Sarx

(A review of Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling with God and Men: homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition)

In a recent post, at his Po-Mo Muse, A.J. Stitch shared this passage from his reading of Elie Wiesel’s book Night

After the day I saw him [the rabbi] often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. “Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him,” he as fond of repeating. “That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don’t understand His answers. We can’t understand them. Because they come form the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself.”

The scene is, of course, in the context of a concentration camp in the darkness of the Holocaust. But the teaching holds even in our day-to-day struggles. Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him, Man questions God and God answers. But we don’t understand His answers.” Because they are hidden deep within us, in the language of the soul. It’s only there that we find the answers - and they will be there until death.

This is, I think, a quintessentially Jewish response, but also a post-modern one. We are left knowing that we know… but it’s damned hard to say what we know - even if it is at all possible. We can hear God (maybe) but the actual knowing of meaning and the living of that meaning is hard if not impossible.

Reading Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling with God and Men: homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, I felt I was within the same paradigm, the same response: we can see the text in front of us, we can hear ±3000 years of conversation on the text, but are we any closer to meaning?

First Rabbi Greenberg (hereinafter, RSG) must address the text itself, then Rabbinical comments on the text. Then RSG sets out to address the issue in a personal way - discussing reactions and various possible understandings. he does this through a hypothetical dialogue between a gay man who wishes to be an observant Jew and an Orthodox Rabbi. Finally RSG dreams a little about the possibilities, based on his own experience. “What he needs is a way to envision a life of love, intimacy, and commitment with a man in the context of a religiously alive Orthodox community. The task of wiring on this topic is to mark a path that is responsible to these human realities and deeply committed to God and Torah.” (p.28)

The first and most important question is “Why Remain Orthodox?” To me this is important because I was, once, Eastern Orthodox. The word is the same and it means the same in both Christian and Jewish contexts: observing a lot more of the ancient traditions than most other adherents, but usually in an ossified and unthinking reaction to liberalism as compared to past generations - the claim that the tradition is infallible (as a defining factor of Orthodoxy) is new. Were the situation different, I’d still be Orthodox, I think: but I’m also 100% into integrity. I well know the rules of the EOC and I’m online. My presence as an “Out Orthodox” would cause a lot of people to stumble. But we’ll get back to that in a minute. My reasons for wanting to be Orthodox have already been blogged in the context of this book. Here’s the quote again:

For many such returnees [people who, to varying degrees, were previously secular or only somewhat religious, but had now become Orthodox - DHR] traditional religion was the epitome of nonconformity, a countercultural revolution against the stultifying banalities of American life. Choosing a religious tradition, coming to trust its moral, spiritual, and intellectual sensibilities, adopting a religious community rather than being born into it can serve (if somewhat paradoxically) as a source of trust in oneself. Orthodox need not mean conformist.

The Jewish tradition has rich resources for countercultural critiques of regimes of certainty, even when the regime was of its own making. Nonconformist prophets denounced the kings and priests of ancient Israel, the mystics disparaged the philosophers (and vice versa) in the medieval period, and the Hasidic masters in the nineteenth century criticized the the great scholars of eastern Europe for being soulless. In our long history we have been nourished by great social architects and impassioned dissidents.

While Orthodoxy for many is indeed a defensive bulwark against uncertainty, a way to simplify a complex world, I am profoundly grateful to my teachers who taught me to embrace the tradition as a great cross-historical conversation, a spiritual and moral ground from which to contend with life’s myriad possibilities, a disciplined and balanced way to live a great life in the midst of inevitable uncertainty. There is a great hope in a tradition that loves good questions even more than good answers, a tradition that teaches that God listens to the deliberations of the sages in order to know what the Halakhah is. (p.23)

Halakhah means law or legal ruling.

I do like his description of Orthodoxy as nonconformist. I think Fr Seraphim Rose and others would agree. But that 3rd paragraph has no place in the Christian Orthodoxy I have experienced. But it also has no place in the various liberal or conservative orthodoxies out there. The idea that “here’s a ground from which to debate” seems to be missing from both leftist and rightist orthodoxy and most religious orthodoxy I know: either it is dogmatically asserted that there is no ground to stand on or else it is dogmatically asserted that there is no debate allowed. To focus on the last sentence, either God doesn’t care what we do, or nothing we can do can change what God allows.

How is there a religion that allows both? To my mind this would be the best of both worlds I’d experienced: the joy of Dancing around the Altar at St Gregory of Nyssa Parish with the Saints of Russian Orthodoxy.

It’s that debate - where, in Wiesel’s book “Man questions God and God answers” - that is a hallmark of Judaism and also of more inclusive Christianities. “There is a great hope in a tradition that loves good questions even more than good answers, a tradition that teaches that God listens to the deliberations of the sages…”

As I was reminded recently, a lot of the Jewish prophets argued with God - and they usually won.

So, the book hits, first, the biblical texts of Genesis: the creation and the “sons of God” passages, Noah’s son, Ham, and then the Sodom story. RSG’s dealing with these passages will be familiar to anyone who has read on the topic as well as anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the “Higher Criticism” of these texts. But he does not use these ideas to simply dismiss the texts whole cloth. As he insists in a movie I’ve blogged - in order to be honest we must deal with these texts. It’s not enough (nor is it honest) to just toss ‘em out. Rather RSG uses the historic Jewish understanding of these passages to arrive at different (from Modern Christians and Jews) conclusions. For someone committed to a literal reading of the Genesis (any variation on the “Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” argument) this might be the very most important portion of the book. This is were anyone begins the argument from, if you will, gender evidence - the idea that our human plumbing creates destiny. This is where RSG begins to diverge.

This continues into the all-important text in Leviticus 18:22:

וְאֶת זָכָר לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא.
v’et tzakhar lo tishkav mish’k'vey ishah to’evah hev
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination.”

RSG’s discussion of the Hebrew in this passage was blogged, back in November, in another context, by the folks over at Episcopal Life. Over there the Rabbi had given a speech to a group of Episcopalians. Then there was a report on the speech published in a paper. Then, finally, someone else took issue with the speech as it was reported. Back then, in these pages, I took issue with the comments of the other party - Fr Tobias Haller, of the Brotherhood of St Gregory. This book, however, presents the argument in its full form and context. I was unaware of this context in November. In fact, it was that discussion that prompted me to get this book. I do not know if this book was known or read by any other participants in that earlier discussion.

Noting the Hebrew in its literal (rather than translated) meaning, RSG comes up with this: “And with a male you shall not lie in the lyings of a woman: it is a toevah.”

The verse is full of puzzles. First, what does “the lyings of a woman” mean? Second, why is the phrase necessary at all? The verse migh have very simply read, “You shall not lie with a man.” Third, what does toevah mean and what does it add? It is often translated as “abomination,” but what is meant in the Hebrew is not so clear. At the end of chapter 18 all the prohibitions of the chapter are lumped together and called the toevot of the inhabitants of Canaan on account of which the land spewed them out. If they are all considered toevot, why then is male-male sex specifically called toevah? (p.79)

RSG goes into a discussion of sex and gender, of male penetration and power, of the ancient near-eastern context of power and authority, of male rape… he comes to the conclusion that this verse might be read to refer to male domination of another man by means of illicit or forced sex. This is evil in the eyes of God. This parallels rather well with the “hospitality” understanding of the Sodom story traditional in Judaism.

Then RSG continues with readings of the Jonathan and David story, noting the homoeroticism present in the passages.

The story would seem to make the most sense if Jonathan were gay, but David not. Jonathan is, after all, the son who disappoints his father in just the ordinary ways. Though he manages in battle, we find him not very aggressive or interested in military prowess. He doesn’t think strategically. Moreover, he is smitten at first sight by the young David and immediately dresses him in his own clothing. The erotics of this gesture are difficult to explain away. Lastly his love of David is deemed perverse and shameful by his father. (p. 104)

Having fallen in love with my share of men who were not sexually available to me, RSG’s reading of this passage was very moving. But it seems the Rabbis and sages, too, have seen the love here.

The book then goes into an extended discussion of the rest of Jewish tradition: from the Talmudic era up to the recent modern period. RSG hits on one of my favourite points - the homoerotic content of some mediaeval rabbinic poetry. (I researched this topic while at NYU in the 80s.) And brings us to the modern era with some quotes from more recent rabbis and the legal tradition.

Through this entire section of the book I had the same feeling I do when reading a Christian history of the same topic through the same period: there were clearly periods of time when “Teh Gay” was something everyone knew about but refused to discuss - not because it was gross or shameful, but because it was someone’s private business. Who cares if Rabbi Judah HaLevi or St Aelred was inclined to dote on men? What is important is that they revealed huge swaths of God’s Love and Learning for all of us in the context of their lives.

Nowadays, however, we are all (Jews and Christians) more inclined to focus on the nay-sayers, be they Augustine or Maimonides, who focus on the negatives rather than the positives. And even when they do focus on positives, we moderns are inclined to look for negatives.

In the next section of the book (III) RSG discusses various rationales for the text. Why has it been commanded (either by the text or by rabbinical understanding of the text) that same sex couples are a bad-thing? Four possibilities are discussed, each within their own chapters. I believe each of these will be familiar to my readers so I will list them only as titles (please comment it you would like me to expand any of them):

The Rationale of Reproduction
The Rationale of Social Disruption
The Rationale of Category Confusion
The Rationale of Humiliation and Violence

Each rationale was addressed in the book and discussed fairly with replies from within the Jewish tradition. The first one - reproduction - might be most familiar to my Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican readers and so his replies here might be of most interest. But I found this entire section to be of interest not only for the replies given, but also for the deep respect that RSG clearly held for opposing points of view. I feel he recounted both sides of the historic debates rather well and in an unbiased manner.

Ultimately - as can be gathered from his midrash of the Leviticus text - RSG seems to favour the rationale of humiliation and violence. An extension of this reading against male-male rape would, I think, include rather than exclude the other rationales: using male sex to rape someone (male or female) is category confusion in that it creates an object of the other party; it is social disruption in it’s a clear denial of the personhood of the other leading to egotism and social devolution; and it is a violation of the love-of-life implied in reproduction.

But a loving, committed relationship between two persons of the same sex, sexual expression is none of these things (or rather, it needn’t be: there are, of course, abusive same sex relationships just as there are abusive opposite sex relationships).

The hinge from this portion of the book to the final one begins with a crucial claim:

The Torah black fire on white fire, eternal and holy. It is also lovingly, brilliantly, divinely not clear. Its openness to successive interpretations is its assurance of eternity. The Torah is divine not because it finishes all discussions of right and wrong, but because it inaugurates and legitimates those very discussions, shapes their ongoing development, and empowers leaders in different times and places to make difficult decisions about its meanings. An eternal work needs to be a beacon for all moments of human history. It needs to press towards deeper values while not prematurely attempting to force paradise on us. It says what it can, and then it points, sometimes overtly and sometimes obliquely, towards Eden. (p. 210)

RSG references a crucial Jewish understanding about the Torah: it is written in letters of black fire on a background of white fire. To explain this, let me draw on this sermon by Rabbi Avi Weiss from the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale.

The last portion of the Torah includes one of its more esoteric phrases -”eish da’at, the fiery law.” (Deuteronomy 33:2) The Midrash concludes that this phrase is a description of the Torah. In its words: “eish shahor al gabei eish lavan.” The Torah is written “black fire on white fire.” (Midrash Tanhuma, Genesis 1) What exactly does this mean?

On the simplest level, black fire refers to the letters of Torah, the actual words, which are written in the scroll. The white refers to the spaces between the letters. Together the black letters and white spaces between them constitute the “whole” of the Torah.

On another level, the black fire represents the p’shat, the literal meaning of the text. The rabbis point to the importance of p’shat when stating “the text cannot be taken out of its literal meaning.” The white fire, however, represents ideas that goes beyond the p’shat. It refers to ideas that we bring into the text when we interact with it. This is called d’rash-interpretations, applications, and teachings that flow from the Torah. The d’rash are the messages we read between the lines.

On yet another level, the black letters represent thoughts which are intellectual in nature, whether p’shat or d’rash. The white spaces, on the other hand, represent that which goes beyond the world of the intellect. The black letters are limited, limiting and fixed. The white spaces catapult us into the realm of the limitless and the ever-changing, ever-growing. They are the story, the song, the silence. Sometimes I wonder which speaks more powerfully, the black, rationalistic letters or the white, mystical spaces between them.

In the final section of the book, RSG explores the white fire, I think. He theorises a conversation between an Orthodox Rabbi and a gay Jew who seeks to find a place for himself - and a prospective partner - within an Orthodox Jewish Community.

This portion is painful reading for two very different reasons: because RSG has been on both sides of the conversation as a Rabbi and as a gay man the experience of his pain is very present; and because, in a different context, I have been on both sides of the conversation. (To read parts of my conversation, see the Retro link at the top of the page, the section entitled “The whole gay thing…”.)

This portion explores several different angles, imagining the conversation to progress for both participants. There is sensitivity on both sides - a sensitivity that arises from RSG’s position as a gay man who is also an Orthodox Rabbi, and grows from his personal desire to be included without excluding those others in his own community who disagree with him.

It is this sort of inclusivism which is, largely, missing from the Anglican version of this same conversation. Rather than seeking a way to compromise and commit to loving each other, both sides seem quite willing to block the other out. Ironically enough, RSG seems to be exhibiting what many would egotistically call “the Christian attitude” where both sides of the Anglican divide seem to be stuck in “Jewish” legalism. It is, as my friend Ana used to say, “the Pagans are better Christians than the Christians.” Let’s say “Jews” there instead of Pagans and let us note the false dichotomy, for the Rabbi is showing his love of others as commanded by his own tradition and the Torah - from whence Christians get the idea in the first place.

RSG has purposefully constructed a conversation rather than a debate: it’s not something someone can win. Rather it is, in Hebrew, a shakleh v’taryeh, a “take and give”. RSG says, “Shakleh v’taryeh admits that truth seeking is never a monologue… Rather than winning or even reaching agreement, the explicit goal of shakleh v’taryeh is the expansion of knowledge by multiplying possibilities.” (p. 221 The emphasis is mine.) So many times it seems that the goal of religious discussion in other traditions is, in fact, the limiting of possibilities. All Christian credos and dogmas are exactly that: a demarkation of inside and outside rather than an expansion.

After exploring several traditional avenues, the book reaches a crucial claim on the parrt of the Orthodox: that the Torah’s law (halakhah) never changes. But RSG points out that, in fact, the law does change. He then explores one way in which it has changed - usury. This is interesting because the Christian understanding of usury has also changed over the last 2000 years; usually a few steps behind the Jews (who were, for a time forced to be bankers because Christians couldn’t do it). This idea that the tradition “never changes” is a fixation of modern Orthodox Christians, too, some of whom offer the Church as infallible and the fourth “person” in the Nicene Creed, after Father, Son and Holy Ghost! RSG calmly explores how the tradition has changed - not just developed. The text says Usury is wrong. But we (Jews and Christians) now allow it. In fact it is a foundation of western economy! Something has changed.

But RSG also discusses another way that halakhah has changed in the modern era: that of driving on the Sabbath (allowed by the more liberal denominations). He notes that in communities where driving is still prohibited, there seems to be a much more coherent form of social life. In one way a change has worked. In another way it has not.

Having reached an admission of change in the communities’ understanding of the law, the conversation then explores some possibilities for the future. I’ll leave this dreaming out of my report because, actually, I want everyone to buy the book! But I think it’s very important - for Jews and others. The dreaming forward portions are usually my favourite part of a book.

This issue of sexuality is arising in all streams of the Abrahamic tradition: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Mormon, etc. It’s dividing communities who all split over fundamentalisms - liberal or conservative. In these communities, neither side leaves room for the other. RSG arrives at what seems to be a positive space for beginning the conversation - but certainly not a conclusion! Yes, RSG seeks a world where gay men and lesbians might participate fully as themselves within Orthodox communities. But he does so knowing that it can take centuries for halakhic understanding to change. He doesn’t seek a way to rush the conversation, but rather start it.

His conclusion comes with three suggestions for the furtherance of the shakleh v’taryeh:

• For rabbis: No humiliation. Rabbis will agree not to humiliate or intimidate gay and lesbian people from the pulpit and work to prevent such humiliation in their congregation.
• For gay and lesbian people: No public advocacy. Gay and lesbian members will acknowledge the limits of the halakhic process and not presume the Orthodox synagogue will adopt the social agenda of the gay and lesbian community.
• For communities: No lying. Gay and lesbian members will be able to tell the truth about their relationships and their families.

(p. 263)

It seems a near parallel to what Serge has blogged about (and commented on in these pages) - the sort of unspoken Gentlemen’s Agreement whereby gay Anglo-Catholic clergy were just never talked about, even though everyone knew. It seems a near parallel, but not entirely. RSG is suggesting the no-lying for communities. I am familiar with gay, closeted Anglo-Catholic clergy and while it works rather well in one case, in another not so much and in a third, the priest exhibited the classic symptoms of internalised homophobia whereby everyone else in his parish felt the brunt of his closet door slamming shut. I rather like RSG’s model better!

He compares it to another issue - that of niddah, the tradition whereby a man must abstain from touching his wife during her menstruation and for a period of time after. (There is a parallel tradition within Eastern Orthodox Christianity of couples abstaining from sex and women abstaining from communion during the same time.) No one actually discusses whether or not this law is followed. It would be immodest to do so. But gay men and lesbians are asked about - indeed assumed to be - violating the various sexual laws even if they hold hands. RSG’s “no lying” rule covers this rather better and healthier than any amount of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.”

To contrast RSG’s inclusive approach to something else in the Christian world, last year the ECUSA Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, asked - in the name of peace in the wider Anglican church - for American Episcopalians to take up a fast, of sorts: to abstain for a period (I think it was Lent?) from electing any openly gay bishops or performing gay marriages. It seemed a logical request designed to give the wider Communion just a few more months of discernment. From the left her call was greeted with cries of derision where no one (that I read) was willing to give up their own freedom in order for other Christians to reach a new place. At another point, commented in my earlier essays, a member of the staff of the National Church told me there was no room in the Church for people who disagreed with liberalising the position on human sexuality.

RSG’s “the expansion of knowledge by multiplying possibilities”, I think offers something decidedly more attractive in his vision of a way forward for everyone.

—

In my current state of interest in Judaism, I found nothing with which I might disagree in this book. I noted the rough places above - but they were rough to me for personal reasons, for the missteps in my own journey, rather than for the writer’s skill. I recommend reading Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling with God and Men: homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition to anyone who seeks a way forward in this conversation.