It’s Labor Day weekend! Of course we celebrate it as the end of the summer and the beginning of a new year, but I don’t think this weather is going to end and there will be more time to swim at the lake, hike in the mountains, and kayak all over. After all, this is Maine - the way life should be! For me, this is an amazing weekend - I am officiating at a wedding in Camden and a Brit Mitzvah on Shabbat. 

Jewish tradition tells us that each person is created b’tzelem Elohim, created in God’s image, and expresses a unique collection of identities. At TBE, we strive to honor, and embrace, and welcome all people no matter how they may identify with a special focus on reaching folks who may have historically felt left out of Jewish life. No doubt you have heard of a Bar Mitzvah (son of the commandments) or a Bat Mitzvah (daughter of the commandments), the celebration of a young person entering into Jewish adulthood, when they gain all the responsibilities of an adult Jew. Over the last few years, the limitations of these two gendered ceremonies have become more visible as trans and nonbinary Jews have made us aware and encouraged widespread adoption of more inclusive language, in general, and for young people who are coming of age Jewishly and who identify outside the gender binary (ie not male or female), in specific.

As you know, Hebrew is a gendered language. Today, language scholars are experimenting with new ways to be inclusive of trans and non-binary people when addressing or speaking of them. I don’t feel that we have solved this issue yet, but it is very exciting to watch as language develops. So where does that leave us? If a person does not identify as male or female, how do we describe their coming of age ceremony? Here at TBE, we have adopted the term Brit Mitzvah. There are so many things I like about this term. Brit, meaning covenant, is the word we use when talking about our ‘covenantal’ relationship with God, or simply Judaism. When a boy is brought into the world, we bring him into the covenant with his Brit Milah, the covenant of circumcision. In the 1970s, people began to use the term Brit Bat or Brit Banot, meaning the covenant of our daughters. So to use the term brit in relation to a young person taking on the Jewish responsibilities of adults, and publicly taking on a Jewish identity, sounds right to me. We spend a lifetime - maybe even more - figuring out what that covenant, that brit, means to us. What kind of Jew will we become? How will that fit into our identity collection? Time will tell; but I hope TBE’s community will be a guide and a support all along the journey.

Mazal tov to all those celebrating this weekend. And don’t forget all those whose labors have made it possible for us to reach this time.

Shehachianu, v’kiamanu, v’higianu lazman hazeh. Thank you for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and having brought us to this day.