LGBT community are dangerous. And me, a Jew, walking through a sea of people that probably also believe that Jews are a danger to the “American Way of Life.”

All at once, Daylight Savings Time has plunged us into the deep dark of winter, just as it feels like we’re plunging deeper and deeper into darkness in our country. I imagine this is how it felt in Germany over years, as hard-won rights are being chipped away at little by little. Increasing police presence, incarcerating the “dangers to society…”

When Noah built the ark as God had instructed him, he made a window at the top—a window much too small to let any real light into the ark.

Imagine the darkness during all those months!

But the Hebrew word used for “window” here is not the usual word. It carries another meaning that the ancient rabbis commented on: a jewel, one that carries light that has been passed down through the generations—through generations of struggle and darkness.

So now what?

My father always said that things would have to get worse—way worse—before they would get better.

And we continue to be surprised that it gets worser and darker than we could have imagined.

Maybe, just maybe, we are in the throws of the end of the Patriarchy—throwing that male god out the window, and bringing in a softer light of shared energy.

One thing is for sure; there is clarity in Trump’s policies where there was little in Harris’—one that most likely would have led to a complacency. A complacency that would have been a sigh of relief that “At least we didn’t get Trump.”

No, this is not what I wished for our country at all. But it is what we have.

So, my blessing?

May the window that lets light in, and the jewel carrying strength passed from generation to generation, shed light on our path forward. Just as Abraham was commanded, “Go forth from your father’s house,” so, too, must we go forth from the house we presently preside in, and build a new one. Even if it seems that we’re going completely out of the way.

Let us be strengthened by the little bit of light that is left in the midst of the present darkness.

Or as some neighbors said to me, “Fuck ‘em.”