Kweer Blessings and Prayers
by Maggid Eli Andrew Ramer
Some are published in the Siddur of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco – which you can read about and purchase here – https://shaarzahav.org/our-siddur/
How I pray
let me say this before I begin
that
just as the sages of ancient Alexandria
thought in Greek and left us their Septuagint
and the rabbis of Babylonia thought in Aramaic
and left us their Talmud and midrashim
this
queer ordained maggid
American-born un-rabbi
thinks in English
makes it my God-language
wrapped around Hebrew
like paper on a gift
no
like dough on kreplach
all of it edible
Blessing for Coming Out (in any and every way that calls for celebration)
I/we praise You, Source of Life, who said “Lech lecha” to Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors, “Go forth. Go find yourself.” And they left their home, the only world they knew, to begin again in a new land, in a new way.
God of creation, who renews Your work each day, be with me/us now as I/we step out into the world in my own new way.
God of revelation, be with me/us as I/we affirm that I/we will move proudly through life as the strong loving wise beautiful person/people You made me/us to be.
God of redemption, in coming out today in community, I/we fulfill the command you gave to our ancestors. “Lech lecha. Go forth. Go find yourself.” And so I/we have, for life and health, for joy and blessing.
And together in celebration, let us all say – Amen.
Blessing for a Renaming
Source of Change, when I came into this world, others marked my name and gender on paper. Today I stand before You, having chosen the name which affirms and expresses who I am among the people of Sarah and Abraham. Hear, God of Israel, I am _____________, (say your name in Hebrew and/or English) renewed and blessed, in this sacred community, on this day of blessings.
Prayer for the Study of Torah
Our stories, women’s stories and queer stories, were left out of Your sacred book – yet down through the generations, we never stopped reading it. And now, in this time and place, we gather together to study Torah again, to find ourselves there, to read ourselves back into Your holy text, our personal midrashim another part of all the unwritten stories told at Sinai.
Blessing upon seeing a rainbow
Amazement Maker
Your sky dancing colors
fill me with wow.
One arc
loud
it shimmering bands of difference
side by side
cross the sky
and wrap around my soul.
Blessing for being single
O God and God of all people, as first You created one human being, female and male in Your image, so do I stand before You now, one, complete and whole. Fully engaged with Your world, I open myself to You this day as did Miriam the Prophet, for whom Torah names no spouse, who served you all the days of her life, wholly and fulfilled. I come before You alone, like Elijah, who has traveled with our people since ancient times, blessing and watching over us. I am blessed and holy, sanctified and beloved. I am a singular witness and reflecting mirror of Your eternal Oneness.
Blessing for couples
As Ruth and Naomi were beloveds, as Jonathan and David were beloveds, so too are you. And through your love are recalled all the unnamed couples of our history. Your love is the two stone tablets of the God’s mitzvot, solid and enduring, standing side by side. Your connection is the two cherubim on top of the ark of the covenant, gazing into each other’s eyes, sacred and deep. The two of you are a gift of the heart in the midst of our people. You are blessed and a blessing, in the holy name Ain Sof, eternal God without end, L’olam, va’ed.
Blessing for being in multiple relationships
May all of your relationships be blessed by the lovers of our people: by Abraham and Sarah, Sarah and Pharaoh, Abraham and Hagar, Abraham and Keturah. May you be blessed by Zilpah, Bilhah, Leah, and Rachel, who shared that God-wrestling man Jacob. May you be blessed by Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, parents of the child Obed. May you be blessed by their great-grandson David, who was loved by Michal and her brother Jonathan. May you be blessed by Bathsheba and David’s son Solomon, who had hundreds of wives and concubines, including the Queen of Sheba, who took for herself lovers wherever her camels rested for the night. All of these blessings in the name of Elohim, the one God who is many.
Kavanah for making love
Source of love, who created us in Your own image, open our hearts so that our love-making becomes for each of us a blessing. May this dance of love be a golden gate through which Your love and passion flows into the world. And may the pleasure we share be a source of renewal, our intimacy a time together again in Eden.
Kavanah for unexpected intimacy
In the dark, in a strange place, our father Jacob encountered a stranger with whom he grappled all night. He never knew the stranger’s name, yet their encounter was a blessing, which turned Jacob into Israel and made him realize I’ve seen God face-to-face. (Genesis 32:31)
May this intimate time with another person be an encounter with angels that allows us to both touch and see the Divine. In the name of the God of Israel, who created passion and wove it throughout creation, turning strange places into holy ground and strangers into a source of blessing.
Blessing for starting a family
Nuclear? Perhaps. You were alone when You began. And what were Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar doing? Jacob and all four of his wives? Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz? David and his many wives? Solomon and his hundreds? Just as they, God, all created families, in their many different ways, so too do we, open our hearts and lives to Your very first commandment – be fruitful and multiply. And we do it in our many different ways, according to our tradition.
Mi Shebeirakh for Queer Folk
In continuity with our queer ancestors
Most of whose names are lost to us
Forgotten
Or even deliberately obliterated
May we be blessed and healed
In free and open ways
Not always granted
To those
Who went before us.
May we come to know a time of complete healing
And may we share this healing with all the world
In the name of all who have been forgotten
As a blessing for all queer folk who are here
And for all of those who are yet to come.
Now let us say: Amen.
Queer Kavanah for the Shema
Queer O Israel, Ha-Shem Is our Godd, Ha-Shem is One.
The spelling Godd comes from the papers of the late Syrian Argentinean Jewish American lesbian feminist scholar, writer, and activist Savina Teubal.
A Kweer Sukkot Practice:
It was long the custom at Sukkot to invite into the sukkah each night seven patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David. Extending this tradition, Jewish feminists began to invite in our matriarchs. In our town time, consider inviting into your sukkah each night of Sukkot some of our queer ancestors, perhaps including:
Ha-Adam, the very first person, who was created as an androgynous being according to midrash, as mentioned in Genesis Rabbah 8:1.
Sarah and Abraham, our first ancestors, who were both originally tumtumin, what we would perhaps today call intersexed, according to the Talmud, Yebamot 64a/b.
Ruth and Naomi, mother- and daughter-in-law, beloved to each other, as we read about in the Book of Ruth.
David, Ruth and Naomi’s great grandson, and his beloved friend Jonathan, the son of King Saul, from the Book of Samuel.
Daniel, whose book is found in the Tanakh, and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who may have been made eunuchs in order to serve Nebuchadnezzer the king of Babylon.
Simeon ben Lakish and Johanan bar Nappaha, who lived in Palestine in the 3rd century CE, and were bound together in a tender and ultimately tragic relationship, as related in the Talmud.
Rabbis Samuel Hanagid, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, and the many other medieval Spanish poets who wrote love poems to and about young men.
Hannah Ruchel Werbermacher, the only woman known to have become a Hasidic teacher, who wore tallis and tefilin and lived from c.1815 to 1905.
Amy Levy, English lesbian novelist and poet, who lived from 1861 till 1889 and was a friend of Oscar Wilde.
Magnus Hirshfeld, German physician, sexologist, and author, 1868 to 1935, hounded by the Nazis, he was the founder of the first homosexual rights organization, library, and queer research institute on the planet.
Claude Cahun, 1894 to 1954, gender-variant French photographer and writer, who along with step-sister and life-partner Suzanne Malherbe, 1892-1972, were anti-Nazi activists and resistance fighters.
Also consider inviting into your sukkah: Emma Lazarus, Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Marcel Proust, Leonard Bernstein, Muriel Rukeyser, Allen Ginsberg, Harvey Milk, and any and all ancestors of your own choosing.
