I Lift My Chin

During my first address to a congregation, after my officially becoming a Jew, I spoke of Daniel Pearl, zichrono livracha. His last words, “I am a Jew,” - how they moved me. Such courage. Such unabashed identity.

Then his chin was lifted and his life taken.

Continually seeking, reading, researching, and wrestling, I came across the story of Isaac, who after realizing God's plan for him, lifted his chin to his father Abraham. “Take the son you love...” The stories, the midrashim, say that Abraham stood above his bound son. His tears flowed so heavily that they fell upon Isaac. And Isaac, stung both by Abraham's obedience to the will of God and by Abraham's tears, suffered poor eyesight for the remainder of his days. Intellectually, I think that God was giving Abraham a test, and that he failed. Even though he had once confronted God to spare potentially righteous strangers in Sodom and Gomorrah, he did not so much as argue with God for his son's life.

"If I was any kind of father... if I was a good father... I'd take you out and stone you. That's what the Bible commands of me for children like you." My father claimed to be weak, unable to carry out his biblical duties, supposedly because he so loved me. Unlike Abraham Avinu, at least, my father did argue with God against my destruction. Regardless, I have scars on my heart and soul that shall never heal, that always remind me of how much my father despises me.

When I was twenty, I went to his house, one of many times, at the request of my younger brother, to provide refuge. My father often externalized his self-hatred and internal struggles by beating my mother, or my step-mother, or me. Fortunately, for my brother's sake, he was spared physical abuse - though he suffered, as we all did, by witnessing the abuse of loved ones. I always considered my brother to be the one my father really loved. He was the chance of continuation. My father had determined long ago, probably before I had, that I would not be the one to carry on his name. During this visit I was concerned about my father's wife, as no one deserves such harm upon their body, mind, or spirit. Sometimes I wonder still how she has survived it, or why. That night my father said that I was a sinner, and that I was living in a house of sin. I recall my reply - "In my house of sin, we love. In my house of sin, there are no fists. In my house of sin, we do not fear those with whom we live."

I then learned why he despised me so. He admitted something I had previously suspected, something to which others had alluded. "I wrestled with the demon of homosexuality when I was younger." Then he added, "But the Lord Jesus Christ saved me from that life." I further lost respect for my father's "loving savior," because in saving my dad, he condemned my childhood to one of living in a house filled with violence, with fear, with self-hate. My father's redemption was my eighteen-year prison sentence. That night it occurred to me - "that's why you hate me. Because I am brave. Because I have courage to live, to be myself, unashamed, open, gay..."

"... Because I lift my chin."

As he stood before me, my father saw a world - a world he had never imagined possible, existing. And as I stood before him, I was that world, living in his son, me. How could he not despise my existence? Was this why, throughout my incarceration with him, he constantly called me stupid, worthless? Was this why he said I stunk, that I would never amount to anything? That night he repeated how he should have taken me out and stoned me to death.

After my brother's accidental death, I severed ties with my father. It felt so freeing, standing face-to-face with him as he tried telling me "we need to settle this right now" and "how it is going to be." I told him he needed to leave, or surely one of us would die that day. I told him he was never to raise himself against me again. We did not speak with each other again for more than ten years.

The Bible does not mention Isaac when recounting Abraham's return journey. Certainly, their relationship was strained, no matter how much faith or understanding they shared.

Wishing to shed the heartache of brokenness between father and son, I called my father and invited him to hear me speak at synagogue that night of my first address. He came. He cried. We spoke briefly, and he left. He did the same two years later when I had a bar mitzvah at the age of thirty-seven. The last time I saw him was on my fortieth birthday. My spouse threw me a party and my dad became invited due to an announcement on a social media website. In the hallway my father expressed disappointment that he could not count for himself so many friends or so much love. I told him it is never too late. He soon left.

We talk on the phone once or twice a year at best. He lives less than an hour from me. It seems neither of us try anymore. My inner little boy still longs for his dad, but I guess the me that needed to protect myself offered up his chin too easily, too readily. Sacrifice me if you must, but my spirit will continue to live. Maybe his eyes are still too full of tears, me, the first son, not being the son he wanted, and my brother, his hope, being the son he lost. Maybe too my eyes are still burning. Maybe my vision is too clouded, my chin too up, to risk seeing him in a different way.

I am no Isaac, and my father is certainly no Abraham. It may not have been his or my ideal father-son relationship, but he did teach me what I did want and what I did not want. I have learned something: how to live and love like I never knew before, courageously, openly, and to do so despite all the hurdles.

Who knows what the future holds? Regardless of whatever becomes of this father and son, someday I will stand at his grave, and I will mourn, and I will regret, and I will smile, and I will survive, and I will walk away.

With my chin up. With stinging tears of mixed feelings.