Shabbat Vayeira - Transgender Day of Remembrance Shabbat 2024

On Shabbat Vayeira – Transgender Day of Remembrance Shabbat 2024, Rabbi Jason Klein spoke about the significance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, highlighting the importance of speaking truth to power and the challenges faced by transgender and gender non-conforming folks. Rabbi Klein drew parallels between the biblical story of Avraham negotiating with God to save Sodom and Amarrah and the contemporary struggle for justice and equality. The narrative of the binding of Isaac is also a part of this week’s parsha, which brings up the moral complexities and the importance of both speaking out and strategic silence. Let us find strength in their traditions and to imagine tools for building queer utopias and affirming gender identities, emphasizing the urgency of action.

“Each day,” Rabbi Klein said, “we encounter opportunities to speak truth to power, when power is false, when power is corrupt, when power is oppressive, from relationships with family members with a remark in the gym locker room or on the street to the rhetoric of decisions made by the highest institutions of government. There are many opportunities to choose to speak up or to choose to remain silent. Silence equals death; our queer tradition teaches a teaching reflected across many Jewish texts as well. But there are times it seems when silence is also self preservation, when silence can be strategy, when silence can sometimes be planning for the long game. Transgender Day of Remembrance reminds us that the stakes continue to be high for how we respond to power and how we respond to the abuse of power.”

Rabbi Jason Klein delivered this drashah at Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday, November 15, 2024 / 15 Cheshvan 5784. 

Be in community with CBST at Kabbalat Shabbat services, Fridays at 6:30pm EST, either in person or streaming live on CBST’s website at cbst.org/livestream.