My Gifted Life

Over time life passes and memories accumulate. After a while we collect these memories into stories that we tell to our friends and families to share good times and bad times. and sometimes great joys and sorrows. I’ve come to realize that while I still have things to say about being trans and such, it isn’t the center of my being and probably can take a rest for awhile.

Years ago I turned 7, At least I think it was seven but maybe it was a year older or younger. Me and about twenty five other little jewish boher would walk or be driven to our synagogue. For a number of years, culminating at age thirteen and our Bar Mitzvah (don’t ask about the girls, this was a non-egalitarian world where only the boys had to suffer and study.

In theory one became an adult when you passed your thirteenth birthday. In practice and unless you were slow on the uptake you only tried that once.

About the hebrew school itself I have relatively few stories. Let’s face it. Sitting around in school desks wasn’t a heaven sent bit of excitement. But there were occasionally something more active to keep the kids from getting bored to tears.

Getting to hebrew school wasn’t fun for me. I had to walk on a steep shoulder with forty five mph traffic zooming past.

Needless to say, spending something like sixteen hours of hebrew school a week in addition to regular school is substantial. After one’s bar mitzvah can be anything from a modest gathering of the boy’s relations and friends to practically a coronation. I think mine was fairly typical with my cousins, aunts and uncles in attendance.

For class we’d translate relatively small stories into and out of Hebrew. Mostly you ended up able to “read hebrew” and for many people only English translations let them know what they’re saying. But translations are provided and after so many years I can honestly say I known what I’m saying. At least some of the time and familiar prayers.

I find Hebrew an oddly beautiful language. It’s very logical and symmetrical. There are many things lost in translation into English I’ve found. You find that references to God take many different forms. Sometimes God is referred to in the plural elohim. But elsewhere God is referred to as our god Elohanu.

In Hebrew Love is ahava. To me the word is very beautiful.

There’s a really beautiful hebrew song, Yerushalayim shel zahav, which means Jerusalem of gold. I have always loved this song and the lyrics are very beautiful as well. https://www.hebrewsongs.com/?song=yerushalayimshelzahav

And then maybe I’m just a hopeful person at heart, maybe those who stand in the way of peace will bow out . Maybe there’s a way to settle things down,

And maybe there will come a time, hopefully very soon, when the answer stops being violence, there needs to be a willingness in the world that we need to be smarter in how we deal with people on the edges of society.