Beauty through Pain: Exploring the Sacred Nature of the Profane

Sep 22
9 min read

As I mention in the About Me section on the homepage of the website, I was brought up in an extremely strict religious household.

I was born into a long tradition of child-rearing that includes learning what God wants from you, all the way from not speaking gossip to rules about how to tie your shoes in the holy way... or the blessing to say when you put on a new shirt.

I was brought up in a world where you were always learning new rules and categorizing things as "good" and "bad", "holy" and "profane".

It wasn't until I jailbroke My iPod Touch in ~2009 that I really started understanding My current philosophy on the matter.

I remember which game I used the Jailbreak on that really stood out.

It was called Hollywood Story®: Fashion Star, and it was a pay-to-play game, for the most part.

The early levels were fun, they hooked you, but the waiting time for each mission got longer and longer, and eventually, you'd have the itch to rush the three-hour timer.

Most of the time, especially as a teen with a ~$15 a week allowance that was going towards other things, I would wait out the three-hour timers.

Sometimes, I would cave.

Then, I learned what jailbreaking was.

See, Apple had this rule.

Your iPod must remain within their perfectly-coded IOS (iPhone Operating System), otherwise it would be in danger of losing its warranty and no longer able to be serviced by Apple's tech support teams.

However, some people and developers developed apps and platforms to host apps... And a lot of these apps were modded.

That's why I jailbroke My iPod.

So I spent an afternoon researching and downloading the right software, until I finally got it done.

I turned on the "unlimited money" hack, and went nuts.

And... It wasn't long before I started to get bored.

I was skipping all of the waits, I was buying all of the outfits for My character, and yet... I wasn't feeling any happier.

In fact, I was feeling somehow emptier.

I felt like I'd made a realization that shook My perspective of The Universe.

I tried the hack on some other games, but the empty feeling persisted.

Eventually, I set aside the iPod and realized...

I realized that I was lucky.

I was lucky that I had to wait for the three-hour timer to run itself out.

The wait, the hardship, the "pain" of waiting for the fun dopamine hit of the mission completion... That was the point.

The pain was the point, the pain was what made it worth something.

The pain is the point.

There is no pleasure without pain, without something to counterbalance it and give you perspective on how beautiful things actually are.

And this can be on a tiny individual and almost only theoretical in a philosophical sense as it was with My iPod jailbreak, and it can be vast and massive, as large as The Universe itself. Or it can relate to the stress of marginalized people under a certain governmental administration.

As I'm sitting here and writing, I am painfully aware of the state of the world.

There is a palpable feeling of fear and anxiety in the air these days.

And yet, somehow, I must say that life has never felt more beautiful to Me.

Maybe it's the fact that I left My community of birth to create My own life... or maybe it's the fact that I can hold My pains and pleasures up to the bigger picture and see...

It's hard to say this, because I know that it's an extremely painful subject for some, but I will continue.

As legislators in the United States become increasingly more and more brazen about their hate, I am also learning to appreciate things more and more by the day.

I am learning to appreciate the love in My life, I am learning to appreciate the experience of the small things in life that exist within the pain of the larger world.

I am learning to appreciate the pain in seeing the world fall apart.

Because in its own way... It is beautiful. In its existence, in its persistence, in the way it creates a tension that will eventually break...

The world would not function without pain to counterbalance the pleasure, to give it a sort of solid nature or palpability.

The world would not function without pain.

Which makes it sacred.

And just like pain is sacred, so is the profane.

Profanity, as a counterbalance and foil to holiness, is holiness itself.

As someone who was raised Ultra Orthodox Jewish, I was brought up with teaching through stories from our history.

The story below is from the Talmud, the book of Berakhot, and took place somewhere between 220 and 250 CE.

ברכות ס״ב א:ג׳

רַב כָּהֲנָא עָל, גְּנָא תּוּתֵיהּ פּוּרְיֵיהּ דְּרַב. שַׁמְעֵיהּ דְּשָׂח וְשָׂחַק וְעָשָׂה צְרָכָיו. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: דָּמֵי פּוּמֵּיהּ דְּאַבָּא כִּדְלָא שָׂרֵיף תַּבְשִׁילָא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: כָּהֲנָא, הָכָא אַתְּ? פּוּק, דְּלָאו אֹרַח אַרְעָא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: תּוֹרָה הִיא, וְלִלְמוֹד אֲנִי צָרִיךְ.

Berakhot 62a:3

On a similar note, Rav Kahana entered and lay beneath Rav’s bed. He heard Rav chatting and laughing with his wife, and seeing to his needs, i.e., having relations with her. Rav Kahana said to Rav: The mouth of Abba, Rav, is like one whom has never eaten a cooked dish, i.e., his behavior was lustful. Rav said to him: Kahana, you are here? Leave, as this is an undesirable mode of behavior. Rav Kahana said to him: This (too) is Torah, and I must learn.

I've always loved this story, since I first heard about it.

(Of course, I didn't learn about it in My Jewish girl's school, as that is profane).

It's funny how it works.

Sexuality is profane, too profane to teach about, and yet, according to Rav Kahana, it is Torah and he must learn.

This story is in the Talmud, in books that are called "Torah she'b'al peh"(1)

This story was handed down, generation to generation, and written down for future learning.

But it wasn't taught.

Not in My all-girls school.

Growing up, I knew that there were things that were "off limits."

Eating treif, or nonkosher food, was one thing, as was doing "work" on The Sabbath.

I'd say, though, the most repressive thing we were taught by far was the rules of "tznius".

Tznius, or modesty, is an overarching theme in every young girl's education.

We were taught from pretty much toddlerhood that it is a girl's/woman's responsibility to never dress or hold themselves in a way that might be considered as sexual or "not tznius".

I even remember being taught that one must not walk in front of a man.

Not because of propriety according to patriarchal norms, but because if you walk in front of a man, he might stray in his thoughts, as you might draw attention to yourself.

You must not wear bright colors, you must wear your hair pulled back when unmarried, and wear hair coverings as a married woman.

You must wear loose clothing, you must not walk between two men, you must not go outside with wet hair, as that may make men think of you naked(2). Riding a bike above a certain age is forbidden, as is roller-skating.

You must...

Well, I could go on.

I could go on and on and on.

Our bodies, our clothes, our very movements were sexualized, policed, and forced into a strict and unchanging template.

We were taught from a young age to see ourselves as implicitly profane.

I remember when My understanding of My sexual agency first started simmering.

I was 15, it was mid April/March, and My high school drove us up to The Catskills to a campground that was used in the summer for preteen and young teenage boys.

I had been exploring My body for some time, though I was terrified to do so.

All I knew at the time was what I was doing felt good, and if it felt good... I didn't want to know if it was allowed or not.

However, there was a bump in My plan to remain peacefully oblivious to what I knew, deep down, to be a "sin".

I had noticed some graffiti in the back of the bunkhouse, in the shower area.

Now, in My all-girls summer camp, we'd write some small things on benches or bookshelves, some little memorial of our time as a camper, leaving a memento for other campers to find.

This graffiti was different, though, and it opened My eyes for the first time about how different My upbringing was to that of My male counterparts.

I had seen some of the graffiti, some of the drawings of figures in the showers, drawn in a way to make the shower head act as a visual stand-in for a phallus.

I was more than shocked, I was shaken.

This wasn't the world I lived in. This wasn't the world I knew.

I was unsettled, and even though I noticed some more writing on the wooden rafters, I quickly finished up and returned to the bunk-room, where I settled on My bed to read the book I'd packed for the trip.

I was settling Myself in to ignoring the graffiti and the level of self-expression the boys in the camp seemed to have when a friend came over and interrupted My reading. "Soooo..." She asked, clearly uncomfortable, "What exactly is masturbation?" My heart pretty much jumped up to My throat, and I am not certain if My fear didn't show on My face.

The fear wasn't just about telling My friend what I thought it was... It was admitting to Myself that I'd been doing it for well over a year.

To this day, I still don't understand why she thought she'd get an answer from Me, as I was considered the "Rebbetzin"(3) of the class, or the "goody-goody".

I told her what I knew, though, that masturbation was a word for self-pleasuring in a sexual way.

She accepted the answer, and walked off, leaving Me to stew and simmer in My newly found self-flaggelation for doing something forbidden.

It stuck with Me.

It stuck with Me for a while, the feeling of intense guilt for engaging with My own body.

I cried over it.

I don't remember how long after that story this happened, but I remember sitting in My bedroom, My back against My bed as I sat on the floor, sobbing to God about how I'd never do it again.

How I'd repress Myself, repress the feelings that made Me feel good, repress the feelings that brought Me pleasure and happiness, for the sake of God's will.

I was taught that pleasure was a sin.

I was taught that My body was a sin.

I was taught that My very experiences within My own body were policed, not only by the people in My life, nor only by the rabbis making (or rather, perpetuating) the rules that kept us in line, but by God, the entity I believed could hear My very thoughts.

So, I cried.

I cried and repented, and a few months later, I went right back to exploring My body.

Because it's natural.

It's natural to explore, it's natural to want pleasure, it's natural to want peace and contentment in your body.

I felt guilty, though. I felt like every time I enjoyed Myself, I was ripping out a part of My soul.

But it's natural.

Policing what is natural... Creating these rules that dictate what is profane and what is allowed... Well, that's the easiest way to get people to fall in line.

Self-expression is what makes a person a person and not just a cog in the wheel.

Sexuality, self-pleasure, following the natural drive of your body... That's you.

That's who you are.

And removing that... Creating a barrier between a person and what makes them foundationally themselves... That is how you get them to listen. If you can control and dictate their thoughts about their bodies... what else can you convince them of?

There was a journey to get from 15 to 32, and a whole lot of stories that built up the Me who I am today.

There were years of piety, years of working to be "good", to be "holy", according to what My forebearers dictated.

I know, though, that I am now more Me than I have ever been.

Leaning in to seeing what was forbidden as holy... Leaning in to seeing the "profane" as something to be explored and celebrated...

In learning to love My body, I learned about the pain I held for so many years.

I learned that the pain of My upbringing, the pain of restriction and repression...

That created the appreciation I have today.

The profane is holy.

The pain is holy.

The things that brought Me here, "good" and "bad"...

Sexuality, the profane, the things that are repressed and held back...

Exploring the things that I was not allowed to feel, exploring the beauty of things that I was kept away from...

This, too, is sacred, and I must learn.

(1) Literally translated: "Torah of the mouth", or idiomatically "Torah that is handed down person to person" rather than the "Torah she'b'ksav" which means "Torah that is written" and refers to the TaNaCH, or Torah, Neviim, Kesuvim, the three sections of the Torah considered to be written before, during, and relatively shortly after the receipt of the tablets of the 10 commandments).

(2) I am unsure if the wet hair rule was one that was widely taught, I was told this by a family member after I went swimming, though.