Written by Bruriah Lost. Bruriah is a formerly frum writer, attorney and mother. She came to Orthodoxy on her own as a teenager and then came out of it as an adult. Bruriah attended kallah classes and briefly practiced the laws of ritual purity (Niddah). For more Jewrotica writing by Bruriah, check out Prohibit This Cunt.
On our first blind date, we meet in a hotel lobby, where he tells me his plan to leave yeshiva and become a kosher chef. “I am never going to be a great rabbi, studying to be one feels absurd. That is just not how my mind works. I love everything about food,” he says, sipping a caramel latte.
A man who is not afraid to admit that he loves the earthly realm of dining above the esoteric world of Torah study is both shocking and somehow intensely welcome. He admits a fatal flaw, without breaking eye contact on our first date. Moshe’s brutal honesty is an instant turn on. Until we met, I always imagined myself marrying a scholar.
I marry Moshe five months later, a common time span from first date to the wedding canopy in the intensely Orthodox Jewish community. We are both nineteen and virgins on our wedding night. It takes three days to work our way from tracing concentric circles on the other’s wrists to sex under the covers. After an entire adolescence starved for touch, his hands on my nude body are a miracle.
He starts his apprenticeship with a chef in a small kosher diner in Brooklyn. I start covering my hair with elaborate scarves that I unravel, every evening, in the elevator on the way up to my apartment. I long to feel my heavy curls loosely hanging down my back, always aching for my husband’s hand running through the long brown strands. After the wedding, my hair is only for him to see and touch; hidden, as my pussy is hidden. A married woman’s hair is Erva – nakedness.
He works awful hours – as is the life in the restaurant world. Routinely, Moshe comes home in the middle of the night. My sleeping schedule begins to resemble that of our medieval ancestors. I sleep from 10:00 p.m., until he comes home. We are together for a couple of hours before drifting off to sleep. Even during niddah, when I am menstruating and all touch is prohibited, we still talk in the peaceful dark hours of the night.
God, just don’t let it be some kind of horrible disease like cancer. He prays three times a day and he is an incredibly giving lover…
As soon as Moshe walks in the door I beg him to just talk to me.
“Leah, I need to tell you this thing and I will be totally honest, but first, I need to make this meal… Please let me make you this meal.” His body moves erratically in the tiny apartment kitchen. His skin is shiny with sweat. I watch him bake cinnamon crumble cake (my favorite) and make cheddar scallion omelets. The sleeves of his flannel shirt are rolled up, the black velvet kippah slightly off center on his curly red hair.
He serves me eggs and coffee at our small kitchen table. “Leah, I am just going to be honest with you, okay? I wanted you to have food in front of you, so maybe you will be less likely to run out if you are chewing. Crazy, I know.” I just put the first fork full in my mouth. I swallow and it goes down my windpipe. He waits till I finish coughing to continue.
“I was at the doctor yesterday. I am so sorry, but I was also at the doctor three days ago and two days before that. I have been at doctor’s offices a lot lately. There is this totally new syndrome showing up during puberty and immediately after. There is so little known about it.” His eyes are wet and his voice is shaking. I am so scared. I am crying hysterically; tears falling into my coffee.
“I am not going to die. Leah, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I am going to live, but my body is changing from the body of a man to a body of a woman. I tried coming up with softer ways to say this, but there are no words – no better, gentler words for this. They are calling it Post-Pubertal Sex Change Disorder. God, I am so sorry.” We sit silently, staring intently into nowhere.
He is right about the food. Having the food he cooked on my plate provides soul deep comfort. You can’t walk out on someone who is kind enough to feed you in the midst of his private hell.
How?” I ask a few long minutes later.
“They don’t really understand it completely. The doctor said that there are all these genes in our bodies that do nothing and when a person gets this condition, it is like something flipped the switch on those genes. There is no stopping it.” Moshe is breathing hard, between the hiccups.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“No, I don’t think it’s going to hurt.” Silent tears slip from his puffy red eyes.
“Not physically at least…” I add quietly. I want to hold him, but I can’t. I am not yet due to go to the mikvah for another three days. I am ritually impure. I can’t not touch him…him…him? The word “him” keeps looping in my mind over and over again. Moshe. Moshe. Moshe.
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
The Jewrotica event “Evening of Jewrotica: Bedside Reading” was awesome. As Master of Confessions, I got to read the deepest, darkest secrets of people in the room out loud… It was scintillating, titillating, and – yes – even educational!
Jewrotica is inspiring Jews and erotica with holiness and coolness, and is the pride of progressive Judaism. Jewrotica – awesome!
I stepped out of my comfort zone to be a part of this. I was glad to open up the topic of sexuality in my community. We are trying to build a safe space to talk about sex. The result I am most happy about coming from this event is that hopefully now my friends know they can come and talk to me, that I can be their ‘safe space’.
I attended and participated in last month’s Jewrotica event. The engaging performers and Ayo, our inviting host, inspired the audience to feel like one big community. What a great way to inspire our community to embrace sex as a beautiful thing that can be fun, exciting, sacred, sensual, ridiculous, scary and everything in between!
Such an amazing experience! The Sarah Lawrence Jewrotica workshop was more than I could have ever expected – a comfortable, safe, sultry environment where participants clearly felt good about sharing or listening to each other’s intimate experiences and relating them to sexy stories from the Torah. From the moment the workshop began, Ayo had a sweet presence that was kinetic and spread around the room; her storytelling abilities had everyone enraptured and made the conversation topics relata… Read more
At Jewrotica’s Evening of Bedside Readings, students declaimed monologues on sexual encounters that had a Jewish twist. At Columbia/Barnard Hillel, the speakers pushed their own boundaries by performing a range of explicit narratives that challenged how the audience thought of the relationship to Judaism and sex. During the speakers’ preparation, the arguments about which narratives would be appropriate forced students to take a stand and voice their opinion on their own beliefs about Judaism an… Read more
Jewrotica rocks. It’s funny, it’s informative, it’s sexy, it’s interesting. Check it out!
I had a great time deejaying at the Jewrotica event at Columbia University. The live readings were hilarious, informative, and in some cases, deeply moving. I know that I, along with many of my AEPi fraternity brothers, loved being able to connect our Judaism and our sexuality in a way that made all of us feel comfortable and welcome. I look forward to being a part of this again in the future!
I love the inclusiveness – there is something for everyone, in and out of the Jewish community.
Jewrotica is awesome. It expands the mind and for people who were raised with narrow views on sexuality. Whether you are Jewish or not, or in different sects of Judaism like Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, no matter what your background or where you’re from, Jewrotica gets you to see Judaism and how it relates to sexuality in new ways. I really appreciate Ayo being here and helping us learn different ways to connect with our sexuality.
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