I smile at the things said about Sara. It was said she had the innocence of a 7-year-old at age 20, and the beauty of a 20-year-old when she 100.
Avraham goes to Ephron of the Hittites, offering to purchase the site at Hebron called Machpelah including caves and the land around it. Ephron offers to give him the land, but Avraham insists on paying full price, knowing this was the land promised by HaShem. Sara is buried there.
The parsha continues with Avraham sending his servant to find a wife for Itzhak, who returns with Rivkah (Rebecca) and ends with the passing of Avraham at 175 who is also buried at Machpelah. Both Itzhak and Ishmael are in attendance. Torah does not tell us why Ishmael suddenly shows up after having been sent away, but midrash suggests that after Sara died, Avraham sent for Hagar and Ishmael to come back.
In this parsha, we focus on a key tenant in Judaism, Yizkor, remembering our dead. It is at Machpelah that people remember our Patriarchs and Matriarchs to this day. Which brings us to this annual remembrance for those trans lives lost this past year to violence. People who were killed because of their perceived gender difference.
Back in the 1990’s I discovered a transgender chat room on AOL called the Gazebo. For a long time even the mention of the words transgender or transsexual were violations of the Terms of Service on AOL and could get you banned. In San Francisco, a trans activist by the name of Gwen Smith stepped forward. She negotiated with AOL to remove the stigmatization of trans people from their Terms of Service. Gwen succeeded in getting chats for trans men and women a reality. It was amazing to suddenly be in touch with trans people all over America and elsewhere. We take for granted the openness of the internet today, but it was not always like that.
Over time I got to know Gwen well, and in the chat rooms we began to hear about and discuss various attacks on trans people. Until then we had been unaware, knowing only that sometimes people like us were being killed. One murder was Chanelle Pickett in Massachusetts in November 1995. We began doing memorials in our chat room as these incidents occurred. In June 1997, Gwen came to Houston where I lived, to attend the International Transgender Law and Employment Practices Conference, and she got to meet my partner Skip. Sadly, two months later, my beloved Skip passed away, my friend and trans activist Dee McKellar just two weeks later. I was a hot mess. I held both in my arms as they crossed over. Gwen devoted time in our chat to memorialize them.
In 1998, the tipping point came. Another trans woman, Rita Hester, killed in November again in Massachusetts. Gwen Smith developed the Remembering Our Dead project and one year later approaching the anniversary of Rita’s death, she decided to hold a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro District of San Francisco on Nov 20th. There were 12 murders on that list. Simultaneously a vigil was held in Boston. From these beginnings, Trans Day of Remembrance began.
With expanded knowledge and reporting, numbers went up. Tonight of course, I am speaking to the numbers reported in the US, but TDOR observances have become worldwide.
We are called to remember. Just before the pandemic, there would be 20, 23 names on a list and considering the number of trans people compared to the overall population, those are high numbers. But today we have become the target of certain politicians, portraying us as pedophiles or “groomers”, perverts etc. So it was that last year, the number of people perceived as trans who died a violent death was 50, more than twice that of a few years ago. This year, the records show 66 deaths, 15 by suicide or other causes, 51 by violence. Record numbers in succeeding years.
Those killed come from all walks. Many are persons of color. All possessed that special gift of our one precious life, and it was taken from them. And those of us who are still alive know it could as well have been us. May we remember them and pray that this insanity end sooner rather than later.
I’d like to end with an abridged version of a spoken word piece I wrote some years ago when two trans women were shot and killed in their car at an intersection. For even as we remember those we lost, life, and love goes on as well. Even as Chayei Sara means life of Sara and yet begins with her passing. I wrote:
I am woman. My heart my being my spirit and soul seeing Screaming from every pore for all to hear… I am woman! Touch my soul and know the vision which after body revision Remains the same. Taste my lips a woman’s lips softened by Tears and years of caring and daring to be the same as that person Who stares out through these weary eyes… So many sighs.
Tears of joy, and tears from indescribable heart break
Family torn asunder and former friends wonder and the loss
And hurt tearing away at ego but also taking pieces of myself along the way.
Is self-truth always this brutal? And is it so dangerous
That we are killed and beaten and thrashed and trashed just for being who we are?
Just the other day, two women like me shot over and over in their car.
Is the death of transcendental souls one more symbol of the fear of a privileged gender
afraid to surrender even a tiny vestige of its power and hold
Over the hearts and minds and possessions of fifty one percent of all of us?
From one woman to another, we share our lives and our stories and our souls
And we do rituals and honor croning and maidenhood and motherhood as women have done
Throughout the expanse of life’s journey. Our tears and our laughter are offered before the Great Mother
Who smiles at our offerings with a gleam of delight.
But in those moments, those horrible wrenching moments when Difference rears its head, when the “But” comes to rule,
The arrow of despair pierces my heart and one more tear is offered from coffers that have no bottom.
So, it is in my walk of life. I am woman to most, other to some, non-human to still others
Loved, hated, smiled at, and reviled. Praised and hated a source of confusion for many.
I do not understand it, some say. I do not want to understand it say others.
But life goes on and love goes on and hate and fear go on also.
To all who hope that my kind will disappear and those who revel in my difference
What we have not in common rather than what we do, I smile sweetly, and offer this simple reality:
I can only be me and you can only be you and we can be we or never
But my truth will remain, agree, or complain, and from my truth you cannot sever
For in truth to self I have found truth in others and the same for love it is clear
To leave behind that which is me would leave me with nothing but fear.
My soul lives and will beyond death and it is a beautiful soul prepared to love, prepared to live, prepared to dance.
If you dance with me, then we dance together, but if you cannot, I shall dance alone.
Shabbat Shalom
@DvarTorahChayeiSara
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