Sanctified and Stolen
Reclaiming the Sacred from Empire
There is something both tender and apocalyptic about living in this moment; as a queer, disabled, Reform Jewish person trying to build a spiritual life while everything is on fire.
Not metaphorically. Actually on fire. Politically. Spiritually. Ecologically. Morally.
And in the middle of all this; bombs, backlash, billionaires, I find myself coming back to Torah. Not the sanitized version. Not the white liberal “tikkun olam” tweets. But the gritty, strange, earthy, uncompromising Torah that deals in blood and dust and covenant and grief. The one that demands we rest even when the empire says keep producing. The one that names boundaries as sacred, not optional. The one that insists that we must remember we were slaves in Egypt, and so we can never turn a blind eye to the oppressed, even if they do not look like us.
I keep returning to the sacred because it keeps getting stolen.
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The state has always tried to pacify our holiness. It repackages the radical as respectable. It rebrands the rebellious as inclusion. We see this in the ways queer pride has been turned into corporate marketing; Bud Light and Lockheed Martin floats, rainbow capitalism, assimilationist slogans. We see it in how Zionism has become tethered to Jewish identity in ways that erase the long, rich histories of Jewish anti-imperialism, diaspora wisdom, and Black and brown Jewish radicalism. We see it when "community" becomes an excuse to extract from others, especially those of us who are queer, disabled, neurodivergent, or not easily legible to the frameworks of productivity, decorum, or institutionalized religion.
We are being spiritually flattened. And I refuse.
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Let me be clear: I am not interested in binaries. I am interested in liberation. And liberation demands complexity. It demands contradiction. It demands refusal.
It also demands rest.
As someone who lives with chronic illness, I’ve had to learn that resistance doesn’t always look like a protest sign. Sometimes it looks like laying down. Turning off the phone. Lighting candles, or incense, even when I’m too tired to stand for the blessing. Saying no. Saying I can’t. Saying I need.
Shabbat has taught me that rest is not weakness; it is an act of rebellion.
When I say “no” to hustle culture, to overwork, to the expectation that I must be constantly visible or constantly producing, I am saying “yes” to something older. Something sacred. Something mine.
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There is a difference between being in community and being in consumption.
Community demands relationship. Accountability. Mutual aid. Respect for boundaries. Recognition of harm. Not the weaponized kind of “accountability” that social media thrives on; public callouts without support, purity tests, aesthetic politics; but the Torah kind. The kind where you name your mistakes, you make amends, you bring a sacrifice if you have to, and then you stay in relationship. The kind where everyone understands that being in covenant means you don't ghost someone when they’re inconvenient. You stay. You hold. You build.
Too often, what people call “community” is just a rerun of white supremacy; domination under a different dress code. The refusal to listen. The extraction of labor and culture without reciprocity. The flattening of complexity into slogans and vibes.
But Torah is not vibes.
Torah is wrestle.
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Queerness too has been gutted of its teeth.
It was once about refusal; of gender, of normativity, of state control, of capitalist respectability. Queerness was trans women of color fighting cops. It was butches and dykes building new forms of family. It was Black and Indigenous queer people imagining futures outside of colonial borders. It was weird and defiant and spiritual. It still is; beneath the noise, beneath the rainbow-washed brands, beneath the NGO sheen.
The queerness I belong to is not about being "included." It’s about dismantling the structures that told us we were unworthy in the first place. It's about being both deeply embodied and deeply mystical. It's about knowing that my trans ancestors danced at the edge of death and still offered blessings.
We are not lost. We are deliberately erased.
We are not confused. We are deliberately misread.
We are not expendable. We are sacred.
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This moment demands a spirituality that refuses to be used by empire.
I do not want a Judaism that justifies state violence. I do not want a queerness that fits neatly into corporate strategy. I do not want a community that sees me as a liability because I’m not always digestible. I want mess. I want complexity. I want accountability that transforms. I want spirituality that makes me more alive.
The world I want is one where we honor the seeds sprouting in the garden. Where we make room for people who need to lie down. Where we say “you hurt me” and “I still want to be in relationship.” Where we remember that HaSham is not in the earthquake but in the still, small voice. Where we stop treating people as disposable. Where we stop treating rage as inherently unholy. Where we stop conflating critique with betrayal.
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This post is not about a neat conclusion. It is a beginning. Or maybe a continuation. A whisper of Torah in the ruins. A psalm in the body of a migraine. A flicker of Shabbat in a stolen world.
So here’s what I know:
🕯 I am disabled, and I am holy.
🌿 I am queer, and I am sacred.
📖 I am Reform, and I am committed to Torah.
🛑 I am not available for extraction.
🧿 I am building something else.
And so are you.
If you’re still here; if you’ve survived the erasure, the gaslighting, the forced smiles, the silence, the burnout, the betrayals; you’re already part of the resistance.
We are still alive. And that is already a miracle.