Talks & lectures

LGBTQ JEWS AND CHRISTIANS RECLAIMING THE BIBLE AND EMBRACING OURSELVES WITH PRIDE

27, August 2017 – 6 Elul 5777

Hello everyone and thank you for inviting me to address you this evening. I’ve been asked to speak to you about LGBTQ Pride from a Jewish perspective. As we gather here together at this Village MCC Church, I’m sure we are very conscious that our identity encompasses, both, being LGBTQ and our sense of being part of a religious tradition. Historically, these identities have been seen as being in complete conflict with one another: it was impossible to be LGBTQ and Jewish or Christian. The infamous verses we find in the Bible in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 which teach that two men lying with one another as a man would lie with a woman is an ‘abomination’ put paid to that.^[1] Consequently, LGBTQ Jews and Christians have, historically, been confronted with an impossible choice: either, be involved in one’s Jewish or Christian community, or, live out one’s LGBTQ identity.

For years that impossible choice led LGBTQ people, either, to abandon their religious tradition, or to suppress their sexual and/or gender identity. Some people still make that impossible choice. But times have moved on. Importantly, the phenomenon of LGBTQ people coming out during the last 50 years has generated the changes needed for us to embrace all of who we are. We could chart the history of the past 50 years in Britain in terms of changes in the law, starting with the 1967 Sexual Offences Act,^[2] which decriminalised sex between two men over the age of 21 in private, followed by a series of legal developments, resulting in an equal age of consent,^[3] equal marriage^[4] and the possibility of transgender people altering their birth certificates to reflect their new name and gender identity.^[5] But these legal changes only happened because LGBTQ people engaged in a struggle for acknowledgement of our full human rights.

As it happens, I was a pioneer in the pursuit of equal marriage, raising the issue within the Jewish community back in 1996. It was a very hard struggle, but from 2000, Liberal Judaism began to grapple with the issue, resulting in full support for equal marriage, both civil and religious.^[6] But I haven’t come here this evening to talk about our campaigns to change the law in this country. Orthodox strands of Judaism and many Christian denominations, including the Church of England and the evangelical churches, still haven’t endorsed equality. Many people continue to take those ancient levitical verses as their guide. There are parts of the world where LGBTQ People are persecuted – and in some places put to death – in the name of fundamentalist religious teachings.^[7] We have a responsibility to campaign together with and on behalf of LGBTQ people who still face vicious discrimination. We also have a responsibility to ourselves and to those who would come after us to transform our traditions. So, as LGBTQ people committed to being part of a Jewish or Christian tradition, we are challenged to reinterpret, reframe and reclaim sacred text – not just those infamous verses – so that the Bible speaks to our lives.

During the past 30 to 40 years, this is exactly what LGBTQ Jews have been doing: re-engaging with the Jewish textual sources.^[8] Back in 1993, for example, I developed an inclusive and egalitarian approach to sexual ethics based on reading the sexual prohibitions in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 through the lens of the ethical teachings we find in Leviticus chapter 19, in particular, verse 18: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Eternal’ – in Hebrew: V’ahavta l’rei’akha kamokha. Ani Adonai. What a difference it might make to our approach to sexuality, if instead of focusing on whether sex is between a man and woman, between two men, between two women, or between two gender-fluid or queer people, we developed an inclusive and egalitarian sexual ethic based on the notion that sex between people, whatever their sexual or gender identity, should be mutual and reciprocal – which, of course, by definition, excludes sex between adults and children. Such an inclusive and egalitarian sexual ethic based on the principle of mutuality and reciprocity, would lead us to reinterpret the repeated prohibition against ‘uncovering nakedness’^[9] that we find in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 as a prohibition against exploiting one’s sexual partner in their vulnerability, which is completely relevant to our own lives as LGBTQ people. Importantly, when we engage with the biblical texts that exclude and marginalise us, we move from being in the position of being sexual ‘outlaws’ to participating in an ethical framework of behaviour on equal terms. If you’re interested in reading more extensive account of this inclusive approach to sexual ethics, you will find it in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism, published in 2012.^[10]

When engaging with the Bible so that it becomes meaningful and relevant to our own lives as LGBTQ people, it seems obvious to tackle those chapters in Leviticus. But our quest for meaning shouldn’t be confined to the passages about sex. On the contrary, we need to go right back to the beginning, to the creation stories we find in the Book of Genesis. These narratives, used throughout history to justify the subjugation of women to men, continue to be used by Christian campaigners against equality for LGBTQ people to argue in crude populist terms that ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ Unfortunately, I don’t have the time this evening to present a detailed rereading of those Genesis chapters from a feminist and LGBTQ perspective. I’m going to refer to some key things to note – and again, if you’re interested in finding out more, do take a look at Trouble-Making Judaism.^[11]

So, the first thing to note in both creation narratives is that the creation of humanity begins with the single human – ha-adam – not ‘the man’, as traditional translations have it, with the proper name, ‘Adam’! In the second creation story, we read that the human – ha-adam – is formed from the dust of ha-adamah – the ground.^[12] Ha-adam is one with the earth. In the first creation story, ha-adam, the human quickly becomes ‘male and female’^[13]: the Hebrew words, zachar, ‘male’ and n’keivah, ‘female’, denoting biological sexual difference for the purposes of reproduction. In the second creation story the process of differentiation of one human being into two is much slower, and is motivated not by the reproductive impulse, but rather by the need for companionship.

Throughout the first creation story, each day is marked by the repetition of the words, ‘and God saw that it was good’ – Va-yar Elohim ki-tov.^[14] Finally, when the work of creation is completed, we find ‘and God saw that it was very good’ – tov m’od.^[15] Given this repetition, the negative statement we find in the second creation story is quite startling: ‘It is not good for the human being to be alone.’^[16] The verses that follow focus on finding a suitable companion for the lone human being. In the first attempt, the animals are created, but as soon as the human names them, and thereby exerts power over them, they are deemed unsuitable companionship material.^[17]

What follows next is familiar to most of us: the infamous rib to woman story. But the Hebrew makes it clear that a ‘rib’ wasn’t involved. The Hebrew word, tzeilah, means ‘side: the ‘side’ of the human was taken from the human in a deep sleep, resulting in two humans, ishah and ish.^[18] For the moment, I don’t want to translate these two Hebrew words, but rather invite us to reflect on their similarity: ishah; ish. In Hebrew, each verb, noun and adjective is based on three Hebrew letters, known as the root of the word. The root of ishah and ish is Alef Nun Shin – to be human. Unfortunately, Hebrew is a completely gendered language. So, for example, to say, ‘you’ in Hebrew – a non-gendered word in English –we are presented with four options: att, feminine singular; attah, masculine singular; atten, feminine plural; attem, masculine plural. So: ishah is the word for ‘woman’ and ish is the word for ‘man’. But the important thing is that unlike, the words ‘male and female’ in the first creation narrative, which are utterly different words, as I’ve indicated ishah and ish derive from the same root: to be human. The binary gender split is unavoidable in Hebrew, but understanding the Hebrew enables us to see the essential oneness of humanity. The philosophical position we encounter in the second creation story: ‘it is not good for the human to be alone’ is one which by definition, applies to all humans, regardless of sexuality and gender. If we then go back to the first creation story, we find the statements that present us with the clinching argument: “Then God said: ‘Let us make the human – ha-adam – in our image according to our likeness’…”^[19] “So God created the human in the Divine image…”^[20]

Every human being is an image of God. That is our starting point as LGBTQ Jews and Christians. Forget ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’; God created all of us, in our different ways in the Divine image. There is a lovely rabbinic comment in the first rabbinic code of Jewish law, the Mishnah, edited around 200 CE, that conveys beautifully the sense of this unity in diversity:^[21]

One stamps out many coins with one die, and they are alike, but the Sovereign above the Sovereign of Sovereigns, the Holy One, who is Blessed, stamped each person with the seal of the first human – adam ha-rishon – and not one of them is alike.

So, we have our starting point as Jewish and Christian LGBTQ people: we are all the same; we are all different. To develop a sense of pride in ourselves, it’s also helpful to have role models – and there are a number we can draw on in the Bible.

First, there is Joseph.^[22] Forget ‘the coat of many colours’. The Hebrew expression k’tonet passim, means a ‘garment reaching to the palms [of the hand and feet]’. There are only two references to such a garment in the whole of the Hebrew Bible: Joseph is dressed in a k’tonnet passim^[23] – and so it is Tamar, the daughter of King David. In fact, in the reference to her wearing such a garment, the text explicitly explains that k’tonnet passim is a garment worn by royal princesses!^[24] We already know that Joseph’s garment, a gift from his doting father, Jacob, singled him out as the favourite son.^[25] By linking Joseph’s garment with Tamar’s, from an LGBTQ perspective, Joseph may be perceived as transgender. In the book, I’m currently writing, I examine the Joseph narrative – also pointing out that while Joseph is described exactly the way in which his mother, Rachel, before him was described – as ‘beautiful and shapely’ – the usual translation concerning Joseph, is ‘handsome and well-built’.^[26]

For many years, I was preoccupied with Miriam, the elder sister of Moses and Aaron, and co-leader of the Exodus. If you were to take all the verses about Miriam together they would fill up less than one side of A4 paper.^[27] And yet, she was responsible for saving the baby Moses,^[28] and at the time of the Exodus is described as a prophet, n’vi’ah.^[29] Significantly, Miriam did not marry. The longest text about her is at Numbers chapter 12 – a short chapter of 16 verses that are totally devoted to an incident that Miriam was responsible for instigating. The chapter begins: ‘Then Miriam spoke – and Aaron – against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. / And they said: has the Eternal indeed spoken only with Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken with us?’ Understandably, both Miriam and Aaron take exception at their baby brother’s special relationship with God. Resorting to superficial interpretations, you will find commentaries on the Internet, arguing that Miriam’s objection to the Cushite woman, whom Moses had married, was racist, a reading that seems reinforced by the passage relating that God punished her with a temporary dose of the white scales of leprosy.^[30]

As a lesbian reading the text, I ask different questions. Who was this Cushite woman? Who was she to Miriam? What might have been the reason for Miriam’s objection to Moses marrying her? In chapter 2 of Trouble-Making Judaism, taking my cue from the inventiveness of rabbinic commentary, where concern that Miriam was unmarried, led the sages to marry her off to Joshua or Caleb,^[31] I write a new story of Miriam from a lesbian perspective. In my account, the Cushite woman is Miriam’s woman, whom Moses married to break up their relationship. So, Miriam, the eldest of the Exodus leaders could well have been a lesbian.

Interestingly, on the Sabbath when in the annual Torah reading cycle, we read the final instalment of the story of the Exodus, including the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the songs of triumph of Moses and Miriam,^[32] our second scriptural reading, known as the haftarah, ‘conclusion’, is the story of Deborah related in Judges chapter 4, verse 4 through chapter 5. The narrative opens by telling the reader that that Deborah was a ‘prophet’ and ‘judge’. Contrary to the standard translation, however, Deborah was not the ‘wife of Lapidot.’^[33] Certainly, the Hebrew says, eishet Lapidot, and eishet means ‘wife of’ or ‘woman of’, but there is no one called Lapidot in the whole of the Bible, and the biblical convention is that when someone is designated as the wife of a certain man, there must be other references to him. Significantly, however, the word, lapidot means ‘torches’ – singular, lapid. So, the Hebrew may be describing Deborah as a ‘woman of torches’ or ‘torch-like woman’. Such a description fits well with her role as a prophet and judge – and then as the story reveals, the commander, who accompanies her general, Barak into battle.^[34] Clearly, Deborah the unmarried leader of the people, in no way conforms to the expectations for a woman of her time. We might regard her from our LGBTQ perspective as gender queer.

So, we have lesbian, transgender and queer biblical role models, but what about the ‘G’ and ‘B’ in LGBTQ? I would like to leave the ‘G’ for a moment, and look for our bisexual role model. For this I turn to the story of David, who became King David. A poet and a musician, David was also an adulterer, who had the captain of his army killed in battle, just so that he could take his wife, Bathsheba.^[35] But that’s not all. David loved Jonathan, son of King Saul – and Jonathan loved him. We read in the First Book of Samuel, chapter 18, verse 1: ‘Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.’ And then, later when Jonathan dies in battle, we learn in the Second Book of Samuel, chapter 1, verse 26 that David sings a song of lament for him: ‘I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan, very pleasant have you been to me, your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.’

Finally, we come to a gay role model. In my view, it must be Jesus. I realise that here I am wandering into the territory of the Christian Gospels, but since Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew, I would like to include him in our Jewish and Christian LGBTQ biblical pantheon. Like other rabbis of the time, Jesus spent a lot of time with other men. But other rabbis were married. It was simply unheard of for a Jewish man of Jesus’ age – he was around 32 when he died – not to have a wife. Perhaps, it was his gay sensibility that enabled Jesus to relate to Mary Magdalene as a person, rather than as a woman of ill-repute. Yes, according to the Gospels, Jesus insisted that people should be married – and not get divorced^[36] – but perhaps, Jesus was diverting attention away from his own lack of a normative marital status through his pronouncements on marriage.

I have offered you some LGBTQ biblical role models. Of course, there is no question that the Bible, both the Hebrew Bible, and Christian Bible known as the New Testament, is written from the perspective of heterosexual men and reflects the patriarchal social reality of ancient Near Eastern times. Nevertheless, in those ancient times, there were, there must have been, LGBTQ people. As it happens, the early rabbis were very aware of this. Interestingly, in a rabbinic comment on the opening verses of Leviticus chapter 18 that prohibit the Israelite people from copying the practices of Egypt and Canaan, we find this explanation for the prohibition: [In Egypt and Canaan]‘A man would marry (nosei) a man, and a woman a woman’^[37] – a clear reference not only to same-sex intimate acts, but also to on-going relationships between same-sex partners, both male and female. Further, considerable sections of the G’mara, the fifth century rabbinic commentary on the second century rabbinic code of law, the Mishnah are devoted to discussions of what today we would call the phenomenon of intersex people – mainly because the reality of intersex presented quite a challenge to rabbinic binary assumptions about male and female roles.^[38]

Some LGBTQ people do not see the point of trying to reclaim biblical texts that exclude us and reread them in terms of our own lives. In contrast to this view, I would argue – and I imagine that you would concur – that if we don’t interrogate the Bible through the prism of our experiences and perspectives as LGBTQ people, then the Bible will continue to render LGBTQ lives invisible. And just as important, oppressive texts left unchallenged, will continue to have the power to deny our reality and diminish and dismiss the integrity of our lives. Ultimately, for Jewish and Christian LGBTQ people, celebrating ourselves with pride means embracing all of who we are. As Jews say, when we raise the sacred scroll after the completion of each book of the Torah: Chazak, chazak v’nitchazeik, Be strong! Be strong! And may we strengthen ourselves and one another. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Village MCC Church, Brighton

27^th August 2017 – 5^th Elul 5777

Leviticus 18:2 and 20:13. Another oppressive biblical text concerns the prohibition against cross-dressing: Deuteronomy 22:5. ↑
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/60/pdfs/ukpga_19670060_en.pdf ↑
http://www.youngstonewall.org.uk/lgbtq-info/legal-equality ↑
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/contents/enacted/data.htm ↑
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Recognition_Act_2004 ↑
http://www.liberaljudaism.org/lifecycle/marriage/ ↑
In 75 countries, homosexuality is still illegal – http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/sexual-offences-act/ and LGBT people face discrimination and persecution. Indeed, in Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, those found guilty of homosexual acts face the death penalty, while in Nigeria and Iraq, LGBT people are executed even though the law does not require it – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/where-is-it-illegal-to-be-homosexual-and-which-is-the-most-deadly-country-to-be-gay-10355338.html ↑
See, for example, Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible edited by David Shneer, Gregg Drinkwater and Rabbi Joshua Lesser (2009). See: https://www.keshetonline.org/resource/torah-queeries-book/ ↑
In Hebrew: gillui ervah ↑
Chapter 9. Published by David Paul Books. ↑
Ibid. Chapter 1. ↑
Genesis 2:7 ↑
Gen. 1:27. ↑
See: Gen. 1: 4; 12; 18; 21; 25. The only exception is the second day: Gen. 1:6-8. ↑
Gen. 1:31. ↑
Gen. 2:18. ↑
Gen. 2:19-20. ↑
Gen. 2:21-23. ↑
Gen. 1:26. ↑
Gen. 1:27 ↑
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5. ↑
The Joseph story begins at Genesis 37 and continues to the end of the Book of Genesis. ↑
Gen. 37:3. ↑
2 Samuel 13:18. ↑
Gen. 37:3. ↑
Compare Genesis 39:6 re: Joseph, with Genesis 29:17 re: Rachel. The Hebrew is gendered male for Joseph and female for Rachel, but the description is identical: Va-y’hi Yosef y’feih-to’ar vifeih mareh (Joseph); V’Racheil hay’tah y’fat-to’ar vifat mareh (Rachel. ↑
The Bible on Miriam: Exodus 2:1-10, Ex. 15:20-21, Numbers 12:1-16, Num. 20:1, Deuteronomy 24:8-9, Numbers 26:58-59, Micah 6:4, I Chronicles 6:3. ↑
See the story of the birth of Moses: Exodus 2:1-10. ↑
Exodus 15:20. ↑
Numbers 12:10. See, for example: http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2014/06/07/hashem-dealt-miriams-racism/ ↑
Midrash Sh’mot Rabbah 1:17. ↑
See Exodus 13:17-15:21. ↑
Judges 4:4. ↑
Judges 4:6-10. ↑
2 Samuel 11:2-27. ↑
See Matthew 19:1-12. ↑
Sifra, Acharei Mot 9:8. ↑
See ‘Gender Identity in Halakhic Discourse’ by Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gender-identity-in-halakhic-discourse ↑

REMEMBERING RABBI LIONEL BLUE, Z”L

7, July 2017 – 13 Tammuz 5777

The tribute I gave in honour of the late Rabbi Lionel Blue, Z”L, at the Erev Pride Erev Shabbat service held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London.

This evening, at our erev Pride Erev Shabbat service, I have been invited to pay tribute to Rabbi Lionel Blue, zichrono livrachah, may his memory be for blessing, who died on December 19, 2016. Lionel often attended this annual service, and was for us all, in particular, for the members of the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group, the father-figure for Rainbow Jews.

I have been asked to speak about Lionel this evening because I knew him for over thirty years. I first met Lionel towards the end of 1983, when I was thinking about applying for the rabbinic programme at the Leo Baeck College. At that time Lionel, who was ordained in 1958, nine years before homosexuality ceased to be illegal in Britain, was not just the first gay Rabbi in Britain, he was the only gay Rabbi. Perhaps there were others, who hadn’t spoken publicly about being gay. Lionel had – at least in the context of his interfaith work. In 1981, he gave a lecture about being ‘Godly and Gay’ to the Gay Christian Movement.^[1]

As it happens, in a sense I only met Lionel by accident. A meeting with another teacher at the college, concluded with the words: ‘I think it might be an idea for you to go and see my colleague, Lionel Blue; he’s quite good at detecting hidden talent.’ And so, I did – and we hit it off immediately. Having both been Marxists in our student days – he at Balliol College, Oxford, me at LSE – we discussed our journeys since that time, and as we spoke together, it became clear that he had been an outsider who had become an insider, and that was something I wanted, too.

So, that meeting turned out to be momentous. In particular, in view of the fact that I wasn’t the only lesbian feminist to decide to apply to the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme. At the week of interviews in February 1984, the college was confronted by two lesbian feminists: Sheila Shulman and me. Sadly, Sheila, Zichronah livrachah, died on 25 October 2014, shortly after we celebrated the 25^th anniversary of our ordinations. Back in 1984, the progressive movements that sponsor the college were sceptical about the acceptability of lesbians as rabbis, so, when we embarked on our rabbinic studies in October, we were both put on five-year probation – that is, we were told that we could be asked to leave at any point during the five-year long period of rabbinic training.

Lionel became my tutor. But he wasn’t the kind of tutor, who arranged formal appointments with you in his office – which happened to be at the Reform Beit Din, which he served as Convenor. And so, towards the end of my first term, Lionel informed me that in January he was going to take me to a weekend retreat for Catholic novice nuns at Spode, a Dominican Priory, where he wanted me to lead Erev Shabbat at the dinner table.

It was a lot to get my head around. I knew, of course, that Lionel was deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, but I didn’t quite understand the connection between a retreat for young novice nuns and making Shabbat. The thought of it all gave me a headache: what could I, a lesbian feminist, aged 29, whose journey into the rabbinate was as much political as spiritual, have to say to 18-year-olds, so certain of their faith that they were prepared to make a lifelong commitment, involving vows of chastity, poverty and obedience? But that wasn’t my only problem. My experience of Erev Shabbat was limited to lighting the candles. I did not know any of the other blessings. Fortunately, Rabbi Barbara Borts, who had supported my application to the College, made me a tape, and I spent part of the winter break, learning to sing them all.

The retreat experience turned out to be just as unnerving as I had anticipated, with the young women gazing at me in bewilderment with their clear eyes. Their ardent fervour made me think – which is exactly what Lionel hoped it would do. But that wasn’t all that gave me pause for thought. Virtually teetotal, I was rather taken aback by the amount of alcohol consumed by the monks in the Priory bar each evening, as they joked and chatted together. And I’ll never forget how Lionel inducted me into my first experience of Christian prayer within a religious community. Before we went into our first service, he said to me: ‘Now, it’s completely up to you how much you join in with. I love a good hymn.’ As Lionel put it on several occasions, ‘Judaism is my religious home, not my religious prison.’

Lionel continued to challenge me during those five years. I also challenged him. Having experienced being gay during the long, difficult years before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ensured that sex between two adult men in private was no longer a crime, he couldn’t quite understand why I insisted on being so open about my sexuality. He felt that everything would be so much easier for me, if I didn’t ‘make such an issue of it’. Nevertheless, although Lionel didn’t quite know how to handle an outspoken radical feminist lesbian, he supported me steadfastly throughout my training, and when I asked him to ordain me, he beamed and said, yes.

In addition to being my tutor, Lionel also took the second-year rabbinic students for a weekly session on ‘prayer’, which proved to be an eclectic introduction to the teachings of a number of key influences on his thinking, including, in particular, Simone Weil, a French philosopher and political activist, who died in 1943, aged 34. Born Jewish, Simone Weil later converted to Catholicism and became a mystic, practising a fierce asceticism.^[2] We read excerpts from a collection of her writings, Gateway to God. Two short quotations – one from a publication of her First and Last Notebooks,^[3] the other from her book, Gravity and Grace^[4] – sum-up what Lionel was trying to teach the rather worldly rabbinic students, who sat around him: ‘Attention is the rarest and purist form of generosity’; and: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ Lionel wrote some beautiful prayers, which adorn the prayer books of Reform Judaism,^[5] but more important, he was able to pray with all of who he was – emotionally and bodily as well as spiritually.

Why am I telling you about Lionel the teacher of prayer, who found inspiration as much in Christian spirituality as in Jewish teaching, this evening at this celebration of LGBTQ Jewish life? Because I think that if we are going to really understand Lionel’s contribution, it’s important for us to acknowledge that he wasn’t just a gay icon to us, as he wasn’t just the gentle voice of wisdom to the millions who listened to his Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ on Monday mornings, as they faced the week ahead. Lionel reached into the depths – the depths of his own heart; the depths of the hearts of others. He embraced his sexuality and he also embraced his spirituality. He revelled in the joys of the flesh and loved nothing better than to be in his kitchen conjuring up a delicious spread, and he was also able to inhabit utter stillness. In the 1990s when I was Director of Programmes for Reform Judaism, I organised with Lionel and another colleague, Rabbi Howard Cooper, a series of three annual weekend retreats. During these retreats, we spent a full hour each day, just sitting in silence with one another. Most people found it incredibly challenging, but Lionel was just simply in his element.

Lionel taught us to be all of who we are. That is his chief legacy. And to see our sexuality as a gift for ourselves and for the world. In his 1981 lecture, ‘Godly and Gay’, Lionel spoke of a ‘gay vocation’. Let me quote from this section of his address:^[6]

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Through gay people God heals some of the divisions of the world. The difficulties and rejections which gays experience transcend the division of race, religion, colour and class, as any gay gathering can show. In this country, where class is so entrenched, this is truly a wonder. I’ve seen Arabs and Jews brought together, Germans and Poles, conservatives and communists. It was attraction, not ideology, which provided the occasion and brought some understanding and the seed of love. Authoritarians do not care for gays. They do not like their straying habits.

God can also use gays to heal some of the scars of a sexist society. It is natural to hate being persecuted, it is supernatural to hate being the persecutor even more. We should thank God, that though straights have burnt gays in the past, and still threaten stoning and occasionally practice it, gays have no desire to retaliate in kind. In my own experience, many hurt heteros turn to gays, for they bring no threat, only healing. So God’s work is done through them. Gays can build a bridge of understanding and sympathy between the sexes if they’re allowed to, and if they are willing to come out of their own ghetto.

During the past thirty-six years since Lionel spoke these words, the vocabulary of sexuality and gender has expanded beyond ‘gay’ to encompass lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex. Moreover, Rainbow Jews, at least, have come out of the ghetto. 20% of the combined progressive rabbinate in Britain is now LGBTQ+,^[7] and alongside Civil Marriage equality, LGBTQ+ Jewish couples can now marry under a chuppah in Liberal and Reform synagogues – and those in mixed relationships can have blessing ceremonies in Liberal shuls. More recently, through Liberal Judaism supported projects such as Twilight People,^[8] we have begun to acknowledge the experience of transgender people. But, importantly, when Lionel spoke to that Gay Christian Movement gathering in 1981, he wasn’t just making a plea for equality and inclusion, he understood that the experience of being LGBTQ+ was a special gift we can offer to the wider society.

Lionel always spoke from his heart, his soul and his gut; from his experience as a gay man, as a Jew, and as a human being who connected with other human beings wherever they were. A person with the capacity to reach out the hand of friendship to others, in particular, to the wounded and the broken, Lionel didn’t just do this in his public work. He was incredibly hospitable. Wayfarers and friends were always welcome to the home he shared with his beloved, Jim, Zichrono livrachah, who sadly died in June 2014, shortly before the erev Pride Service that year. Completely unpretentious, Lionel was honest and real. He was also full of humour, and would have chuckled at the thought that his obituaries in the print editions of The Times and The Guardian, would appear directly after those devoted to Zsa Zsa Gabor, who died the day before he did, with whom he shared a birthday – and who, like him, had had a formidable Jewish mother.^[9]

As we remember Lionel today and feel sad that he is no longer amongst us, let us also take a moment to smile and laugh and give thanks for his wisdom, his example, and for the many gifts of himself that Lionel shared with us and with others. Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be a source of abundant blessing for all our lives. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7^th July 2017 – 14^th Tammuz 5777

Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7^th July 2017 – 14^th Tammuz 5777

Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7^th July 2017 – 14^th Tammuz 5777

Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

The Left, Israel/Palestine and Anti-Semitism: Changing the Conversation

28, June 2017 – 4 Tammuz 5777

I participated in a meeting meeting in Central London on 28.06.17 about ‘The Left, Israel/Palestine and Anti-Semitism: Changing the Conversation.’ It involved members of Jews for Justice for the Palestinians, Independent Jewish Voices and the Jewish Socialist Group. I contributed to a panel of three speakers. The other speakers were Julia Bard of the JSG and Dr Brian Klug, who teaches Philosophy at St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford.

Good evening everyone, and thank you for inviting me to participate in this meeting. I would like to contribute to our discussion about how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by inviting us to think about how we might move away from a binary approach to the issues. In the interests of the Palestinians, who have been subjected to occupation for the past 50 years, all those who want a just resolution to the conflict are challenged to acknowledge that such a resolution will only be achieved on the basis of justice, peace and security for both peoples.

In the interests of avoiding binary conceptions, I would like to start by reminding us of the variety of Jewish responses to the conditions of Jewish existence in the late 19^th century, when Zionism emerged as a political movement in Europe in response to anti-Semitism. For Theodore Herzl and other exponents of political Zionism, the establishment of a Jewish state was the only solution to the persistence of anti-Jewish persecution in the diaspora.^[1] Nevertheless, there were at that time three major alternative approaches:

Many orthodox groups remained committed to life in the Diaspora and opposed Zionism because as they saw it, the redemption of Zion was dependent on the Divine will and the coming of the Messiah.

Jewish Socialism, as articulated by the Bund – shorthand for the General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia – rejected Jewish nationalism in favour of international socialism.

Progressive Judaism argued that the people of Israel best fulfils the prophetic vision of being ‘a light unto the nations’^[2] by living amongst the nations.^[3]

So, Jews spoke with many voices – and we continue to do so. While Jewish Socialism’s opposition to Jewish nationalism has remained fairly constant since the late 19^th century, approaches within Orthodox and Progressive Judaism have become more diversified – for the most part in response to the 1967 Six Day War. And so, the past 50 years has seen ultra-Zionist religious zealots holding sway among the West Bank settlers, and the development of Progressive Zionism, which at one end of the spectrum is reluctant to publicly criticise Israeli policy, and at the other, is actively involved in challenging the occupation and campaigning for a two-state solution.

Jewish life is nothing if not extremely complex! That complexity has its roots in complex, multifaceted Jewish experience. It also has its roots in Jewish teaching. Jewish teaching is multi-vocal. Look at a page of the Mikra’ot G’dolot, the ‘great commentaries’ on the Hebrew Bible, or a page of the Babylonian Talmud, and you will find a host of interpretations and perspectives. Literalism and fundamentalism are anathema to Jewish teaching. As the saying goes, two Jews, three opinions. This has always been the way of Jewish life.

And so, there are many Zionisms, just as there are many expressions of Judaism and Jewish identity. Varieties of Zionism within ‘Zionism’, with different goals and different approaches to the Palestinians.

But before I say more about that, I would like to approach the question of how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by acknowledging an issue that precedes the Left’s exclusive presentation of Zionism as colonialism; an issue rooted in Christian anti-Semitism and in Christendom – that is, Christianity wedded to imperial power, which was the outcome of Roman Emperor Constantine converting to Christianity in the early 300s CE.^[4] Seen through the lens of historic Christian supremacist triumphalism, the Christian case against Judaism has been presented by a set of binary oppositions: Jewish law versus Christian love; Jewish justice versus Christian mercy; Jewish particularism versus Christian universalism. In reality, however, Jewish teaching embraces law and love, justice and mercy, particularism and universalism: a particular piece of land and the whole world. And so, just as the Jewish people is part of humanity, the particular bond between the Jewish people and the land forms an integral part of the Torah, of the unique history of the Jewish people and of Jewish identity for many Jews.^[5] Jews are a people of the world and a people connected to a particular land. Both. Contrary to popular myth, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE by the Romans, Jews continued to live in the land, where the rabbis reconstructed Jewish life and teaching for a post-Temple era, culminating in the production of the Jerusalem Talmud, which was edited around the year 400.^[6] Moreover, a remnant continued to live there, mostly in Jerusalem, during the succeeding centuries. Meanwhile, vibrant Jewish life continued in other centres of Jewish existence – in particular in Babylon, present-day Iraq, where the Babylonian Talmud was edited around the year 500. Down the centuries, Jews have lived in practically every corner of the earth, including in the land.

The Left’s demonisation of Israel reflects, both, the failure to acknowledge the roots of Zionism in Jewish experience, and the failure to acknowledge the complex diversity of Jewish points of view and the diversity of Jewish life.

Now I would like to say something more about plural Zionisms, which are an expression of this diversity. The first Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897. In 1925, largely in response to the Arab riots of 1921, Vladimir Jabotinsky established the Revisionist movement. An open split occurred at the 14^th Zionist Congress in August 1925 between Jabotinsky’s confrontational approach towards the Arab inhabitants of the land, and the approach represented by Chaim Weitzman and others. At the Congress, Chaim Weizmann declared: ^[7]

In true friendship and partnership with the Arabs we must open the Near East to Jewish enterprise… Palestine must be built in such a way that legitimate Arab interests are not impinged upon in the slightest…- we must take Palestine as it is, with its sands and stones, Arabs and Jews as they are. That is our work. Anything else would be deception… We shall rise or fall by our work alone.

Another delegate at the Congress, Arthur Ruppin, expressed the need to acknowledge the Arab inhabitants of the land and work in partnership with them in even stronger terms:^[8]

… there is the possibility… to establish in Palestine a community where both nations, with no ruling advantage to the one, nor oppression of the other, shall work shoulder to shoulder in full equality of rights towards the economic and cultural development of the country.

Arthur Ruppin became a founder member of Brit Shalom, ‘Covenant of Peace’, an organisation with a binational approach to Zionism, which held its first meeting in his house in mid-November 1925. Martin Buber, Robert Weltsch, Hans Kohn and Hugo Bergmann were also founder members. The clearest articulation of Brit Shalom’s form of Zionism is in the ‘open letter’ that Martin Buber wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939 in response to Mahatma Gandhi arguing that, and I quote, ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs’. Let me quote from the letter. Buber wrote:^[9]

I belong to a group of people who from the time Britain conquered Palestine have not ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab.

By a genuine peace we inferred and still infer that both peoples together should develop the land without the one imposing its will on the other…. We considered it a fundamental point that in this case two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…

… We considered and still consider it our duty to understand and to honor the claim which is opposed to ours and to endeavor to reconcile both claims.

The continuing conflict, which included Arab riots in 1929 and 1936, marginalised the stance taken by Brit Shalom. Nevertheless it’s binational state platform was adopted by Mapam, the leftist United Workers Party in the 1940s, and in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the emergence of the Peace Now movement, once again brought different conceptions of Zionism to the fore, and in the years that followed there has been proliferation of groups concerned with working together with the Palestinians towards coexistence.

Some years ago, JfJfP asked me for a quotation from Jewish teaching to include in JfJfP literature. I chose this verse from the parashah – Torah portion – Shof’tim, Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 20: Tzedek, tzedk tirdof – ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’ Pithy and powerful this statement says so much in three short Hebrew words. In Hebrew syntax, the verb usually comes first. Here, the word ‘justice’ precedes the verb, and repeated for further emphasis, teaches that it is impossible to pursue justice for one side without pursuing justice for the other. The choice of verb, however, is equally important: tirdof – ‘you shall pursue’. Justice is so hard to achieve, we have to go after it. At the same time, we have to recognise that acknowledging, as Buber puts it, that ‘two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…’, securing a just resolution to the conflict – either in the form of two states or one – will involve compromises on both sides in order to achieve peaceful coexistence.

In view of a complex reality in which there are many Zionisms, but one ongoing persistent problem, namely, the occupation and the continuing dispossession of the Palestinians, the task must be to pursue – to borrow that expression from the Torah – a just resolution of the conflict. In place of the overwhelming predominance of non-constructive anti-Zionist rhetoric and demonisation of Israel, what is needed now, as Sam Bahour and Tony Klug argue, is that, either, the occupation is dismantled, so that an independent State of Palestine can be established, or, the lands occupied by Israel are incorporated into Israel and equal citizenship rights granted to the Palestinians.^[10]

Finally, in my article recently published in the American Jewish journal, Tikkun, in the special issue, ‘Israel’s Occupation at 50’, taking as my starting point that anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitic, I offer three criteria for identifying an anti-Zionist position as anti-Semitic:^[11]

First: the unilateral rejection of Jewish nationalism alone among the nationalisms of the world, and the targeting of Zionism for special condemnation.

Second: this exclusive preoccupation with Israel and demonisation of the Jewish state becoming enmeshed with historic anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power.

Third: the presentation of Zionism as a form of European colonialism without any understanding or recognition of how the Zionist movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was a response to the rise of a new malevolent form of racist anti-Semitism in Europe.

For the Left to engage in a new kind of conversation about Israel/Palestine, one that does not get enmeshed in anti-Semitic tropes, a starting point would be recognition of the conditions of Jewish life in which political Zionism emerged.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

See Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaaat (The Jewish State), first published in 1896, a year before the inaugural meeting of the Zionist Congress in Basle. ↑
Isaiah 47:6. ↑
The non-Zionist stance of early Progressive Judaism is expressed, for example, in paragraph 5 of ‘The Pittsburgh Platform’ of 1885: ‘We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.’ http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/platforms/declaration-principles/ ↑
Emperor Constantine reigned from 306-337 CE. ↑
From the moment that Abraham and Sarah set off on a journey to a land that the Eternal promised to ‘show’ them (Genesis 12:1) until the time when their descendants completed their journey through the wilderness and camped on the eastern border of the Jordan in readiness to cross over into the land (Numbers 36:13), the land frames the Torah narrative.↑
The work of the first generations of rabbis, the tanna’im, ‘teachers’ led to the creation of the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200 CE. ↑
Protocols of Fourteenth Zionist Congress, pp 328-329, translated by Hagit Lavsky, and cited in Lavsky, Hagit, German Zionists and the Emergence of Brit Shalom, translated from the Hebrew, reprinted in Reinharz, Jehuda and Shapira, Anita eds. Essential Papers on Zionism, New York University Press, 1996, pp. 664. ↑
Ibid. cited in Lavsky, p. 664. ↑
From: Martin Buber’s ‘Open Letter’ to Gandhi Regarding Palestine (February 24, 1939) in Arthur Hertzberg, ed.,The Zionist Idea. (Jewish Publications Society, 1997), pp. 463-464.↑
See: ‘Israel Can’t Have It Both Ways. Recognize Palestine or Grant Equal Rights’ by Sam Bahour and Tony Klug, Tikkun, October 26, 2015 http://tikkun.dukejournals.org/content/30/4/26.full See also: ‘A Never Ending Occupation: The End of Hope?’ by Tony Klug, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1692 and ‘After 50 Years: Save Israel, Stop the Occupation’ by Izhak Schnell and Daniel Bar-Tal, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1690 ↑
‘When anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism and Zionism becomes anti-Palestinian’, Tikkun, Volume 32, No., 2, Spring 2017, pp. 59-62. ↑

A JEWISH REFLECTION ON COMPASSION, Interfaith Conversation, Chichester Cathedral, 1st November 2016

1, November 2016 – 1 Heshvan 5777

The Jewish contribution to an Interfaith Conversation on the theme of Compassion and Mercy at Chichester Cathedral, 1 November 2016, which also included contributions from Catholic, Muslim and Buddhist religious leaders, concluding with Revd Dr Martin Warner, the Bishop of Chichester.

Good evening everyone. It is pleasure to be here and participate in this Interfaith Conversation about compassion. As I share a Jewish perspective with you, I am mindful of the date. On 18 July 1290, King Edward the Confessor signed an edict of expulsion determining that the Jews of England had to leave his realm by All Saints Day.^[1] It was not until Oliver Cromwell extended an invitation to the Jews of Holland in the 1650s that there was a Jewish community in this country once more. ^[2] Much has transpired during the past 360 years. The last time I was here at Chichester Cathedral was for National Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, when we commemorated the kindertransports that brought unaccompanied children from Europe to England.^[3] In this way, 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, were saved from the horror of the Sho’ah^[4] by the kindness and righteous action of strangers.

From the perspective of Jewish teaching, compassion – rachamim – is a quality, almost exclusively, of the Eternal One.

The Eternal One is essentially unknowable, but of course Judaism, like other religions, makes statements concerning the nature of the Divine and about the relationship of the Eternal to humanity. In the Torah, in the Book of Exodus, in the midst of the narrative of the Revelation of the Divine at Mount Sinai, we read in chapter 34 that the Eternal is “compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in love and truth” – rachum v’chanun, erech apayim, v’rav chesed ve’emet.^[6]

The adjective, rachum, ‘compassionate’, and the noun, rachamim, ‘compassion’ are based on the Hebrew root, Reish Cheit Mem. And both are related to another noun based on the same root: rechem, meaning ‘womb’. In Psalm 103, we read: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Eternal has compassion on those who revere Him.”^[7] However, contrary to the image of the Divine as compassionate ‘Father’, the compassion of the Eternal emanates from the womb.

So, what of human beings? We read in the first account of the creation in the Book of Genesis chapter 1 that ha-adam, ‘the human’ is created – both male and female – b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God’^[8] Human power is not simply an ad hoc gift of the Divine. The first creation narrative seems to suggest that the human created ‘in the image of God’, is God-like in every respect and has absolute power over the rest of creation.^[9]

But there are limits to the power of the human. The second account of creation in Genesis chapter 2 makes it clear that being ‘in the image of God’ is not the same thing as being God. The human, whose domain is now confined to a garden, which the human has the responsibility ‘to work and to keep’, is subject to the power of the Divine, and must not transgress the boundaries imposed by the Divine.^[10]

The Book of Leviticus sets out the specifically Jewish way of negotiating our relationship as human beings with the Divine. Leviticus chapter 19 often referred to as the Holiness Code, which focuses on a host of ethical teachings, opens with these words:^[11]

The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the entire congregation of the Israelites and say to them: You shall be holy – k’doshim – because I, the Eternal One Your God, am holy – kadosh.

According to the Book of Exodus, the slaves were liberated from slavery in order to serve God. “Let my people go that they may serve Me” is a repeated refrain.^[12] And so, we find alongside the narrative of the Exodus and subsequent wanderings, the laws governing the social, economic, civic and political dimensions of society. The mitzvot, ‘commandments’ provide a framework for behaviour and action in the family, in the community, and in the wider world, which includes both ritual and ethical dimensions. Moreover, the law codes in the Torah are not simply an adjunct to the narrative. Significantly, although Jews and Christians share ‘the Ten Commandments’ – known within Jewish tradition as Aseret ha-Dibrot, ‘the Ten Utterances’ – the way in which they are read is slightly different. For Christians, the first commandment is, ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’^[13] However, for Jews, the preceding verse constitutes the first commandment: ‘I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.’^[14] According to Jewish teaching, God is a liberator. Created in the image of God,^[15] human beings are called to be liberators. Liberated from slavery, the ex-slaves who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, and their descendants, have a particular obligation to liberate the oppressed.

The first rabbis, who interpreted the mitzvot set out in the Torah in order to formulate a framework for Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, identified a particular group of mitzvot, which they called g’milut chasadim, ‘deeds of loving kindness’. In Pirkey Avot, the collection of the wise aphorisms of the first generations of rabbinic sages, which is appended to the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of Jewish law, edited around the year 200, we read:^[16]

Simeon the righteous was one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly. He used to say: ‘the world stands on three pillars: Upon the Torah, and upon avodah – worship – and upon g’milut chasadim –deeds of loving kindness.’

Let us consider for a moment these pillars of the world. Torah: the source of Divine teaching; avodah – worship: the way in which we practice Divine teaching by acknowledging the Divine; g’milut chasadim – deeds of loving kindness: the way in which we practice Divine teaching through acts of loving kindness towards others. The emphasis is on practice; on what we do rather than what we feel. This is spelt out in the examples delineated in rabbinic literature of g’milut chasadim – of which, hospitality to guests – hachnasat or’chim – and visiting the sick – bikkur cholim – feature among the most important of the regular responsibilities of daily life.^[17] The mitzvah of g’milut chasadim is the obligation to do these things: to practice loving kindness towards others in need.

The TaNaKh, the Hebrew Scriptures – sometimes referred to as the First Testament – in particular, the Torah and the books of the prophets, includes many exhortations to act justly and righteously – chiefly, towards the vulnerable and the marginal, most frequently designated as ‘the stranger, the orphan and the widow.’ For example, we read in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 24: ‘You shall not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the orphan; or take the widow’s garment as a pledge; / rather, you shall remember that you were slave in Egypt…’^[18] Similarly, Leviticus chapter 19 includes a host of mitzvot that dictate ethical action in all areas of life. It is here that we find the exhortation, not only to love one’s neighbour, but to love the stranger. We read: ‘When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. / The stranger that dwells with you shall be as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.’^[19]

V’ahavta – ‘And you shall love’. The same Hebrew expression used in connection with love of the Divine in Deuteronomy chapter 6, in the text that became the first paragraph of the Sh’ma,^[20] is used, both of love of one’s neighbour and love of the stranger. Of course, love cannot be commanded. The rabbis translated the injunctions to love one’s neighbour and the stranger into g’milut chasadim – deeds of loving kindness towards others, and tz’dakah, righteous action in the economic sphere.

Tz’dakah is often translated as ‘charity’, but this translation is misleading. The word for charity is based on the Latin word, caritas, which essentially, means love. Tz’dakah by contrast, is based on the root Tzadi Dalet Kuf to act justly or righteously, and is related to the word, tzedek, meaning ‘justice.’ In Deuteronomy chapter 16, in the context of a section dealing with the system of justice and the appointment of judges, we read: Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’^[21] Practising the mitzvah of tz’dakah involves participating in putting right the injustice of economic inequality. It is for this reason that the Jewish equivalent to Christian Aid is called Tzedek, an organisation which targets extreme poverty.^[22]

So what of empathy? We read in the Book of Exodus, chapter 23: “Do not oppress a stranger, for you know the nefesh – ‘being’ – of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”^[23] In this verse, the commandment not to oppress the stranger suggests that remembrance of our own experience of oppression might motivate us not to oppress others. However, the fact that injunctions concerning the stranger are repeated in different ways, 36 times in the Torah suggests that empathy is not necessarily an automatic response.

According to Jewish teaching, whether or not we feel compassion towards others, we are required to practice loving kindness towards others. This requirement is particularly urgent today in the context of the global refugee crisis. One of the specific expressions of g’milut chasadim identified by the rabbinic sages is pidyon sh’vuyim – ‘redeeming captives.’ Unsurprisingly, given the centrality accorded to the Exodus narrative in Jewish teaching and liturgy, according to the Talmud, edited around 500 CE, which includes the Mishnah, the first code of rabbinic law, and the commentary on it by subsequent generations of scholars, ransoming captives is considered, ‘a great commandment’ – mitzvah rabbah.^[24]

The imperative to ransom captives takes on a particular resonance today in the context of the millions of people caught up in deadly conflicts across the globe, not least, in Syria and Iraq. As we think, in particular, of the people of Aleppo, trapped in a war-torn city, subjected to daily terrors and deprived of the basic needs of daily life, powerless in the face of hate-fuelled violence and wanton destruction, it is clear that we have a responsibility to liberate them from their captivity and provide them with a secure refuge.

Of course, it would be wonderful if everyone would feel compassion towards others. However, when it comes to responding to persecution and injustice, feelings of compassion are not enough; we need to act. From a Jewish perspective, created in the image of God, human beings are challenged to use our human powers to practice righteousness and deeds of loving kindness – and to liberate the oppressed.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Chichester Cathedral, 1 November 2016

See: A History of the Jews in England by Cecil Roth. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978. Chapter 4, The Expulsion, 1272-90, pp. 68-90. ↑
Ibid: Chapter7. Readmission, 1609-64, pp. 149-172. ↑
The NHMD event at Chichester Cathedral – http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk/whats-on/last-train-to-tomorrow.shtml – focused on Nicholas Winton’s rescue of 669 children from Czechoslovakia: http://nicholaswinton.com/ The kindertransports brought 10,000 children to England – mostly Jewish – and for the most part from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. See: http://www.kindertransport.org/history.htm For the programme of the NHMD, see: http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk/whats-on/last-train-to-tomorrow.shtml ↑
Meaning, ‘devastation’; the term used by the Jewish community in preference to ‘holocaust’, which means ‘burnt offering’, and places the Nazi programme of mass murder into an inappropriate sacred context. ↑
For recent news on this, see: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/08/child-refugees-calais-camp-stranded-britain-ignored-pleas-home-office Support Refugees, A Jewish Response to the Refugee Crisis https://www.supportrefugees.org.uk/ JCORE, ‘the leading Jewish voice on race and asylum’ http://www.jcore.org.uk/ and Tzelem, ‘the rabbinic call for social and economic justice in the UK’ http://www.tzelem.uk/ are among other groups campaigning for unaccompanied child refugees to be admitted . ↑
Exodus 34: 6. ↑
Psalm 103:13. ↑
Genesis 1:27. ↑
Gen. 1:28. ↑
For an analysis of the two creation narratives, see: Chapter 1 Making Trouble from Day One: Re-Reading the Creation Stories in Genesis, in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012). ↑
Leviticus 19:1-2. ↑
Ex. 9:1. ↑
Ex. 20:3. ↑
Ex. 20:2. ↑
Gen. 1:27, states that the human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, ‘in the image of God.’ ↑
Pirkey Avot, 1:2. ↑
There are various passages in rabbinic literature giving different examples of g’milut chasadim. See, for example: Mishnah Pe’ah 1:1, Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 127a, ↑
Deuteronomy 24:17-18a. ↑
Lev. 19:33-35. The commandment to ‘love your neighbour’ is found at verse 18. ↑
Deut. 6:4-9. Recited daily in evening morning services, known as the Sh’ma, because it begins: Sh’ma! Yisraeil: Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad – ‘Listen! Israel: the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One.’ It continues: ‘You shall love the Eternal One your God, with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your might.’ ↑
Deut. 16:20. ↑
See: http://tzedek.org.uk/ ↑
Ex. 23:9. ↑
The reason: ‘…because captivity is worse than starvation or death’ (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 8b). ↑

THE PRACTICE OF LOVING KINDNESS: A JEWISH REFLECTION ON COMPASSION

6, March 2016 – 26 Adar I 5776

Science and Faith Weekend at Great Malvern in Worcestershire

Good afternoon everyone. It is pleasure to be here and participate in this multifaceted exploration of compassion. I have prepared a hand-out of the Hebrew words and their meanings in the order they come up in my talk, which you may wish to refer to.

Compassion: a deep feeling of concern and care for others. If only there was more compassion in the world. If only people were less self-centred and indifferent to the needs of others. Perhaps, if there was more compassion, there would be less cruelty, persecution, oppression and tyranny. A materialist might argue, by contrast, if the economic and political arrangements in the world were not skewed in favour of a powerful few, there would be less cruelty, persecution, oppression and tyranny. I have been asked to talk to you about compassion from the perspective of Jewish teaching, which offers yet another approach. Jewish teaching begins with the Torah, also referred to as ‘the Five Books of Moses’, the first five books of the TaNaKh, the Hebrew Bible, known by their English names as: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In the Torah, compassion, rachamim, is a quality, almost exclusively, of the Eternal One – and in some cases, of people with the power to dispense compassion.

I have just mentioned ‘the Eternal One’. Before I proceed any further, I need to say something about the way in which the Divine is referenced in Jewish teaching and liturgy. I shall be using the designation ‘the Eternal’ or ‘the Eternal One’ in honour of the tradition that the name of the Divine presented by the Hebrew consonants, Yud Hei Vav Hei (YHWH) is never pronounced. Significantly, these consonants are based on the Hebrew root letters Hei Yud Hei, meaning, to ‘be.’ Because the name of the Divine is never pronounced, Jewish tradition has dictated that a substitute word is used: Adonai. The way in which this works is that the vowels of Adonai are applied to the consonants, Yud Hei Vav Hei. The literal meaning of Adonai is ‘my Lords’ – hence, the usual translation, ‘Lord’. Misunderstanding that the vowels indicate that the consonants Yud Hei Vav Hei should be substituted with the word, Adonai, some people, most notably Jehovah’s Witnesses, read the vowels with the consonants, and so, mistakenly, have come up with the name, Y’hovah.

Since the root meaning of Yud Hei Vav Hei is, to ‘be’, referring to the Divine as ‘Eternal’ or ‘Eternal One’ comes closest to the meaning of the consonants and to the ineffable nature of the Divine, thus preserving the traditional notion that the Eternal cannot be captured in a name. This is, indeed, one of the central messages of the narrative in Exodus chapter 3, concerning Moses’ encounter with the Eternal in the wilderness at the burning bush that is not consumed by the flames. When Moses demands to know the name of the mysterious presence addressing him, the reply he receives only serves to underline the mystery: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh: ‘I am who I am’ – or, ‘I will be who I will be’; the Hebrew imperfect tense expresses both present and future meanings. The Hebrew itself conveys the ineffability of the Eternal even more powerfully. As Gabriel Josipovici has pointed out, Ehyeh is barely consonantal. Try saying it: Ehyeh…

So, the Divine is essentially unknowable, but of course Judaism, like other religions, makes statements concerning the nature of the Eternal and about the relationship of the Eternal to humanity. In the Book of Exodus, at chapter 34, in the midst of the narrative of the Revelation of the Divine at Mount Sinai, we find a powerful and comprehensive statement of the attributes of the Eternal in the context of Moses receiving the second set of tablets. Those of you who are familiar with the narrative, may recall that Moses smashed the first set of tablets in rage when, returning from forty days and nights on the top of the mountain communing with the Eternal, he saw the people worshipping a molten calf. We read in Exodus chapter 34:

The Eternal descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Eternal. /Then the Eternal passed by before him, and proclaimed: “The Eternal, the Eternal, God, compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in love and truth; / extending love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and error; but by no means acquitting the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and upon the children’s children, to the third and to the fourth generations.”

Referred to in subsequent rabbinic commentary as ‘the Thirteen Attributes’ of the Eternal, the list balances the attributes of compassion or mercy – the Hebrew for both is the same – with those of justice. Nevertheless, the balance seems to be in favour of compassion: love to the thousandth generation on the one hand; on the other, those who commit iniquity can expect the impact of their actions to be felt within their lifetime – to the third and fourth generation; that is, by their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren.

According to rabbinic interpretation, each one of the statements expresses a different Divine attribute, including each of the two references to ‘the Eternal’, and the reference to ’God’ – El – a word which in the plural is also used in the Torah of ‘gods’ in general – eilim. So: the Eternal, the Eternal, God – three attributes and then: Compassionate; rachum. From the standpoint of the ‘plain’ meaning of the passage – known in rabbinic hermeneutics as the p’shat – reference to the Eternal as compassionate, rachum, constitutes the first description of the Divine: Adonai, Adonai, El, rachum… “The Eternal, the Eternal, God, compassionate….” The adjective, ‘compassionate’, rachum is related to the noun, ‘compassion’, rachamim. There are multiple statements about the ‘compassion’ of the Divine in the TaNaKh. For example, in Isaiah chapter 63, we read:

I will recall the love of the Eternal, the praises of the Eternal, concerning all that the Eternal has done for us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel, which He bestowed upon them, according to His compassion and according to the greatness of His love.

Significantly, in this passage, Divine compassion, rachamim, is connected with Divine love, chesed. Chesed also features in the proclamation of the attributes of the Eternal – ‘abundant in love’ – and there is an important link between compassion and love, which I will explore later. But let us stay, for the time being, with compassion. The adjective, rachum, ‘compassionate’, and the noun, rachamim, ‘compassion’ are based on the Hebrew root, Reish Cheit Mem. And both are related to another noun based on the same root: rechem, meaning ‘womb’. In Psalm 103, we read: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Eternal has compassion on those who revere Him.” However, contrary to the image of the Divine as compassionate ‘Father’, the compassion of the Eternal emanates from the womb.

In a familiar story from the Torah, in Genesis chapter 43, we find a startling example of the association of Divine compassion with another part of the female anatomy. Having left their brother, Judah, in Egypt as a pledge, Jacob’s sons tell their father that the Egyptian overlord has demanded that their younger brother, Benjamin, must return with them to Egypt. In response, Jacob says:

“Take your brother and go back at once to the man. / And may El Shaddai give compassion for you, before the man, so that he may release to you, your brother, as well as Benjamin.”

From the perspective of Jacob, who has formed his own relationship with the Divine, the hope is that El Shaddai – one of the names for the Divine – will induce the Egyptian overlord (whom the reader knows is Joseph) to show compassion. Significantly, the literal meaning of the name, El Shaddai, which is usually translated as ‘God Almighty’, is ‘God of my breasts’. The noun shad means ‘breast’. So, once again, as with the connection between rachamim, ‘compassion’, and rechem, ‘womb’, the Divine is pictured with a female image.

Nevertheless, it is important that we do not fall into the binary gender trap of splitting the attributes of the Eternal between the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ – in particular, male justice versus female compassion. The crucial point in the dramatic proclamation of all of the complex attributes of the Divine is that the Eternal is omnipotent – all powerful. Both compassion and judgement signify Divine power. As we read a few verses further on in Isaiah chapter 63:

Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious height! Where is Your zeal, and Your power? Your yearning and Your compassion are being withheld from us.

The Eternal has the power to bestow compassion and to withhold compassion, as the Eternal also has the power to bestow and withhold grace and love – and punishment. Compassion is an attribute of power.

So, what of human beings? The adjective rachum, ‘compassionate’, is used exclusively of the Divine in the Hebrew Scriptures. Interestingly, where the noun rachamim, ‘compassion’, is used, or the Hebrew root for compassion – Reish Chet Mem – is employed in a verbal form, these uses usually evoke Divine action. However, there are examples, where it reflects an asymmetrical power relationship in the human domain. And so, for example, in the First Book of Kings chapter 8, in the midst of King Solomon’s extended plea to the Eternal in the presence of the whole community of Israel at the Feast of Sukkot – Tabernacles – we read:

‘And pardon Your people who have sinned against You for the transgressions they have committed against You. Grant them compassion before their captors that they may be compassionate towards them.’

Just as the Divine has the power to dispense compassion on those who revere the Eternal One, so conquerors have the power to dispense compassion to the conquered – but only because, by definition, the omnipotent Divine has the power to dispose those exercising human power to dispense compassion.

However, there is more to human power than this. We read in the first account of the creation in Genesis chapter 1 that ha-adam, ‘the human’ is created – both male and female – b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God’ – Elohim; a masculine plural form of another word for God, Elo’ah. Elohim is the most common way of referencing the Divine in the TaNaKh and in Jewish liturgy. It is very intriguing that the one God should be represented by a plural noun – but having taken up your time already with a detour into the ineffable name of the Divine, I’m going to have to resist exploring this. So, to return to the main point: human power is not simply an ad hoc gift of the Divine. The first creation narrative seems to suggest that the human created ‘in the image of God’, is God-like in every respect. In the very next verse we read:

And God blessed them, and God said to them: be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.

The human has absolute power over the rest of creation. But there are limits to the power of the human. The second account of creation in Genesis chapter 2 makes it clear that being ‘in the image of God’ is not the same thing as being God. The human, whose domain is now confined to a garden, which the human has the responsibility ‘to work and to keep’, is subject to the power of the Divine, and must not transgress the boundaries imposed by the Divine.

Nevertheless, as the narrative of the first human family demonstrates, subject to the power of God, the human, nevertheless, like God, has the power to destroy, as well as to create: Cain kills his brother Abel because God is more favourably disposed to Abel’s offering.

The creation narratives are concerned, by definition, with humanity in general. It is important to note that Jewish teaching begins with the creation of the world and everything in it, including the human. Indeed, the Jewish New Year, Rosh Ha-Shanah, is, according to tradition, harat olam, ‘the birthday of the world’ – and the date reflects the chronologies listed in the Torah. Of course, the world was not created 5776 years ago – 5776 – is the current date, but it is significant that the Jewish calendar begins with the creation of the world and not with the beginnings of the Jewish people.

The Book of Leviticus, by contrast, sets out the specifically Jewish way of negotiating our relationship as human beings with the Divine. Leviticus chapter 19 often referred to as the Holiness Code, which focuses on a host of ethical teachings, including the commandments to love one’s neighbour and to love the stranger, opens with these words:

The Hebrew expressions for the sacred – often translated as ‘holy’ – are based on the Hebrew root, Kuf Dalet Shin, to be set apart: that which is sacred is that which is set apart. We read in the Exodus story, just prior to the narrative of Revelation in Exodus chapter 19, this rousing declaration:

Moses went up to God. The Eternal called him from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: / You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on Eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. / Now then, if you will obey me faithfully in keep My covenant, you shall be my treasure among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine. / You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.

According to the Book of Exodus, the slaves were liberated from slavery in order to serve God. “Let my people go that they may serve Me” is a repeated refrain. And so, we find alongside the narrative of the Exodus and subsequent wanderings, the laws governing the social, economic, civic and political dimensions of society. Divine service is not confined to sacred ritual, it encompasses human relationships. The mitzvot, ‘commandments’ provide a framework for behaviour and action in the family, in the community, and in the wider world, which includes both ritual and ethical dimensions. Moreover, the law codes in the Torah are not simply an adjunct to the narrative. Significantly, although Jews and Christians share the Ten Commandments – known within Jewish tradition as Aseret ha-Dibrot, the Ten Utterances – the way in which the Commandments are read is slightly different. For Christians, the first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” However, for Jews, the preceding verse constitutes the first Commandment: “I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” According to Jewish teaching, God is a liberator, and created in the image of God, human beings are called to be liberators, too.

At the heart of the mitzvot, commandments, is the notion that the Jew, like the human pictured in the second creation narrative, is subject to the authority of the Divine. But this is only the most obvious aspect of the mitzvot. Just as important, the mitzvot centre on action, on practice. Made in the image of the Divine, like the Divine Creator, human beings are destined to create, to be productive, to act in the world. Of course, the underside of our creative capacity is our capacity for destruction. We act in the world for good and also for ill. The purpose of the mitzvot is to regulate our action in a constructive direction. Thoughts and feelings cannot be controlled and dictated, but behaviour can be regulated. I mentioned earlier, when referring to the attributes of the Divine set out in Exodus chapter 34, that there is a close connection between the Hebrew understanding of compassion, rachamim, and of love, chesed, often translated as ‘loving kindness’. From the perspective of Jewish teaching, while both compassion and love are attributes of the Divine, when it comes to human action, the emphasis is on our responsibility to perform deeds or acts of love. There are two main Hebrew roots designating love, both of which may be used of Divine love and of human love.

The famous phrase taken from the text in Deuteronomy chapter 6 that has become the first paragraph of the liturgical text, the Sh’ma, states: V’ahavta eit Adonai elohekha b’khol l’vav’kha, u’v’khol nafsh’kha, u’v’khol m’odekha: ‘You shall love the Eternal One your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.’ There is no time now to give you an extended exegesis of this important verse. To be brief, it is important to understand the meaning of the Hebrew. So, the word ‘heart’, leivav, actually designates the ‘mind’, and since there is no sense of the separation of body and soul in the biblical worldview, ‘being’ is a more appropriate translation for nefesh than ‘soul.’ Further, the word for ‘might’, m’od, indicates ‘abundance’. The verse is saying that one should love the Eternal One with all one’s mind, being, and material capacity. So, ‘love’ in this context is not a feeling. By contrast, the identical root for ‘love’ – Aleph Hei Beit – is used to describe Jacob’s feelings for Rachel. We read at Genesis chapter 29: Va-ye’ehav Ya’akov et-Racheil, ‘Jacob loved Rachel.’

When it comes to the other way of expressing love, chesed, which is based on the root letters, Chet Sameikh Dalet, we can also find both human and Divine examples. In the statement of the attributes of the Divine in Exodus chapter 34, we read that the Eternal One is ‘abundant in love’, v’rav-chesed, and also that the Eternal One ‘extends love to the thousandth generation’, notzeir chesed la’alafim. To return, once again to the Jacob story for a human example. When Jacob is about to die, we read in Genesis chapter 47 that ‘he summoned his son Joseph and said to him: “do me this favour, place your hand under my thigh, and commit yourself to love – chesed – and truth on my behalf: please do not bury me in Egypt.”’

Both of these examples of chesed in a Divine and a human context, reveal something very particular about this form of love – that it is intimately connected with deeds. The first rabbis, who interpreted the mitzvot set out in the Torah in order to formulate a framework for Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, identified a particular group of mitzvot, which they called g’milut chasadim, ‘deeds of loving kindness’. In Pirkey Avot, the collection of the wise aphorisms of the first generations of rabbinic sages, which is appended to the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of Jewish law, edited around the year 200, we read:

This is the second paragraph of Pirkey Avot. Pirkey Avot is arranged chronologically. The first paragraph states that: “Moses received Torah from Sinai and handed on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets. And the prophets handed it on to the members of the Great Assembly, K’neset ha-G’dolah.” This is the line of transmission as understood by the rabbis – note the conspicuous absence of any mention of the priests. So, from the mouths of the prophets, with railed against injustice and exhorted the people to act righteously, here we have Simeon the righteous, ‘one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly’ declaring that ‘the world stands on three pillars: Upon the Torah, upon avodah – worship – and upon g’milut chasadim – deeds of loving kindness.’

Let us consider for a moment these pillars of the world. Torah: the source of Divine teaching; avodah – worship: the way in which we practice Divine teaching by acknowledging the Divine; g’milut chasadim – deeds of loving kindness: the way in which we practice Divine teaching through acts of loving kindness towards others. The emphasis is on practice; on what we do rather than what we feel. This is spelt out in the examples delineated in rabbinic literature of g’milut chasadim – of which, hospitality to guests – hachnasat or’chim – and visiting the sick – bikkur cholim – feature among the most important of the regular responsibilities of daily life. The mitzvah of g’milut chasadim is the obligation to do these things: to practice loving kindness towards others in need.

The TaNaKh, in particular, the Torah and the books of the prophets, includes many exhortations to act justly and righteously – chiefly, towards the vulnerable and the marginal – most frequently designated as ‘the stranger, the orphan and the widow.’ For example, we read in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 24: “You shall not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the orphan; or take the widow’s garment as a pledge; / rather, you shall remember that you were slave in Egypt…” Similarly, Leviticus chapter 19 includes a host of mitzvot that dictate ethical action in all areas of life. It is here that we find the exhortation, not only to love one’s neighbour, but to love the stranger. We read: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. / The stranger that dwells with you shall be as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.”

V’ahavta – ‘And you shall love’. The same Hebrew word used in connection with love of the Divine in Deuteronomy chapter 6, in the text that became the first paragraph of the Sh’ma, is used, both of love of one’s neighbour and love of the stranger. Of course, love cannot be commanded. The rabbis translated the injunctions to love one’s neighbour and the stranger into g’milut chasadim – deeds of loving kindness towards others, and tz’dakah, righteous action in the economic sphere, often translated as ‘charity’.

But this translation is misleading. The word for charity is based on the Latin word, caritas, which essentially, means love. Tz’dakah by contrast, is based on the root Tzadi Dalet Kuf to act justly or righteously, and is related to the word, tzedek, meaning ‘justice.’ In Deuteronomy chapter 16, in the context of a section dealing with the system of justice and the appointment of judges, we read: Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’ Practising the mitzvah of tz’dakah involves participating in putting right the injustice of economic inequality. It is for this reason that the Jewish equivalent to Christian Aid is called Tzedek, an organisation which targets extreme poverty.

While the practice of tz’dakah focuses on the practical alleviation of poverty and the redistribution of wealth, the practice of g’milut chasadim focuses on treating those in need with loving kindness. Both centre on action. The importance of both is conveyed powerfully in a passage from the Book of Isaiah chapter 58, which is read in synagogues across all denominations on the morning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the midst of our fasting on Yom Kippur – to be precise, around 18 hours into the fast, when everyone is feeling extremely hungry, we read:

Is this the fast I choose, a day for human beings to afflict themselves? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day which is favourable to the Eternal One? / Is not this the fast I choose: to release the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every chain? / Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your home? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin?

It seems that I have strayed from the subject matter – compassion. Yes and no. Yes, because, as I have indicated, in Jewish teaching compassion is an expression of power – usually, Divine power. On the other hand, as I hope I have demonstrated, the mitzvot, commandments, transferred by the first rabbis from the Torah into a framework of rules for Jewish life, function to regulate human behaviour in the service, of the Divine and of humanity. We read in the Book of Exodus, chapter 23: “Do not oppress a stranger, for you know the nefesh of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” As I indicated earlier, the literal translation of nefesh is ‘being’. In this verse, the commandment not to oppress the stranger suggests that remembrance of our own experience of oppression might motivate us not to oppress others. However, the fact that injunctions concerning the stranger are repeated in different ways, 36 times in the Torah suggests quite the opposite: that those who have experienced oppression in the past and survived it might be inclined to bury their experience and harden their hearts towards others in need in the here and now. In reality, people react in different ways to their own experience of hardship – some may be more aware of the needs of the marginal and the vulnerable, and others may turn their backs. The point is that we when it comes to people in need, we cannot rely on people’s feelings to do what is right and just. We need rules and regulations to guide us to engage in righteous and ethical conduct.

So, from a Jewish perspective, whether or not we feel compassion towards others, we are required to practice loving kindness towards those in need. This requirement is particularly urgent today in the context of the global refugee crisis. One of the specific expressions of g’milut chasadim identified by the rabbinic sages is pidyon sh’vuyim – ‘redeeming captives.’ Unsurprisingly, given the centrality accorded to the Exodus narrative in Jewish teaching and liturgy, according to the Talmud, ransoming captives is considered, ‘a great commandment’ – mitzvah rabbah – because captivity is worse than starvation or death. Summarising, the Jewish understanding of this ‘great commandment’, the foremost mediaeval Jewish philosopher and codifier, Maimonides, wrote in his code of law, the Mishneh Torah, which was completed in 1180:

The redeeming of captives takes precedence over supporting the poor or clothing them. There is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives for the problems of the captive include being hungry, thirsty, unclothed, and they are in danger of their lives too. Ignoring the need to redeem captives goes against these Torah laws: “Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against your needy fellow;” “Do not stand idly by while your neighbour’s blood is shed.” And misses out on the following mitzvot: “You must surely open your hand to him or her;” “…Love your neighbour as yourself;” “Rescue those who are drawn to death.” And there is no mitzvah greater than the redeeming of captives.”

The mitzvah of redeeming captives is understood in Jewish texts to apply specifically to Jews who are captives. However, given the emphasis on the just treatment of the stranger in Jewish teaching, the mitzvah of redeeming captives may be extended to encompass all those held in captivity. The imperative takes on a particular resonance today in the context of the millions of people caught up in the deadly conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and Eritrea, and elsewhere, who are currently trapped in makeshift refugee camps such as those in Greece and Calais because the richer nations of the world, like Britain, are not prepared to liberate them from their captivity and provide them with a secure refuge. As I mentioned earlier from the perspective of Jewish teaching, the declaration: “I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” constitutes the first Commandment. Created in the image of God, human beings are challenged to use our human powers to liberate the oppressed.

As I draw to a close, I would like to clarify the way in which the human being is understood in Jewish teaching. Created in the image of God, the human being is neither good nor evil, but rather is created with the ‘inclination’ to do ‘good’ – yeitzer tov – and the ‘inclination’ to do evil – yeitzer ra. The noun, yeitzer, is based on the Hebrew root, Yud Tzadi Reish, to ‘form.’ It would be straightforward, if one could say that all that is required is that people act on their good inclination and not on their evil inclination. But the Jewish understanding is more subtle and more complex. And so, we read in B’reishit Rabbah, a 6^th century collection of rabbinic commentary on the Book of Genesis, in a comment on Genesis 1:31:

‘And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good [tov m’od]. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.’ Nahman said in Rav Samuel’s name: ‘Very good’ refers to the good inclination [yeitzer tov]; and ’very good’ refers to the evil inclination [yeitzer ra]. Can then the evil inclination be very good? That would be extraordinary! But without the evil inclination, however, one would not build a house, marry, beget children, or engage in business.’

By indicating that the drive to construct, produce and create is ‘the evil inclination’ at work undertaking action that is vital to human life, this commentary implies that the good inclination is not, on its own, good enough. The insights of psychoanalysis developed centuries later, but what we read in this passage fits in well with the psychoanalytic notion that human beings are propelled by inner drives – and that the drive to create and destroy are essentially one. The wisdom of the system of mitzvot lies in harnessing all our drives to the practice of righteousness and compassion – not least the performance of g’milut chasadim, deeds of loving kindness.

The Mysterious Disappearance of Rabbi Regina Jonas

26, April 2015 – 7 Iyyar 5775

In the early 1990s the women rabbis in Britain officially heard about a German woman rabbi called Regina Jonas, who was ordained in 1935, when Dr Hermann Simon, Director of the Archiv Der Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum (the Archive of New Synagogue Berlin, Central Jewish Foundation)[1] presented the Leo Baeck College in London with her ordination certificate and framed photograph. Fräulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas: a pastor, preacher and teacher in the Berlin Jewish community, and then in the Theresienstadt ghetto, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.[2]

My curiosity aroused I began to do some research – and immediately encountered some conundrums: There is no reference to Regina Jonas in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. There is no reference to Regina Jonas in H.G. Adler’s monumental work, Theresienstadt, 1941-1945, published in 1960[3]. Ditto the testimony gathered by the Council of Jewish communities in the Czech Lands, entitled, Terezin published in 1965. Ditto Richard Fuchs’ article on ‘The Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the Nazi Period’ published in 1967.[4] Similarly, in his article included in Living Judaism in Spring 1967, in which he argues for the ordination of women, Aryeh Dorfler, Lecturer in Rabbinics at the Leo Baeck College at the time, made no mention of the precedent set by Regina Jonas.[5]

Interestingly, in the account of ‘The Last Days of the Hochschule’ by Alexander Guttman published by Hebrew Union College in 1972 – the year that the first woman, Sally Priesand, was ordained by that institution – Guttman refers to the dissension regarding the proposed ordination of Regina Jonas. And yet, in Response to Modernity – A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, published in 1988, Michael Meyer makes only passing reference to Regina Jonas in his discussion of the controversy about women’s ordination at the Hebrew Union College (p.379).[6] Even more perplexing, the specialist study, Women of Theresienstadt: Voices from a Concentration Camp by Ruth Schwertfeger, published in 1989,[7] does not include the voice of Regina Jonas – a spectacular omission. Regina Jonas lost her life in Sho’ah, and, it seems that the memory of her life and work also vanished practically without trace.

Why? Of course, there was the problem of written evidence. While Regina Jonas is included in institutional records of the Hochschule, the Judische Gemeinde (Jewish Community) of Berlin, Theresienstadt (Terezin) and Yad Vashem – and there is lively discussion of the special ‘case’ of Regina Jonas in the Jewish newspaper of the time, Israelitisches Familienblatt – until the Berlin Wall came down, Regina Jonas’ letters and papers – including her rabbinic thesis – rested undisturbed in the Bundesarchives (State Archives) in Coswig, 100 kilometres east of Berlin for over four decades.

But the political realities of Germany after 1945 do not explain why the official records were not investigated earlier. And then there is the question of the leading Jewish figures who knew Regina Jonas and survived the Sho’ah – like her teacher at the Hochschule, Leo Baeck, and Viktor Frankl with whom she worked in Terezin. As far as we know, they did not breathe a word about her.[8]

During her early years at the Hochschule (1926-1929), Regina Jonas corresponded with two of her teachers there – Eduard Baneth and Ismar Elbogen – and their letters to her are preserved in the archives[9]. Indeed, there is clear evidence from this correspondence that these distinguished scholars recognised the difficulties she faced as a woman. As early as 1927, Elbogen wrote to Regina Jonas at Purim urging her not to be pessimistic of her chances of getting work. He added that the community should not pay her less than the rate.[10] Perhaps Ismar Elbogen and Eduard Baneth would have remained stout supporters of their colleague following her ordination. But Eduard Baneth, a renowned Talmudist who originally conducted the rabbinic examination of Regina Jonas, died in 1930, during the course of it[11] and Ismar Elbogen, the famous liturgist, emigrated to New York in 1938 where he joined Hebrew Union College and died in 1943.[12] These two scholars did not live to relate their experiences of Regina Jonas.

And what of Leo Baeck, who countersigned Regina Jonas’ ordination certificate in 1942, and who survived the Sho’ah and lived in London for eleven years until his death in 1956? His letters to Regina Jonas span the period from 1934 to 1940, and reveal that he was not just a teacher, he was a friend. Indeed, this is also true of Leo Baeck’s wife, Natalie, who also corresponded with Regina Jonas. What is more, Leo Baeck and Regina Jonas were in Terezin at the same time – although Regina Jonas was deported to the ghetto in November 1942, and dispatched to Auschwitz two years later, and Leo Baeck was incarcerated there from 1943 until its liberation in 1945.

So why didn’t Leo Baeck keep the memory of his student alive and pass it on to the next generation? One can only speculate – and in all fairness to the memory of Leo Baeck himself, speculation is dangerous. Perhaps he did mention her. But if he did, nothing he said seems to have been recorded.[13] Perhaps, too, Ellen Littman, a fellow student of Regina Jonas, who taught Bible at Leo Baeck College in the early years, also mentioned Regina Jonas to her students. But if she did, the knowledge that a woman student at the Hochschule had received s’michah, does not seem to have excited the curiosity of the first post-war generation of European progressive rabbis.

It has only been during the past twenty-five years with the emergence of women rabbis as a collective and the development of Jewish women’s scholarship and filmmaking that the story of Rabbi Regina Jonas has seen the light of day, and her life and work has begun to be acknowledged and remembered. And so we pay tribute in, particular, to Rabbi Dr Elisa Klapheck, for her biography of Regina Jonas,[14] and to Diana Groó, for her film, ‘Regina.’[15] It is our responsibility as Bet Debora, ‘the House of Deborah’ – as Jewish women, as rabbis and scholars and artists – to keep her memory alive, and to ensure that we continue to make history and write history for the sake of the future. Zichronah livrachah – May the memory of Rabbi Regina Jonas become a source of blessing for Jewish life and for all our lives – now and in the future.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Panel: The Politics of Forgetting and Remembrance, Bet Debora Conference, 16 -19 April 2015

[1] http://www.centrumjudaicum.de/en/die-stiftung/

[2] My contribution to the panel is adapted from Chapter 4 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Press, 2012): ‘Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas and the Mysterious Disappearance of the First Woman Rabbi.’ An extract from it has been included in module A332, ‘Why is Religion Controversial?’ The Open University, 2012. The chapter re-works two earlier articles: ‘Rabbi Regina Jonas, 1902-1944: Missing Link in a Broken Chain’, n Sheridan, Sybil, Ed., Hear Our Voice. Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories (SCM Press, 1994) and ‘The Discovery of Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Making Sense of Our Inheritance’ (European Judaism, 95:2, December 1995). Regina Jonas was ordained on December 27, 1935. While she was the first woman rabbi, it is important to be aware of other women, who occupied positions of religious leadership who were not ordained. Long before Regina Jonas was born, Lily Montagu became one of the religious leaders of the emerging movement of Liberal Judaism in Britain. She officiated at Shabbat services, delivered sermons and conducted life-cycle ceremonies (See Jacobi, Margaret, ‘Lily Montagu’ in Sheridan, Sybil, Ed., Hear Our Voice. Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories. [SCM Press, London, 1994]). A few years later, on the other side of the Atlantic, there were two other non-ordained women who fulfilled rabbinic responsibilities. In 1938, Tehilla Lichtenstein became the first woman to serve her congregation as rabbi after the death of her husband, Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein. Tehilla Lichtenstein also served as Leader of the Society for Jewish Science from 1938 until her death in 1973. Likewise, from 1951-54, Paula Ackerman, served as rabbi to a congregation in Meridian, Mississippi, after the death of her husband, Rabbi William Ackerman (See http: //www.loyno.edu/wessing/docs/KeyDatesJudaism.html). It was as early as 1893 that a young woman called Rachel Frank, began attending classes at Hebrew Union College HUC), and introduced the notion of women rabbis to an American rabbinic institution. However, she did not complete her studies – and neither did another woman who attended the seminary at the same time, Lena Aronsohn (See: Lesbian Rabbis. The First Generation edited by Rebecca T. Alpert, Sue Levi Elwell, and Shirley Idelson [Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London, 2001], p.13). Meanwhile, around the same time that Lily Montagu was teaching and preaching in England, Henrietta Szold became a special student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in 1903, but was admitted on the understanding that she would not seek ordination (ibid.). In 1921, the issue of ordaining a woman rabbi was first raised formally after Martha Neumark, a student at the HUC in the second year of studies, and daughter of an HUC professor, asked permission to lead High Holy Day services. Her request was granted and the college President convened a faculty committee to consider the issue of women’s ordination. The HUC faculty and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) concluded that there was no reason not to ordain women, but the HUC Board of Governors agreed in 1923 to maintain the policy of ordaining only men as rabbis (See Meyer, Michael, Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (OUP, New York and Oxford, 1988), p.379). For a history of women religious leaders, both, pre- and post-ordination, see also: Baskin, Judith R., ‘Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1985 (review)’. American Jewish History, Volume 88, Number 1, March, pp. 171-174 (John Hopkins University Press, 2000).

[3] Theresienstadt. 1941-1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft, Geschichte Soziologie Psychologie. Mohr, Tübingen, 1955. English edition published in 1960 by H.G. Adler – who was deported from Prague to Theresienstadt in February 1942 together with his wife and her family.

[4] In the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (XII) of 1967.

[5] My thanks to Rabbis Jonathan Magonet and John Rayner, z”l, for drawing my attention to the articles by Fuch and Dorfler respectively.

[6] Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. (Oxford University Press, 1988). He writes: ‘When [women’s ordination] was raised again (note: the first time was in 1922 with the case of Martha Neumark) among Sisterhood leaders in 1958, even they were initially divided. By then, however, one woman, Regina Jonas, had received private ordination upon completing her studies at the Liberal seminary in Berlin, and for a brief time had served as a rabbi before perishing in the Holocaust.’ (p.379).

[7] Ruth Schwertfeger, Women of Theresienstadt. Voices from a Concentration Camp, Berg, 1989.

[8] Leo Baeck’s biographer, Albert Friedlander, z”l, does not recall any reference made by Leo Baeck to Regina Jonas (Private conversation, 20.6.94) and his biography, Leo Baeck, Teacher of Theresienstadt, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, New York, 1968 certainly makes no reference to her. As for Viktor Frankl, he discussed his experience of the camps in his books From Death Camp to Existentialism, later revised and included in a larger work, Man’s Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Legotherapy, (Hodder and Stroughton, London, 1962). However, although he worked with Regina Jonas in Theresienstadt, this text, at least, does not mention her.

[9] 75D JO 1 is the Bundesarchives reference no. for the letters addressed to Regina Jonas.

[10] ibid.

[11] See ‘Tribute to Rabbi Regina Jonas of Berlin’ by Hans Hirschberg (Leo Baeck College News 1993, p.46).

[12] Fuchs, 1967, p.23.

[13] See note 7.

[14] Fräulein Rabbiner Jonas. The Story of the First Woman Rabbi by Elisa Klapheck. (Jossey Bass, 2004). Translated from the German by Toby Axelrod. Following the publication of Elisa Klapheck’s biography, Toby Axelrod’s article, “My years with Regina Jonas” was included in: Bridges. A Jewish Feminist Journal, Autumn 2009, Vol. 14, No.2, pp.27-31. The first woman to conduct research on Regina Jonas was Katharina von Kellenbach, whose findings were published in the journal Schlagenbrut in 1992. Five years later, a brief biography of Regina Jonas by Rachel Monika Herweg “Regina Jonas (1902–1944)” was included in Meinetwegen ist die Welt erschaffen, Das intellektuelle Vermächtnis des deutschsprachigen Judentums. 58 Porträts, edited by Hans Erler, Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich, and Ludger Heid (Frankfurt, New York: 1997).

[15] ‘Regina’ by Diana Groó, a UK &Hungarian co-production, was produced in 2013.

BUILDING TENTS OF MEETING: JEWISH FEMINISM, LGBTQIQ PRACTICE AND RAINBOW JUDAISM

26, April 2015 – 7 Iyyar 5775

Introduction

Recently, a revival of feminism – particularly among young women – in the context of myriad eruptions of male sexual abuse and violence around the globe, has put the issue of male power and privilege back on the societal agenda. This revival also challenges us – this gathering of Bet Debora, ‘the House of Deborah’[1] – to consider what we have learnt since the days when the Women’s Liberation Movement that emerged, in particular, in Britain, Europe and North America in the 1970s, united women against patriarchy.

In the 1980s, the notion of the universality of women’s experience was increasingly challenged by groups of women who felt marginalised by the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant assumptions underlying ‘the sisterhood’ – not least, by Jewish women, and also by lesbians whose experience differed from those of their heterosexual sisters. As a result, the movement fractured into a plurality of ‘identity’ enclaves.

Since the 1990s, Gay Liberation (which also emerged in the early 1970s) and Lesbian Separatism has given way to a rainbow alliance of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Queer) people – more recently extended to include ‘I’ (intersex) and another ‘Q’ (Questioning). Whether as end-goal or separatist strategy, lesbian separatism represented in the 1970s in the United States – and to a lesser extent in Britain – a way for lesbians to express absolute rejection of patriarchy by doing everything possible to live outside a patriarchal framework. The emergence of LGBTQIQ – Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer-Intersex-Questioning – represented by the rainbow flag, expresses a profusion of diverse sexualities, orientations, and genders that challenges monolithic thinking and practice.

Today, as someone who lived through all these developments, I will examine how the Jewish emphasis on ‘doing’ facilitates a creative interplay between Jewish life, feminism and LGBTQIQ practice, and invite you to take a historical journey via my own experience, from monolithic ‘sisterhood’ to tents of meeting, where a plurality of ‘others’ meet.

The Women’s Liberation Movement and the emergence of plural feminisms

The Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s that was led largely by lesbians, political and otherwise, and propelled by the rejection of patriarchal power was nonetheless, shaped by a dualistic, binary patriarchal mind-set, rooted in essentialist definitions of what constitutes femaleness and maleness, in which ‘women’ and ‘men’ were understood as absolute, closed identity categories. And so it was that the ‘sisterhood’ was inclusive of all women – in theory, at least, while in practice, it was not inclusive at all because ‘sisters’ did not recognise the differences between women, and made the assumption that all women share the same experience. This is how I put it in an article I wrote for the first issue of Shifra, a Jewish feminist magazine launched in December 1984 by a group of Jewish lesbians, including me:[2]

‘A central assumption of feminism is that the identity woman is a fundamental one; that everything an individual woman is can be reduced to one basic fact: she is a woman. It is this assumption that has led to another: the identity of all women in our essential womanhood – sisterhood: basically, we are all sisters because our shared womanhood underlies all other experiences – individual, cultural, economic – which separate us. The prototype feminist … is a woman who has experienced the ‘click’ phenomenon, and with the truth revealed, has ‘cast-off’ all the old bonds which tied her – to family, to class, to culture, to religion, to nation – to emerge a new woman, unfettered and eager to join hands with her sisters across the globe and create a new world.

‘Well, this had been the theory of it. In practice, some of us had to cast-off more than others. The new woman, early ‘70s variety, could be white, middle class and culturally Christian, because that is the norm in the countries where modern feminism initially developed – and so, nobody noticed; she couldn’t be black, working class, Jewish – because that would mean her ‘loyalties’ were subject to conflicting pulls, and anyway, we all know how much more patriarchal these ‘other’ cultures are… Yet, lots of ‘other’ women did try to become ‘new’ women too: rejecting, denying, repressing, forgetting, or simply camouflaging – with the rhetoric and new reflexes of ‘sisterhood’ – ‘old’ rituals, habits, customs, fears and allegiances.’

The Women’s Liberation Movement faltered as those ‘sisters’, whose lives encompassed ‘other’ identities escaped across the borders. But where did they/we go? To use another analogy: If monolithic sisterhood was a superhighway, taking everyone in one direction, identity politics turned out to be a cul-de-sac. Once the critique of patriarchy got overwhelmed by the assertion of differentiating identities to the exclusion of a sense of connection with other women, the Women’s Liberation Movement had, quite literally, nowhere to go.

And yet, the emergence of particular identities was necessary – for all the ‘others’ who did not fit into ‘sisterhood’ as defined by WASP – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – cultural assumptions, and because it demonstrated the plurality of women’s and lesbian experience. Nevertheless, the WLM in Britain, for example, did not survive the disruption that was played out, in particular, in the pages of the weekly Women’s Liberation Movement Newsletter, and the monthly feminist magazine, Spare Rib. The Jewish Lesbian Group I was part of in the early days of Jewish feminism, 1982 to 1984, did more than serve as a forum for mutual support and exploration of the intersection of our Jewish and lesbian identities. Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, we found ourselves in a very uncomfortable place when the pages of the WLMN, Spare Rib, and the black feminist magazine, Outwrite, began to engage in the wider media campaign that equated Zionism with racism. In addition to our collective responses, I remember writing a long piece on the history of anti-Semitism for the WLMN in an attempt to educate my non-Jewish ‘sisters’ about Jewish experience. I decided to write the piece, following a meeting at ‘A Woman’s Place’ on Sunday July 10 1982 to discuss the newsletter’s policy on ‘no anti-Semitic and racist entries’ – which became little more than a forum for women to be openly anti-Semitic.

So, the assertion of particular cultural, ethnic and religious identities on the part of lesbians and women who had regarded one another as ‘sisters’, put an end to the collective identity of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Arguably, other developments also led to schisms between groups of women – in particular, Greenham Common, with its focus on women uniting for peace, which was seen by ‘radical’ and ‘revolutionary’ lesbian feminists as diverting women’s energies from the wider project of challenging patriarchy.[3]

From ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Gay’ to ‘LGBT’ – and ‘Q’

As the Women’s Liberation Movement gave way to clusters of engagement, the trajectory of the Gay Liberation Movement, which formed after the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, and was established in Britain in 1972, was profoundly influenced by the HIV-Aids crisis that erupted in the early 1980s. The emphasis of GLM was on political struggle. Highlighting the ‘lifestyle’ choices of gay men, the HIV-Aids crisis revealed the importance of community for gay people – community which extended beyond gay men, to include lesbians who supported their gay brothers, who became ill, and all those whose lives did not mesh with heterosexual assumptions. In an important sense, the adoption of the rainbow flag came to symbolise the transformation of gay activism into the alliance of all LGBT people. The rainbow flag proclaims not so much identity as connectivity.

The emergence of LGBTQ – expanding in recent years to encompass ‘I’ (Intersex) and another ‘Q’ (Questioning) – has created the context for inclusive community. Nevertheless, for those whose lives also encompass ‘other’ allegiances, it is clear that LGBTQIQ does not yet fully live up to the promise of the rainbow flag. When, as a radical feminist lesbian separatist, I first crossed the border of lesbian nation[4] to enter Jewish life, and study for the rabbinate in 1984, many of my lesbian feminist sisters regarded me as a traitor. Meanwhile, in the early years of my rabbinate, just one of two lesbian rabbis,[5] and the only one employed full-time in the mainstream, I experienced rejection and persecution in response to my attempts to make Jewish life more inclusive – particularly, around the issue of same-sex marriage.[6] So, I lived, like a desert creature, in a wilderness ‘in between’ these two territories: a strange hybrid; a Lesbian Rabbi.

It has only been in recent years, since more LGBT Jews began to knock at the door of Jewish life, and LGBT rabbis began to proliferate as rabbinic training within the progressive Jewish world became non-discriminatory,[7] that the progressive Jewish world, initially, Liberal Judaism in Britain,[8] has become more inclusive. However, since most of Jewish life remains impervious to the needs of LGBT Jews, and Jews remain largely invisible within LGBT life, LGBT Jews continue to inhabit – albeit in greater numbers – the borderland ‘in between’.

Building Tents of Meeting

So, how might we foster a creative interplay between Jewish life, feminism, and LGBTQIQ practice, so that the borderland ‘in between’ becomes a genuine meeting place?

My experience as a lesbian separatist, who went on a journey of exploration into Jewish life, and who has inhabited multiple borderlands since,[9] has taught me that my life is not about who I am, but rather about what I do, together with others, and where I go.

Significantly, the emphasis on ‘doing’, rather than ‘being’ is at the heart of Jewish teaching. Indeed, the very first lesson of the Torah emphasises the centrality of ‘doing’. And so, we read at the conclusion of the first narrative of Creation (Genesis 2:1-3) – and this is the literal translation:

Heaven and earth were finished, and all their host. / On the seventh day God finished the work which He had done, and ceased on the seven day from all the work that He had done. / Then, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it, He ceased from all the work which God had created to do.

It is very difficult not to produce a clumsy translation of the original Hebrew. One of the reasons for this is because of the repeated use of the Hebrew root, Ayin Sin Hei, to ‘do’, or to ‘make’, and of the Hebrew root, Lamed Aleph Kaf, from which the noun, m’lakhah, ‘work’, is derived. The passage leaves the reader in no doubt that for six days God was ‘doing’ the ‘work’ of creation.

Significantly, messengers of God in the Torah – often referred to as ‘angels’ in older translations – are, more literally, God’s ‘workers’ – m’lakhim. But ‘work’ is not confined to the Divine realm. The Torah makes it clear that to be a human being is to imitate the Divine architect of the world and so be engaged in ‘doing’. Martin Buber drew attention to the parallels between the account of Creation and the account of the building of the Mishkan, the elaborate tent constructed by the ex-slaves in the wilderness, identifying seven correspondences between the two narratives.[10] Within these seven parallels, Buber noted that the root Ayin Sin Hei, which appears seven times in the Creation narrative, is repeated 200 times in the chapters outlining the building of the Mishkan. The correspondence between the two accounts is underlined by the way in which they both conclude. And so, just as God ‘finished’ the work of creation (Genesis 2:1-2), Moses ‘finished’ the work of building the Mishkan (Exodus 39:32; 40:33).

To understand the significance of the way in which the account of the construction of the Mishkan mirrors the account of Divine creation, it is important to understand that the Mishkan represents individuals coming together to create community.[11] While the Divine architect of Creation may have worked alone; the human architects of the Mishkan worked together. We read at the beginning of the Torah portion, T’rumah, directly after the account of the closing scene of Revelation in which ‘the glory of the Eternal dwelt (Va-yishkon) on Mount Sinai (Exodus, Chapter 25:1-8):

The Eternal spoke to Moses saying: / Speak to the Israelites that they shall take for Me an offering, from each person whose heart is willing you shall take My offering. / And this is the offering which you shall take from [what is] with them: gold and silver and copper; / blue and purple and crimson yarns and fine linen and goats hair; rams skins dyed red and dolphins skins, and acacia wood; / oil for the lighting, spices for the anointing oil and the aromatic incense; lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the cape and for the breast piece. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary (mikdash) v’shakhanti b’tocham – that I may dwell among them.

Note that the verse says: that I may dwell among them – not that I may dwell in it. The construction of the Mishkan – literally, ‘dwelling’ – is an exercise in community building in which each individual offers their gifts with a willing heart to the collective enterprise.[12]

Imagine the scene: the profusion of wonderful, varied gifts: some glittering in the sunlight; others radiating deep plush colours; a plurality of fabrics and textures and scents. And let us also imagine that these varied and beautiful gifts are expressions of the variety of the individuals, who bring them.

So, who were these individuals, who gave their offerings for the building of that glorious tent with a willing heart? The answer seems obvious: the Israelites; the descendants of Jacob/Israel and his family. But the wilderness journey we find in the Torah was not the journey of a people, with a singular identity. The ex-slaves were a rabble made up of the Israelites, and erev rav – a ‘mixed multitude’ of others, who made the dash to freedom with them.[13] The individuals who brought their magnificently varied gifts were also themselves magnificently varied. It was the experience of fleeing the house of bondage that enabled them to cooperate together to forge a community and to build a framework of meaning and a sense of connection.

The differences between individuals, who nonetheless collaborate together, cannot be overstated. In their German translation of the Hebrew Bible, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig translated the key verse that expresses the obligation of individuals to one another, V’ahavta l’rei’akha kamokha; Ani Adonai – ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Eternal’ (Leviticus 19:18), as: ‘Love your neighbour as one who is like you.’[14] By contrast with this emphasis on shared identity as the basis for relationship, the French Jewish philosopher, Emanuel Levinas, argues that we are obligated to acknowledge, above all, the otherness of the other. [15] Indeed, our responsibility to the other as other supersedes our responsibility to ourselves. He writes, for example:[16]

My ethical relation of love for the other stems from the fact that the self cannot survive by itself alone, cannot find meaning within its own being-in-the-world, within the ontology of sameness.

Ontology is a philosophical concept drawn from a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being, of becoming, of existence. What Levinas is saying that there is no such thing as an essential self. The meaning of the self emerges only in relation with others, for whom we bear a responsibility.

The way in which we express that responsibility is by ‘doing’; by actively relating with others. And so we might say that while ‘being’ is passive, essentialist, separatist, individualist and isolationist, ‘doing’ is active, and potentially creative, relational, connective and collaborative. Further: while the emphasis on identity, on ‘being’, separates: it proclaims that I belong ‘here’ and you belong ‘there’; ‘doing’ unites through relationship: it has the potential of bringing a plurality of ‘others’ together and forging relationships between us. What individuals share when we engage together is not our identity and being, but rather the relationships we create. The significance of the building of the Mishkan in the wilderness is underlined by the teaching of Levinas: By contributing our individual offerings to shared endeavours, individuals generate connectivity and community. There are limits to identity, by definition. There are no limits to the possibilities for connectivity.

Conclusion: Towards Rainbow Judaism

Intriguingly, the Jewish emphasis on ‘doing’ is echoed in gender and queer theory, the post-modern incarnations of feminist thought and gay discourse that emerged in the 1990s. Gender and queer theory understand that gender is socially constructed, and that ‘identities’ are not essential and fixed, but rather, who we are, is expressed by what we do – and what we do is varied and subject to change. Perhaps the most influential work in this arena was Judith Butler’s ground-breaking book, Gender Trouble, published in 1990.[17] While the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s and 80s advocated for females as it challenged male power, crucially, queer and gender theory provide a theoretical framework for pluralist expressions of LGBT existence. Moreover, the emergence of the Q (Queer) category, creates a bridge that enables heterosexuals, who do not regard the way they live as mainstream, to become part of the ‘queer’ embrace. In this way, the rainbow flag has the potential to become a rallying emblem for all those who choose to challenge patriarchy and its coercive social norms.

This is where we come in: we; a plural pronoun, expressing plurality in its broadest sense: women who are plural; plural genders and sexualities; plural Jewish religious, spiritual and cultural expressions; plural experiences and life situations. In recent years, feminism has found new life, invigorated by young women struggling against male definitions, expectations and sexual objectification. Unlike the feminism of the 1970s and 80s, this new feminism is not just for women, and is attracting young men who are also troubled by gender normative stereotypes. Similarly, nowadays, rainbows are not simply for LGBTQ Jews – that is, individuals who adopt an LGBTQ identity. The rainbow extends to encompass all of us – LGBTQIQ+ – when we let go of the fixed singular notions of identity that constrain us, and participate in building tents of meeting. This is how we – all of us together – generate Rainbow Judaism: Jewish life that embraces diversity and is dynamic and inclusive.

And so, as we gather together as Bet Debora, ‘the House of Deborah’, for our shared endeavours, like the Israelites and the mixed multitude before us, determined to escape tyranny, let us rise to a new challenge: to return to the wilderness of the world as a bold company of nomads, setting up and dismantling our tents, ever-ready to offer hospitality to others along the way.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

[1] This paper was delivered at the 7^th International Bet Debora Conference of European Jewish Women, Activists, Academics, Artists and Rabbis, ‘Engendering Jewish Politics – Redefining the Role of Women.’ The conference was held at the High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, April 16-19, 2015. http://www.bet-debora.net/ Bet Debora: ‘House of Deborah’ – a rendering of the Hebrew: Beit D’vorah.

[2] From ‘Knowing No Bounds – Or, What’s a Nice Jewish Lesbian Doing Holding the Sefer-Torah?’ First published in Shifra – Jewish Feminist Magazine, issue 1, December 1984. Included in Trouble-Making Judaism by Elli Tikvah Sarah (David Paul Books, 2012, pp.125-6). The Shifra collective: Jane Black, Bev Gold, Linda Bellos, Marilyn Fetcher, Riva Krut, Libby Lawsn, Scarlet Pollock, Leah Ruth, Sheila Saunders and Elizabeth Sarah (Elli Tikvah Sarah – I adopted Tikvah, ‘Hope’, as my middle name in 1998).

[3] Breaching the Peace: A Collection of Radical Feminist Papers (Onlywomen Press, London, 1984). Most of the papers here were written for a radical feminist half-day workshop called “The Women’s Liberation Movement versus The Women’s Peace Movement or How Dare You Presume I Went to Greenham?” held at ‘A Woman’s Place’ in London on April 10, 1983.

[4] For the classic presentation of ‘lesbian nation’, see Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution by Jill Johnston (Simon and Schuster, 1973).

[5] The other lesbian who entered the Leo Baeck College at the same time as I did in 1984 was Sheila Shulman, who sadly, died in 2014 – Zichronah livrachah – May her memory be for blessing. Sheila and I were both part of the same Jewish Lesbian group, but, interestingly, did not talk together about applying to study for the rabbinate.

[6] See the Preface to my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, London, 2012), for an account of my experience. An earlier account, ‘Being a Lesbian Rabbi’, was included in Lesbian Rabbis. The First Generation edited by Rebecca T. Alpert, Sue Levi Elwell and Shirley Idelson (Rutgers University Press, 2001).

[7] Sheila Shulman and I were ordained on July 9, 1989. Since then, a further twelve Rainbow Rabbis have received s’mikhah from LBC, and four others have contributed their talents, who were ordained elsewhere. That’s 19 so far – over 20% of the combined Liberal and Reform rabbinate in Britain. In chronological order, the LBC ordinands are – Rabbis: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus – zichronah livrachah – May her memory be for blessing (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009), Judith Rosen-Berry (2009), Anna Gerrard (2011) and Rene Pfertzel (2014). And those who were ordained elsewhere – Rabbis: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander and Hillel Athias-Robles (who is now in New York).

[8] Liberal Judaism – a movement founded in Britain in 1902. See www.liberaljudaism.org ‘Liberal’ or ‘Progressive’ Judaism as a worldwide phenomenon, first emerged in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century.

[9] One of these ‘borderlands’ is the borderland of Jewish Christian Muslim encounter. For my reflections on this ‘borderland’, see my chapter: ‘In the footsteps of Dinah; a Feminist Perspective on JewishChristian/Muslim Dialogue’, in: Beyond the Dysfunctional Family. Jews, Christians and Muslims in Dialogue with Each Other and with Britain , edited by Tony Bayfield, Alan Race, Ataullah Siddiqui (The Manor House Abtahamic Dialogue Group, London, 2012).

[10] Martin Buber. The Way of the Bible. (Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 1964, pp.54-58). Hebrew. Nehama Leibowitz outlines Buber’s seven correspondences in her Studies in Shemot (Exodus), Part II, Terumah 2, pp. 479-481 (The World Zionist Organizations, Jerusalem, 1981).

[11] Mishkan, meaning ‘Dwelling Place’, is often translated as ‘Tabernacle’. Another name used in the Torah account, as we see in the passage from T’rumah, Exodus 25: 8, is Mikdash, meaning ‘Sanctuary.’ Elsewhere the Torah also refers to Ohel Mo’eid, ‘the Tent of Meeting’. The Ohel Mo’eid is presented, both, as another name for the Mishkan, and as a place distinct from the Mishkan, which Moses would pitch up outside the camp – see, e.g., Exodus 33:9-11.

[12] See Chapter 11, ‘Empowering Individuals and Creating Community’ in Trouble-Making Judaism.

[13] Exodus 12:38.

[14] In his treatise, The Star of Redemption Franz Rosenzweig provides an insight into this translation: ‘…. Your neighbour is ‘like you.’ …. ‘Like you,’ and thus not ‘you.’ You remain You and remain just that. But he is not to remain a He for you, and thus a mere It for your You. Rather he is like You, like your You, a You like You, an I – a soul.’ [My emphasis]

[15] For an exploration of the differences between Levinas and Buber, see: Levinas and Buber: Dialogue and Difference edited by Peter Atterton, Matthew Calarco, and Maurice Friedman. Duquesne University Press, 2004.

[16] From: ‘Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas’, a series of interviews conducted, edited, and translated by Richard Kearney, and reviewed by Levinas. Reprinted in Face to Face with Levinas, edited by Richard A. Cohen. State University of New York Press, 1986, pp.23-24.

[17] Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler (Routledge, 1990).

Confounding Patriarchy: From Lesbian Nation to the Wilderness where Others Meet | Lesbian Lives Conference, Brighton, 20 – 21 February 2015

20, February 2015 – 1 Adar 5775

Introduction

‘Confounding Patriarchy: From Lesbian Nation to the Wilderness where Others Meet.’

The title of this paper requires some explanation.

Lesbian Nation: Specifically, the book of that name by the radical lesbian feminist author, Jill Johnston, first published in 1973.[1]

Wilderness: a natural, empty space; ‘No-Man’s-Land’; a ‘borderland’ between nations and monoliths; the terrain of spiritual wanderings and discoveries; unchartered territory accessible to all.

What’s the difference between a ‘nation’ and a ‘wilderness’? A nation exists within well-defined boundaries and is defined further by its flag, and by a series of particulars with reference to history, culture, language, economy and polity. National entities struggle with diversity and plurality and tend to be monolithic. A wilderness by contrast and by definition, is wild and unruly, bounded only by its outer extremities – where wilderness meets ‘civilisation.’

Whether as end-goal or separatist strategy, lesbian nation/ lesbian separatism represented in the 1970s in the United States – and to a lesser extent in Britain – a way for lesbians to express absolute rejection of patriarchy by doing everything possible to live outside a patriarchal framework. The emergence of LGBTQIQ – Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer-Intersex-Questioning – represented by the rainbow flag, expresses a profusion of diverse sexualities, orientations, and genders that challenges monolithic thinking and practice. Today I invite you to take a historical journey via my own experience, from lesbian nation, circa 1970s, inhabited by lesbians for whom being lesbians and living a lesbian existence provided a total and complete framework of meaning – to the wilderness, where a plurality of others meet. On that journey, I will draw on the concepts/metaphors of the borderland and the wilderness to demonstrate the potential for LGBTQIQ alliance to challenge, both, patriarchy, and singular, monolithic responses to patriarchy.

Lesbian Separatism and the emergence of plural feminisms

The establishment of lesbian nation faltered as lesbians, whose lives encompassed ‘other’ identities escaped across the borders. But where did they/we go? To use another analogy: If monolithic sisterhood was a superhighway, taking everyone in one direction, identity politics turned out to be a cul-de-sac. Once the critique of patriarchy got overwhelmed by the assertion of differentiating identities to the exclusion of a sense of connection with other women, the Women’s Liberation Movement had, quite literally, nowhere to go.

And yet, the emergence of particular identities was necessary – for all the ‘others’ who did not fit into ‘sisterhood’ as defined by WASP – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – cultural assumptions, and because it demonstrated the plurality of women’s and lesbian experience. Nevertheless, the WLM in Britain did not survive the disruption that was played out, in particular, in the pages of the weekly Women’s Liberation Movement Newsletter, and the monthly feminist magazine, Spare Rib. The Jewish Lesbian Group I was part of in the early days of Jewish feminism, 1982 to 1984, did more than serve as a forum for mutual support and exploration of the intersection of our Jewish and lesbian identities. Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, we found ourselves in a very uncomfortable place when the pages of the WLMN, Spare Rib, and the black feminist magazine, Outwrite, began to engage in the wider media campaign that equated Zionism with racism. In addition to our collective responses, I remember writing a long piece on the history of anti-Semitism for the WLMN in an attempt to educate my non-Jewish ‘sisters’ about Jewish experience. I decided to write the piece, following a meeting at ‘A Woman’s Place’ on Sunday July 10 1982 to discuss the newsletter’s policy on ‘no anti-Semitic and racist entries’ – which became little more than a forum for women to be openly anti-Semitic.

From ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Gay’ to ‘LGBT’ – and ‘Q’

As the Women’s Liberation Movement gave way to clusters of engagement, the trajectory of the Gay Liberation Movement, which formed after the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, and was established in Britain in 1972, was profoundly influenced by the HIV-Aids crisis that erupted in the early 1980s. The emphasis of GLM was on political struggle. Highlighting the ‘lifestyle’ choices of gay men, the HIV-Aids crisis revealed the importance of community for gay people – community which extended beyond gay men, to include lesbians who supported their gay brothers, who became ill, and all those whose lives did not mesh with heterosexual assumptions. In an important sense, the adoption of the rainbow flag came to symbolise the transformation of gay activism into the alliance of all LGBT people. The rainbow flag proclaims not so much identity as connectivity.

While the rainbow flag emerged in a community context, the development of queer consciousness that followed was very much framed by the emergence of queer theory and gender theory, expressions of post-modern thinking, which became the primary theoretical constructs in the 1990s, in place of ‘feminist studies’, ‘women’s studies’ and ‘gay studies.’ In an important sense, queer theory and gender theory spoke to transformations at the grassroots, acknowledging that gender is socially constructed, and that ‘identities’ are not essential and fixed, but rather, who we are, is expressed by what we do – and what we do is varied and subject to change. Perhaps the most influential work in this arena was Judith Butler’s ground-breaking book, Gender Trouble, published in 1990.[4] Crucially, queer theory and gender theory not only provide a theoretical framework for LGBT existence, the emergence of the ‘Q’ category, creates a bridge that enables heterosexuals, who do not regard the way they live as mainstream, to become part of the ‘queer’ embrace, so that the rainbow flag becomes ever more all-encompassing; a flag for all those who choose to challenge patriarchy and its coercive social norms.

A Strange Hybrid: Lesbian Rabbi

The emergence of LGBTQ – expanding in recent years to encompass ‘I’ (Intersex) and another ‘Q’ (Questioning) – has created the context for inclusive community. Nevertheless, for those whose lives also encompass ‘other’ allegiances, it is clear that LGBTQIQ still represents a kind of nation – even an island – similar to lesbian nation, only bigger and more diverse. When I first crossed the border of lesbian nation to enter Jewish life, with my decision to study for the rabbinate in 1984, many of my lesbian feminist sisters regarded me as a traitor. Meanwhile, in the early years of my rabbinate, just one of two lesbian rabbis, and the only one employed full-time in the mainstream, I experienced rejection and persecution in response to my attempts to make Jewish life more inclusive – particularly, around the issue of same-sex marriage.[5] So, I lived, like a desert creature, in a wilderness ‘in between’ these two territories: a strange hybrid; a Lesbian Rabbi.

It has only been in recent years, since more LGBT Jews began to knock at the door of Jewish life, and LGBT rabbis began to proliferate as rabbinic training within the progressive Jewish world became non-discriminatory, that the progressive Jewish world, initially, Liberal Judaism,[6] has become more inclusive. However, since most of Jewish life remains impervious to the needs of LGBT Jews, and Jews remain largely invisible within LGBT life, LGBT Jews continue to inhabit – albeit in greater numbers – the borderland ‘in between’.

In the Wilderness

So, how might LGBTQIQ become more inclusive of ‘others’? I began with the metaphor of the wilderness. I want to return to this metaphor in order to suggest a way in which LGBTQIQ can become a context where the rainbow flag of connectivity flies as an invitation to all ‘others’ to inhabit an inclusive domain that defies boundaries and celebrates diversity.

Interestingly, the Hebrew noun for wilderness, midbar, is related to the noun, davar, meaning ‘word’ or ‘thing’; with the first syllable, mi, mimicking the preposition, mi, meaning ‘from’. And so, midbar: the locus devoid of words and things; the place of no-thing: nothing.

By contrast with the monolithic nation construct, the wilderness narrative found in the Torah,[7] demonstrates the creative potential of the space devoid of words and things beyond boundaries and borders. This is particularly evident in the Torah account of the building of the Tabernacle – the sacred tent in the wilderness.[8] We read in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 25 (:1-8):

Note that the verse says: that I may dwell among them – not that I may dwell in it. The construction of the Tabernacle is an exercise in community building in which each individual offers their gifts with a willing heart to the collective enterprise.[9]

So, who were these individuals, who gave their offerings for the building of that glorious tent with a willing heart? The answer seems obvious: the Israelites; the descendants of Jacob/Israel and his family. But the wilderness journey we find in the Torah was not the journey of a people, with a singular identity. The ex-slaves were a rabble made up of the Israelites, and erev rav – a ‘mixed multitude’ of others, who made the dash to freedom with them.[10] The individuals who brought their magnificently varied gifts were also themselves magnificently varied. It was the experience of fleeing the house of bondage and living in the barren wilderness that enabled them to forge a community and to build out of the emptiness a framework of meaning and a sense of connection.

Of course, the journey of the slaves had a goal – the land beyond the Jordan, where a new society based on equity and justice was to be established. However, significantly, the Torah focuses as much on the journey itself, as on the destination. Indeed, the Torah concludes before the wilderness wanderers cross the River Jordan.[11] Moreover, since the Torah is read in an annual cycle, Jewish communities the world over go on a journey of weekly Torah readings that no sooner reaches the end of the wilderness wanderings, related in the Book of Deuteronomy, than goes back to the beginning again with the Book of Genesis.[12]

Indeed, it is one of the paradoxes of Jewish existence that a people formed, according to the Torah, for the purpose of instituting a new social system, has spent most of the past 3250 years since entering the land beyond the Jordan, dispersed as a beleaguered minority in other people’s lands, rather than living as a sovereign nation.[13] And so, in an important sense, the tale of wilderness wanderings presents an alternative way of life: On the one hand, there is the nationhood project that expresses the essence of patriarchy, with its boundaries and border controls, its definitions of insiders and outsiders; on the other hand, the community of itinerant wanderers on a journey in the wild landscape beyond.

As we gather together as LGBTQIQ people, like the Israelites and the mixed multitude before us, determined to escape tyranny, we are challenged to live as nomads, setting up and dismantling our tents, ever-ready to offer hospitality to others along the way; our rainbow flag, both, a declaration of connectivity that proclaims and encompasses our particular identities, and an invitation to others to join us.

Conclusion: On the Fringe

I’m going to conclude the journey from lesbian nation to the wilderness where ‘others’ meet with another wilderness image: The fringe. The Torah speaks of tzitzit, the ‘fringe’ to be attached to each corner of one’s garments, as an aide memoir of the sacred connection with the Eternal One, ‘who brought you out of the land of Egypt – Mitzrayim.’[14] Mitzrayim: connected to the adjective, tzar, ‘narrow’; a ‘narrow’ place. The fringe; the edge is the location of the sacred – kadosh – that which is ‘set apart.’ The journey of the slaves: from the narrow place of tyranny to the sacred fringe. The fringe – the borderland – the wilderness: the meeting place of all who dare to leave the narrow places – including the tight identity enclaves we ourselves create – celebrate diversity, and embrace liberation.

Biography

Elizabeth (Elli) Tikvah Sarah graduated in Sociology in 1977 (London School of Economics). After engaging in lesbian feminist activism research, writing and editing, she entered the Leo Baeck College in 1984, and was ordained in 1989. A pioneer in the area of LGBT inclusion, Elli initiated a process within Liberal Judaism, which culminated in a new policy and the publication of an anthology of ceremonies for civil partners in December 2005. Elli is Rabbi of Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue, and Liberal Jewish Chaplain at Sussex and Brighton Universities. She has edited and co-edited four books, contributed more than four dozen articles and several poems to various journals and anthologies, and is author of Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012). She is currently working on two other books: Beyond Binary Tyranny. A Jewish Journey; and: word-maps of the holy land.

In March 2006, Elli married her partner, Jess Wood (Director of Allsorts Youth Project and MBE in the New Year’s Honours List, 2012 for her services to LGBT and young people), at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue.

www.rabbiellisarah.com FB & Twitter: @rabbiellisarah

[1] Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution by Jill Johnston (Simon and Schuster, 1973).

[4] Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler (Routledge, 1990).

[5] See the Preface to my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, London, 2012), for an account of my experience. An earlier account, ‘Being a Lesbian Rabbi’, was included in Lesbian Rabbis. The First Generation edited by Rebecca T. Alpert, Sue Levi Elwell and Shirley Idelson (Rutgers University Press, 2001).

[6] Liberal Judaism – a movement founded in Britain in 1902. See www.liberaljudaism.org ‘Liberal’ or ‘Progressive’ Judaism as a worldwide phenomenon, first emerged in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century.

[7] The Torah: In particular, The ‘Five Books of Moses’: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. More broadly: the whole of Jewish teaching (Torah means ‘Teaching’). I’m referring here to Torah in the more particular sense.

[8] The Hebrew word for Tabernacle is Mishkan, meaning ‘dwelling place’. Another name used in the Torah account is Mikdash, meaning ‘Sanctuary’.

[9] See Chapter 11, ‘Empowering Individuals and Creating Community’ in Trouble-Making Judaism.

[10] Exodus 12:38.

[11] See Deuteronomy chapter 34.

[12] The Torah reading cycle begins and ends each Autumn, and is celebrated with the festival of Simchat Torah (‘Joy of Torah’) that concludes a just over three week period of sacred days.

[13] The wilderness wanderers entered Canaan, c. 1250 BCE. The land was conquered by a succession of empires: the Assyrians in 722 BCE; the Babylonians in 586 BCE; the Persians in 538 BCE; the Greeks c. 333 BCE; their successors in that area, the Seleucids in 175 BCE; and after a brief period of Judean independence, 140-65 BCE, by the Romans in 65 BCE. The modern State of Israel, established in 1948, is the first independent Jewish nation since that time.

[14] Numbers 11:37-41.

A LESSON CONCERNING THE ETERNAL: PARASHAT T’RUMAH – Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

31, January 2014 – 30 Shevat 5774

The Torah portion for this week, T’rumah, interrupts the narrative concerning the events at Mount Sinai to introduce an entirely new theme: the building of the mishkan, ‘tabernacle’ (literally: ‘dwelling place’), in the wilderness – also referred to as a mikdash, ‘sanctuary’. Why? One way of responding to this question is to explore the interruption as an alternative narrative: Imagine for a moment that rather than creating a molten calf during Moses’ absence on the mountain – which is what we learn when the story picks up again in parashat Ki Tissa (Exodus 32) – the people made an abode for God… (See: Ch. 11 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism, David Paul, 2012). Another way of responding is to consider the interruption as an opportunity to learn a lesson concerning the Eternal.

The key verse of T’rumah from my point of view – whatever I/you make of the interruption – is right near the beginning, at Exodus 25, verse 8:

‘V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’

The writer Gabriel Josipovici has called the Bible, ‘The Book of God’ (Yale University Press, 1988). He is right. The Bible in general – and the Torah, in particular – is all about God. God is the central character, who has the first word (and the last). The Bible is the epic story of the Eternal. Each portion of the Torah is part of this narrative. And so we read:

‘V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’

But the Bible is not just the Book of God, with the Eternal as the principal character. It is a resource of lessons concerning the Eternal – lessons that are relevant to us today, as they were to previous generations: to those who wandered in the wilderness; to those who settled in the land beyond the Jordan; to those who made pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem with their offerings; to those who created the first synagogues, and gathered to study and pray and support one another. One of these lessons is articulated by this simple verse:

‘V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’

To understand the lesson we have to go back to the narrative, to the end of the previous portion, Mishpatim, at Exodus 24 (:15-18):

‘When Moses had ascended the mountain, the cloud covered the mountain. / The glory of the Eternal dwelt – va-yishkon – on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day God called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. / Now the appearance of the glory of the Eternal was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the Israelites. / Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain; and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.’

The presentation of the narrative at the end of last week’s parashah (portion) leaves the reader with a strong and compelling image: the Eternal ‘dwelling’ – the Hebrew root is Shin Khav Nun – in the cloud on the top of the mountain; an image which also presents us with a depiction of ‘the lonely man of faith’ (an expression used in a different context by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik). It is a potent image: the Eternal, utterly ineffable and transcendent; the human Seeker, utterly alone. This image is not only projected in Exodus chapter 24, it is a perception of the nature of spirituality shared by so many people the world over: In order to find God, the individual must go on a journey to a faraway place on the top of a mountain. In the 1960s, the Beatles’ famous visits to the Maharaja highlighted a new trend of young people travelling to the high places of northern India on a spiritual quest. Today, scores of young Israelis make similar pilgrimages at the end of their army service – in search of a spiritual dimension beyond the messy, material and moral complexity of daily life in the State of Israel. Yes, the Eternal is to be found dwelling high on a mountain in a far-off land…

But the Torah does not leave the reader contemplating the mysteries of a spiritual encounter that lasted forty days and forty nights high on a mountain wreathed in cloud. On the contrary, it turns our attention away from the heights to a project that quite literally, involves nuts and bolts, and must be set up firmly on the ground:

‘V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’

And so, parashat T’rumah begins (25:1-8):

‘The Eternal spoke to Moses saying: / Speak to the Israelites that they shall take for Me an offering, from each person whose heart is willing you shall take My offering. / And this is the offering which you shall take from [what is] with them: gold and silver and copper; / blue and purple and crimson yarns and fine linen and goats hair; ram skins dyed red and dolphins skins, and acacia wood; / oil for the lighting, spices for the anointing oil and the aromatic incense; lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, the cape and the breast piece. Then let them make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’

Each person is called upon to participate in the sacred project of bringing God down-to-earth to dwell, not in a sacred abode, but rather among the people – which is why the text says, b’tokham, ‘among them’, not, bo, ‘in it’. This is the lesson concerning the Eternal that parashat T’rumah interrupts the narrative to tell us: God does not dwell only on mountains in far-away places; the Eternal dwells amongst us, when individuals cooperate together, each bringing their own unique contribution to the task of building community. The community is the abode of the Eternal. Words: 999

Discrimination Against LGBT People within Judaism and the Obstacles to Change

31, August 2012 – 13 Elul 5772

The following Paper was given in the panel discussion at ‘LGBT Rights in Europe: A search for common solutions’, Brighton University, 31.08.12.

Introduction

Good afternoon. I am here today to speak from the perspective of Judaism.[1] My particular take on LGBT rights is rooted in my own experience of gender dysphoria as a child and of being a lesbian, as well as in my involvement in the struggle for equality and inclusion. A radical lesbian feminist in the late 1970s and the early 1980s; since 1984, when I began my rabbinic studies, I have struggled for LGBT rights specifically within the context of the non-orthodox Jewish movements in Britain, known as, ‘Liberal’ and ‘Reform’.[2]

I can report a good outcome from these struggles:

I participated in the creation of a policy of equality and inclusion within Liberal Judaism, which resulted in the publication of liturgy for same-sex ceremonies at the time that the Civil Partnership Act came into force in December 2005.[3]

In the past couple of years, Liberal Judaism has given public support for the Equal Marriage campaign[4] and also begun working with ‘Queer and Trans Jews UK’.[5] On August 30^th (2012), thanks to a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Liberal Judaism announced that it is launching a landmark history and heritage project, ‘Rainbow Jews’, to chart the Jewish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community from the 1950s to the present day.

More recently, Reform Judaism has also adopted a policy of equality and inclusion.[6]

Even in the Orthodox Jewish world, change is underway – although traditional belief that the Torah is the Word of God makes it more difficult to challenge those statements which proscribe and punish sex between men and which insist that men and women only wear clothing associated with their own gender and adopt strictly defined male and female roles.

Nevertheless, in recent years, Orthodox Jewish lesbians and gay men have been coming out – most notably in Israel – where films about their experience have been made. One of these films, ‘Trembling Before G-d’, is being screened by the Jewish Film Club at the Ralli Hall Jewish Community Centre on Sunday evening, as part of LGBT Pride.[7] The very fact that this is happening tells you that change is taking place at the grassroots. A further example: in 2004, when Steve Greenberg, an American Orthodox gay rabbi, published his book, Wrestling with God and Men,[8] an event to publicise it was held at the AJEX Hall in Hove, another mainstream Jewish venue.

But I haven’t been invited to come here to talk to you about the good news. Specifically, I have been asked to say something about:

Discrimination faced by LGBT people in religious spaces – and
The key obstacles faced in reconciling religion with sexuality and gender identity

Discrimination faced by LGBT people in religious spaces

The discrimination faced by LGBT people in religious spaces, begins, within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, in two verses in the Book of Leviticus. These verses appear in texts dealing with prohibited sexual practices that include incest, bestiality and adultery. From a Jewish point of view, the context is very important. Leviticus chapter 18 opens by saying: ‘You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, nor of the land of Canaan where I’m taking you; neither shall you follow their laws.’ (18:3). In other words the motivation behind the sexual prohibitions is the need to forge a separate identity, rather than a concern with ethics.

Leviticus chapter 18, verse 22, states:

Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.

And Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13, states:

If a man lies with a male as one does with woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death – their blood guilt is upon them.

There is no historical evidence whatsoever that men were ever put to death for having sex with one another. Nevertheless, these verses have had an enduring impact, both, on the attitudes of Jews and Christians towards homosexual acts, and on the experience of lesbian and gay Jews and Christians growing up in the knowledge that their sexuality is outlawed. From a Jewish perspective, there is an extra dimension. All men – but not women – have the obligation to be fruitful. So, homosexual acts are also regarded as unacceptable because they involve the spilling of seed.[9] There is no specific prohibition against sexual acts between women in the Torah. However, rabbinic exegesis ensured that women were included in the prohibition, although sex between women was seen as a less serious offence than sex between men.[10]

In addition to sacred texts that specifically outlaw same-sex sexual acts, there are traditional readings of the Creation narratives in the book of Genesis, which are rooted in the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm. I don’t have the time here to talk about how these texts may be read differently. Suffice it to say that the hetero-normative reading, trumpeted by those who see homosexuality as, and I quote, ‘against God’, is that ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’[11]

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Torah, and later in rabbinic law, prescriptions concerning the strict separation of men and women and the differentiation of their roles, has implications for transgender people. In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 2, verse 5, for example, we find the source text on the absolute distinction in apparel for men and women:

A woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garments; anyone who does these things is an abhorrence to the Eternal One your God.

The presumption of heterosexuality, binary gender segregation and the prohibition against homosexual acts all combine to ensure that LGBT people face discrimination in mainstream religious contexts. If and when someone ‘comes out’ – or is forced out – that discrimination may become active. Just as pernicious, because it is so completely enveloping, is the way in which LGBT people are rendered completely invisible and totally marginal. Everyone is presumed to be heterosexual until proved otherwise and to have a fixed male or female gender from birth. Consequently, in a context in which sacred teaching is so clear that engaging in homosexual behaviour or transgressing binary gender is wrong and an ‘abhorrence’ to God, LGBT people are forced to live in hiding and to deny their sexuality and/or gender identity.

As a result, the human needs of LGBT people to be who they are, and their basic needs for love and companionship, and acknowledgement of their lives and their relationships – are completely ignored. Further, LGBT people are denied the public religious rites that heterosexual people take for granted: marriage, the blessing of their children, the celebration of their anniversaries, the comfort and support of their congregations, when they are bereaved.

The key obstacles faced in reconciling religion with sexuality and gender

Turning now, to the key obstacles faced in reconciling religion with sexuality and gender.

Interestingly, although traditional Jewish and Christian teaching regarding homosexual acts is very similar, their respective attitudes towards sexuality in general are quite different. While Christian teaching, following Greek thought, tends to polarise the body and the soul, Jewish teaching celebrates the body and sees sexuality in positive terms. For example, the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath – Shabbat in Hebrew – is a day, not only for rest, but for spiritual and physical enjoyment – and so, it is a mitzvah, a commandment, for married couples to have sex on Shabbat. Moreover, very permissive attitudes to married couples engaging in a broad range of sexual practices may be found in Jewish legal sources.[12]

It is possible that negative ideas concerning the body within Christian teaching may have an impact on Christian attitudes towards same-sex sexuality. Whether or not this is the case, one of the major obstacles faced in reconciling religion with homosexuality is the notion that sacred texts are the Word of God – a view held within the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And because sacred texts are regarded as the Word of God, they are immutable – that is, can never change. The conviction that the messages contained in sacred texts stand for all time is invariably bound up with a fundamentalist reading of Scripture: the understanding that a text has a literal, non-negotiable meaning. As it happens, fundamentalist reading is quite foreign to Jewish tradition, where each word, let alone each phrase or verse, gives rise to many different interpretations. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that this multi-dimensioned approach to sacred texts tends to be put aside when it comes to Orthodox Jewish readings of the verses in Leviticus that outlaw sexual activity between men.

It is also interesting to note that the preoccupation with the immutable Word of God does not extend to sacred teachings that convey a different message. In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 27, for example, we read that the human being, both male and female, is created b’tzelem Elohim, ‘in the image of God’. Surely, a literalist reading would suggest that this means that each and every human being – including every lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person – is equal.

The bottom line for all those who see sacred scripture as the Word of God – Jews and Christians (and no doubt, Muslims, too) – is that this means that the text has complete and absolute authority. From this perspective, there can be no acknowledgement that religious teachings may change over time in response to new social realities.

Perhaps the most problematic obstacle to reconciling religion with same-sex sexuality and gender is the conservatism of religious authorities. The Orthodox Jewish feminist, Blu Greenberg, writing at the beginning of the feminist revolution within Judaism, quipped, ‘Where there’s a rabbinic will, there’s a halachic way’[13] – that is, in the context of Jewish teaching, if the rabbis, who are invested with the authority to interpret sacred texts, were so inclined, they could make sense of Jewish teachings in ways which were inclusive of women striving for equality, transgender individuals wishing to be themselves and same-sex couples seeking religious affirmation of their relationships. Needless to say, the same is true for Christianity and Islam.

Conclusion

As the recent Church of England synod discussions concerning gay bishops and women bishops have revealed, those responsible for making decisions, have the power to extend equality and inclusion, if they so choose. At the moment, the naysayers seem to be winning the debates.[14] But this could change.

However, as things stand at the moment, with the exception of progressive religious denominations, like Liberal Judaism and the Quakers, patriarchal mainstream religious authorities within all the major religions are resisting change – and it is clear that in Britain, at least, in exempting religious institutions from Equalities legislation and the proposed Equal Marriage Law the government is allowing these religious authorities the freedom to continue to discriminate against LGBT people.[15]

[1] Paper given in Panel discussion at event on ‘LGBT Rights in Europe: A search for common solutions’, Brighton University, 31.08.12.

[2] For an account of my personal struggle for equality and inclusion as a lesbian rabbi, see, My Journey, the Preface to my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul, 2012)

[3] Covenant of Love – B’tit Ahavah (Liberal Judaism, 2005). See www.liberaljudaism.org. Also see ‘Marriage By Any Name’ in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism

[4] See http://www.liberaljudaism.org/news/588-a-summary-of-liberal-judaisms-response-to-the-governments-equal-marriage-consultation.html

[5] http://transgenderjews.org.uk/

[6] See http://news.reformjudaism.org.uk/press-releases/reform-movement-celebrates-lgbt-pride.html

[7] The screening will be held at 7:30 PM at 83 Denmark Villas, Hove BN3 3TH

[8] Wrestling with God and Men. Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).

[9] See Genesis 38 – the story of Judah and Tamar, which involves Judah’s second son, Onan, spilling his seed, rather than impregnate his dead brother’s wife in order to produce a child in the name of his dead brother.

[10] See ‘Judaism and Lesbianism: A Tale of Life on the Margins of the Text’ in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism.

[11] See ‘Making Trouble From Day One: Re-reading the Creation Stories in Genesis’ in Trouble-Making Judaism.

[12] See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Issurey, Bi’ah 21:9

[13] See http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/greenberg-blu. One of Blu Greenberg’s best-known books is On Women and Judaism: A View From Tradition (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1981).

[14] http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/cat_general_synod.html

[15] See http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/consultations/equal-civil-marriage/

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