Repairing the World

In Judaism, there is a tenant called ‘”Tikkun Olam”, which translated from Hebrew means “repair the world”.

Last Thursday, eighty high school sophomore students from Emery/Weiner, a Jewish Community School in Houston, Texas descended upon the San Francisco LGBT Community Center to hear a panel of local community activists talk about social and health issues impacting LGBT people. The goal of the panel was for students to learn about issues facing LGBT people as well as to begin to develop tools they could use to promote greater equality for LGBT people back home.

When the Youth Program of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center called me to see if I would be interested in representing NSRC on the panel, I was thrilled (and a bit surprised too) to hear that an event like this was even happening.  Here at NSRC we spend the majority of our time educating older youth (18-24), adults and elders (60+) and it is a rare day indeed when we are able to talk directly to high school students about social/sexual inequality and what people can do to work on ending it. Even more rare is this particular case—as the teachers and administrators of the school actually proactively went about planning the trip to teach their young people how to build safer, happier and healthier communities back home. Most community activists and sexuality educators have to fight their way into high school classrooms so the idea of having a school come to us, with the full support of the parents, teachers and administrators is refreshing, not to mention revolutionary. What if all high schools did this?

In addition to NSRC, panelists included staff representing the SF LGBT Center’s Youth Program, Homeless Outreach, HIV Services and the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI). Panelists described in great detail the kind of structural barriers in place for LGBT young people in particular—homelessness, parental/familial rejection, religious bigotry and discrimination, HIV transmission, physical and sexual violence, employment and housing discrimination, education and healthcare access issues, as well as bathroom access for transgender people.

When it came time for me to speak about the issues of sexual literacy and marriage equality, I began to realize that once again, sexuality is the lynchpin of all of the elements we were discussing that day. I talked about NSRC’s work in expanding the concept of comprehensive sexuality education to include LGBT people—not just young people but people of all ages because if the average person in this country had access to resources and training around sexual health, education and rights throughout their lives, there would be far less if any ignorance and fear of LGBT people. There would be a greater understanding of the historical, biological and cross-cultural realities of sexual and gender diversity…. Which would also make marriage equality much more possible—not to mention much smaller rates of HIV transmission, homelessness among queer youth, and the other discriminatory elements discussed at the panel.

In the end, I recommended 2 possible courses of action for the students. First, remove the term “gay marriage” from their vocabulary as it in itself reinforces a second-class, different social and legal structure rather than promoting the idea of equality in the institution of marriage itself. Second, I asked them to educate themselves further about the issues at hand (sexual literacy and marriage equality in addition to the others discussed by panelists) and then to simply talk to the people in their lives as much as possible about them. In that sense, they would very much be repairing the world—not only for LGBT people in their communities, but all people.

A famous image describing Tikkun Olam says, “you are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.” This idea that we can live beyond our own individualistic concerns in life—that we not only can but ideally are duty bound to help others achieve the same level of freedom we have—is something that could begin to repair every aspect of social inequality we face. It's about responsibility, leadership and community healing.

Very few events in my 10 years as a sexuality educator and LGBT rights advocate have inspired me as much.

Here’s to the students, teachers, administrators and parents of Emery/Weiner School! You are all well on your way to being true Champions of Sexual Literacy as is the SF LGBT Center and each panelist that was with us that day. Your dedication reconfirmed for me the importance of the work that NSRC is currently doing on faith and sexuality and for that and for many others reasons, I just can't thank you enough.