
Excerpt: “The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen”
The following scenes are excerpts from my upcoming one-woman show — The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen. As I’ve already written the story of my coming out to my Hasidic family (a version of which is depicted in the show) I thought I would share a bit of background on what it was like for me growing up as a closeted trans girl in the Hasidic community. — LR
BORO PARK, SPRING 1991.
A much younger and pubescent-er version of me climbs into bed and tries to get comfortable but can’t. I feel entirely alien in my own skin — as if I am wearing someone else’s skin and the rough fabric is itching my own delicate skin underneath it. This general feeling of discomfort turns into a kind of spiritual dysphoria around my genitalia. I’ve begun to fantasize about taking a knife to it and reenacting my own circumcision. I simply can’t find the words with which to express my increasingly painful experience as a Hasidic transgender child being forcibly subjected to the wrong puberty. My own body was literally turning against me. I don’t know this at the time but one day, three long dysphoria-riddled decades later, I will finally find the words when I will discover a 14th century prayer expressing this very existential ache.
LILI
(starts chanting in Hebrew, a pre-recorded version picks up at which point she continues in English)
Father in heaven / who did miracles for our ancestors / with fire and water / You changed the fire of Chaldees so it would not burn hot / You turned Dinah into a girl in her mother’s womb / To leprous white You turned (Moses’) hand / and the Red Sea to dry land. Oh if only you could turn me from a man to woman!/ Were I only to have merited this / being so graced by Your favor/ I would be the Lady of the house ruling my home with fervor / But what shall I say? Why cry or be bitter? / If my father in heaven has decreed upon me / and has put in me a permanent deformity it cannot be removed from me / and anxiety about the impossible is a mortal existential anguish/ which no empty solace will extinguish / So, I thought I would bear it and suffer / until I die and wither / But then I heard say / that one must bless [God] for the good as well as the bad/ so shall I bless low of voice and weak of tongue/ Blessed are you o Lord, for not making me a woman.
Never before had I read such a dead-on characterization of gender dysphoria at least from the perspective of a young Hasidic trans girl. The language perfectly mimicked that of prayers and piyutim (or Hebrew hymns) that I knew and loved from an early age. And the imagery evoked was something that I could relate to as well. So naturally my first instinct was to sing it as I would any other prayer with that structure — giving it my own signature blend of cantorial and Hasidic stylings. And I recorded it at the time while it was all raw and fresh in my mind.
But then I did some research. It turns out that the historical consensus is that this was some kind of parody. You see there was social unrest fomenting among rabbinical students of that time because of how they were treated by the community they were in vis a vis the women of that community. A kind of men’s rights movement, if you will. So the author of the prayer wrote a sort of Swiftesque parody (—Jonathan, not Taylor) implying that women were the more privileged gender and he would have been better off but for his penis or as he calls it: “a permanent deformity.”
Having said that, there’s a part of me that doesn’t buy it. It’s too convenient to dismiss it as a parody. I’d much sooner believe that there’s a core of truth that runs through it and that trans women always existed, even among the illustrious rabbinate of the fourteenth century.
—
NEW JERSEY, SUMMER 1994.
It is a muggy overcast day in a wooded area behind a new residential development in an ultra-orthodox enclave about an hour south of NYC.
I’m fifteen and dressed in full Hasidic men’s garb. I have been fasting for three days and God has yet to reveal Himself to me. (This is back in the ’90s when God still used He/ Him pronouns — everybody did back then.)
LILI
(looking up at the tree canopy)
O GOD, SEND ME A SIGN PLEASE! IT COULD BE ANYTHING REALLY — I’M NOT VERY PICKY — I’LL TAKE WHATEVER I CAN GET.
(beat.)
I mean… Like Eliezer Abraham’s slave in Genesis when he was sent by his master to find a bride for his son Isaac and asked you for a sign and he went to the well at the outskirts of the town (a popular cruising spot at the time!) and Rebecca showed up and like a really good girl asked him if he needed water and then not only drew water for him but also for his ten overworked camels and that’s when Eliezer knew that she was the one… it doesn’t have to be on the nose or anything. I know you don’t really do that anymore… It could be subtle… The Talmud says that the wise need only a hint, a wink… That’s all it takes really. I’ll fill in the blanks, don’t you worry about me.
(beat.)
I just need to know that I’m not crazy. That you see me. That you hear me. That I’m not invisible…
(beat.)
Anything…
LILI
(continued)
Why am I like this? Why couldn’t I be normal like everyone else?? YOU made me this way! YOU?!! I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this…
Suddenly the clouds part overhead and a bright ray of sunlight in the form of a star (or possibly a crucifix!) shines directly onto my position.
Truthfully, this was just the natural effect of the sun moving lower in the sky as the afternoon wore on, but I didn’t care. I always knew that I was different somehow and now I knew that God knew it, too. And for that brief moment in time, I was content in that knowledge.
_
The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen (presented by LABA) plays this weekend.
14Y Theater
Friday, October 25 | 7:30 PM
Saturday, October 26 | 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 27 | 3:00 PM