Last week, at the Reconstructing Judaism conference in Philadelphia, I attended a course on gender language taught by professor Dr. Andrea Jacobs. For a warm up activity she had us break up into two groups and make a list of qualities we associate with men and women in our society. I was with the women’s group and we wrote things like: cooperative, self-effacing, and maternal. In the men’s group the list included: strong, stoic, broad shoulders and facial hair. After looking over both our lists, Dr. Jacobs pointed out the many things on each list that each of us would not identify with. Who we are expected to be, is often different than who we actually are.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, features the reunion of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Esau. And while it is about the lifelong conflict they have with one other, it is also about each of their individual struggles with their own male identities. On the surface, Esau seems to exemplify masculinity, and yet there are things within that societal construct he is clearly uncomfortable with. Jacob, on the other hand, looks and acts nothing like a typical male in that ancient society. He is artistic, and sensitive, a thinker and not a doer. Each brother seems imprisoned in an identity neither wants to embrace. The tears they emit upon finally meeting are an admission of this struggle, and a momentary escape from the societal expectations that surround them.
Dr. Jacobs outlines the struggle many in our society face when their gender attribution (how others see them) and their gender identity (how they see themselves) do not align. When we signed up for the convention, we were asked to indicate our pronoun preference – he/him, she/her, they/them. This was something new for me, and a little off putting, but after taking Dr. Jacobs class I could understand the reasons behind it. By introducing ourselves by our name and by our pronoun preference, we are indicating, like in the reunion between Jacob and Esau, we want to meet people where they are. In the millennial world, listing pronoun preferences has become a normative activity. For the rest of us it was brand new. Dr. Jacobs encouraged us to experiment and to be willing to make a mistake. This is a small price to pay to ensure all of us, whether he, she or they, feel accepted in our society.
Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 12/20/2018 by Marc Slonim