The mark on this yeshiva boy’s arm is a symbol of how I ultimately held on to my religious background after I came out
By Jayson Littman
It
was a cold day in February 2008 when I hopped on the M train from my
home in Manhattan and headed to Brooklyn Adorned, a tattoo shop on
Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The shop was spacious, clean, and
comfortable—not what I expected from a tattoo parlor. Artistic pictures
of tattoos hung on the wall as if they were featured in a museum. As I
wondered if my tattoo would proudly be displayed on the wall, a tattoo
artist named Yoni looked at me, glanced up at my yarmulke, and asked,
“So, where do you want your tattoo, yeshiva boy?”I chose what I call my T-spot, the place on my left bicep where I place my tefillin box when I pray every morning. I knew that until my tattoo healed, I would be unable to wear tefillin, which I had done every day since just before my bar mitzvah. Even though I was drifting away from the Orthodox identity I’d grown up with, laying tefillin was one of the only commandments that still made me feel a physical connection with G-d. I had learned that tefillin is placed on one’s bicep because G-d represents strength; when the box is placed on the bicep in a manner that faces your heart, it shows that G-d is truly in your heart.
Now my tattoo, a permanent mark on my T-spot, would represent the paradoxical relationship I had to Orthodox Judaism.
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