Work Text:
“Are you coming?” Dan looked back at Phil.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Phil grunted, his voice cracking softly.
They were parked in front of the cottage they’d be staying in that weekend.
“Not nervous, are we?” Dan asked, smiling slyly.
“What? Why? Stupid.” Phil crooked his brow, then rolled his eyes.
With that, Phil walked ahead of Dan, grabbed his hand, and led him through the cottage door.
They’d been looking forward to this Pesach retreat for awhile: for the opportunity to meet other lgbt religious Jews, to find an actual feeling of community.
Over the pandemic they’d grown apart from their shul community. Friends had moved away to be closer to their families or jobs, and services had only just started up again, outside and requiring masks. Dan wasn’t affected by this particular change, as he had already begun to distance himself from shul in an attempt to avoid questions about shidduchim and suffocating assumptions about his identity. Phil had loved shul, though. He knew everyone there, and loved davening and shmoozing and listening to shiurim. He was able to shrug off questions about dating and though he kept his sexuality mostly private, he still felt confident and proud in his gay identity. Prior to the pandemic, missing a week of shul would have been unfathomable to him. Now, the lack of community had created a growing hole in his heart: a feeling of isolation and loneliness that crept up on him even when Dan sat right beside him. He’d even started to question his place in the religious community these days, as if the isolation had brewed religious insecurity he hadn’t felt before…
They stepped into the cottage and were immediately greeted by their host, Lisa, who showed them to their room. “Long drive, was it? All the way from Golders Green?”
“Thankfully this one’s insistence to listen to exactly one My Chemical Romance song the entire time made it go faster. Except not,” Phil chuckled.
"Hey. I can’t help that I have excellent musical taste,” Dan quipped.
Lisa introduced them to all the other queer Jews here for seder. There’s people here from all over England. Frum Jews like them, with a smattering of rainbow yarmulkes, secular Jews, non-Jewish partners. People are interesting and vibrant. It’s more social than they’ve been the entire pandemic, but it’s good; it’s exactly why they’ve come here. They’re already entrenched in discussions of politics and religiosity, and it’s exhilarating.
Phil looks overwhelmed, though.
“I’m gonna take a small rest before seder,” he mutters to Dan.
“You okay?” Dan asks.
“Yeah,” Phil nods.
Dan nods back, and launches back into conversation with the person next to him, who is sporting a silver glitter yarmulke.
Phil closes the door to the room they’ll be staying in, hoping to find some quiet from the incessant chatter outside. He hasn’t felt this drained in a while, from just 40 minutes of shmoozing. He lies down. He sets an alarm, closes his eyes, and tries to fall asleep. His mind is rattling, though. It had been a year of longing for Jewish community and coping with isolation, and now he's in a home with 20 other people. He isn’t even sure that he is enjoying himself. Maybe he’s forgotten how to connect with people. His mind twists around something one person said: that we should put chametz on the pesach table to be inclusive of everyone’s food needs. He hadn’t responded in protest, but it didn’t sit right. This was supposed to be a fully kosher seder. Did he really have a place here, among liberal Jews? Was he too frum for them, but too gay for his home community?
“Ugh,” he groaned, and placed a pillow over his head.
…
‘Beep beep beep...’ Phil opened his eyes at the sound of his alarm. He hadn’t slept, but he felt a little more charged, maybe. He put on his nice button down shirt for seder and rubbed his tired eyes. Looking in the mirror, he muttered, “good enough.”
Back in the main space, Phil found Dan helping set the table.
“Hi, you,” Dan smiles.
“Hi,” Phil smiles back, a quiet feeling of comfort emerging at seeing his other half.
As they begin the seder, things start to fall back into place for Phil. He’s enjoying a vibrant discussion about the British labour movement, justice and liberation, and yetziat mitzrayim. As the night continues, their singing gets louder and Lisa looks afraid they’ll wake the entire neighborhood up, but they keep going.
"Lecha u’lecha, lecha ki lecha, lecha af lecha, lecha hashem hamamlachah. Ki lo na’eh, ki lo ya’eh.”
"To You and for You, to You because it’s You, to You and only to You: Yours, G-d, is the kingship. To G-d kingship is fitting, to G-d it will be fitting."
The pandemic hasn’t really changed Dan’s already limited social life, as he’d long felt disconnected from the religious community. It’s moments like these, though, that bring Dan back to what he loves about Yiddishkeit: this feeling of closeness, of comfort, and a real sense of kavod for Hashem.
Their singing becomes louder, and more joyful. Someone is clapping loudly on the table, someone else shouts out “hey!” as they sing.
It sounds like a love song in Dan’s ears. A love song to G-d. His eyes are wide with sincerity; he has chills from the almost romantic quality of the song. He looks into Phil’s warm eyes as they sing, feeling the bond they share: This deep spiritual home they’ve created between the two of them, tied up in their mutual love for Hashem. It really is the most romantic thing, he thinks.
...
After yontif, they get in their car to drive home.
“Well, I think I’ve done enough socializing to last me for another year,” Dan jokes.
“It was interesting,” Phil shares, “I needed that so badly after not having a Jewish community this year,” he says with a frown on his lips.
“But I’m not sure how much I even enjoyed it. Did you notice how much introvert time I needed? But it did give me something, some kind of hopefulness? Like a lost feeling of optimism: that I can have this, that we can have this... queer, Jewish community, you know?’ He paused. “Like we used to have. We need more than just each other, you know?” Phil looks over to Dan.
Dan knows. Dan’s grown enough in their relationship through the years that it doesn't land as a criticism of him, like it might’ve in the past. He’s felt their other supports crumbling down over the past year, and the stress it’s put on them.
“I’m proud of us,” Dan says... “And I think it’ll get better in time.”
Phil smiles softly, “Me too.”
"I wrote you a letter,” Dan says, passing the letter to Phil.
“Lecha u lecha, lecha ki lecha, lecha af lecha... It’s you and it’s for you, it’s you because it’s you, it’s you and only you. My love, thank you for making me so happy. For being my companion in life. As we each figure life out, I thank G-d I have you here beside me...”
There’s something about these ancient words being used to describe how Dan feels about Phil that touches Phil deeply.
He looks into Dan’s eyes.
“I love you,” a tear forming in Phil’s waterline.
Dan winks at his partner’s reaction, though.
“It is a bit ironic, isn’t it, how we do need more than each other… yet how you are the only one for me,” Dan says joveley, a cheeky grin widening across his face.
There’s a feeling of being inspired and mobilized to create the community and life that is right for them. Phil puts his hands on the wheel, ready to drive home.
Humming softly to himself, he mutters:
“Lecha u’lecha, lecha ki lecha, lecha af lecha...”
“To You and for You, to You because it’s You, to You and only to You...”
Dan hums along.