February 2011

I’ve been watching DVD’s of the TV show In Treatment.

Anyone seen it? Remake of an Israeli show, with Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest.

Captures a therapist named Paul in sessions with 5 different patients. Each of them is struggling with their own demons – one woman is terrified of the commitment and loss of independence marriage brings, another man whose loss of his father caused him to completely divorce himself from all his feelings.

Parshat Vayakhel

Paul is an excellent therapist, connecting the non-sequitors each patient throws at him to the heart of their issues and revealing the transference toward him each demonstrates.

And then the show invites us into sessions with Paul’s own personal therapist and we see him failing as a husband and a father, burying himself in his work to escape. For a man who is such an adroit shrink, Paul’s personal life is a disaster.

This show reminds us of the complexity of being in relationship. The transference directed at innocent partners, the loss of control we feel, diminished egos that come from fully letting another into our hearts. In Treatment reveals the ways we struggle to know ourselves and how much that difficulty is compounded when 2 souls come together. //   But it also depicts the potential of intimacy and the blessings and healing that come from opening ourselves to another.

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The Torah portion also speaks of the miracle of relationship. This year in the Jewish calendar is a leap year and this parsha is typically read in conjunction with the following one. We read that when Moses finishes erecting the Tabernacle, ha’anan, the cloud, covered the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting, and kavod Adonai, the presence of the Eternal, filled the Mishkan. //   Moses couldn’t enter it because the cloud had settled upon it and kavod Adonai filled the Mishkan.

Moses can’t enter the cloud because it was already full of God’s presence. But these words hold a textual discrepancy (and we know that seeming inconsistencies offer us further insight into the meaning behind the words). Elsewhere in the Torah we read, “Moses went inside the cloud.”[1] Why can Moses sometimes enter the cloud and unite with God, and other times is forbidden?

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson offers an interpretation: one way to view the image of the cloud filling the Mishkan is as a metaphor for the way we are clouded—the way our fears, our guilt, our egos, our anger prohibit others from entering into a full relationship with us. The way these parts of us form an impenetrable cloud.

When these qualities hijack our entire being, it makes deep connection with others challenging. How can we make ourselves aware of the way our own issues cloud relationships? Just the other day, I found myself reacting very strongly to something someone else had done. I knew I was being overly judgmental, but I still felt wronged and angry. It was only after examining the underlying issues this brought up for me, that I was able to realize that these feelings were much more about me and my past hurts than about the other person. This exploration enabled my own cloud to lift and invited another soul in. And of course, like all areas of self-improvement, it’s always a work in progress.

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So what of our Torah’s contradiction? Sometimes Moses can enter the cloud, sometimes he cannot. The Talmud teaches that the Holy One of Blessing took hold of Moses and brought him into the cloud. God modeled how to unveil parts of our unconscious and invite another to share our inner life. Perhaps when Moses could enter the cloud without God’s explicit outreach, Moses was in deeper connection with his inner self? And when God made him wait before granting permission to enter, this was Moses’ reminder that he needed to examine the ways he ignored his inner psyche and how this hampered his ability to in full relationship–with his wife Tzipporah, with his children, and with b’nai Yisrael.

Think about the story in the Torah when Moses goes overboard trying to do it all as a leader and God has to say, “Stop! You can’t do everything. Establish a system so that the 70 Elders can share the burden.” It is likely that Moses’ unconscious processes led him to irresponsible leadership choices—perhaps an inferiority complex he developed as a result of his stutter, sibling rivalry with Aaron, maybe an unchecked ego? Whatever the cause, if he was able to acknowledge unresolved issues, he may have been able to prevent his feelings from spiraling out of control.

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The characters on In Treatment each face the task of opening themselves to all elements of their psyches. And Paul, their therapist, struggles with this as well in his personal life. Parshat Vayakhel reminds each of us that a willingness to make our own clouds transparent is an act of revelation, as we make our core accessible to those we love, we enable the presence of the Eternal, kavod Adonai, to fill us.

                                                            Shabbat Shalom.

What is the hardest decision you ever had to make? Did you agonize about it endlessly? Did you wish you had an oracle to provide guidance?

Parshat Tetzaveh II

During rabbinical school, a fellow student worked at a Reform summer camp as a staff director. One evening he was caught smoking pot with a group of CIT’s. // He was immediately expelled from camp. But how should my seminary have responded? Should he be expelled? Did he already suffer significant consequences? Would the school’s decision influence his own teshuva?

How do we make significant decisions that we know will impact us or others forever? What guides us?

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This week’s parsha is about the rules for establishing the priesthood and we read explicitly about the attire of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. Part of his breastpiece contains the Urim and Tummim, devices used to discern the will of God. It is unclear exactly what the Urim and Tummim were. Some say they are stones, gold and silver, a piece of parchment on which God’s names are written, or divine objects with all the letters of the alef-bet tucked into the High Priest’s breastplate, but they all provide divine guidance.  

What is it that gives these objects their power of divination? Is it in the material itself? Is it within the Kohen Gadol? In the intersection of the objects and the priest’s use of them?

Rabbi Michael Mellen asks, if Moses could receive God’s wisdom through a lowly bush, why must priests use these loftly objects?[1] Aren’t there ways to receive divine wisdom without possessing the Urim and Tummim?

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When you have a decision to make, how do you go about it? Do you mull it over at length, do you make pro/con lists? I often solicit the advice of others. The process for me of talking through the dilemma usually enables me to clarify my thoughts and reach a decision. And what do my most valued advice givers always do? They listen. Maybe they ask some good questions. But mostly they give me an opportunity to uncover what is in my heart. They affirm my own voice.

Do the Urim and Tummim give direction through their own will or divine wisdom, or is something deeper occurring? As Rabbi Mellen concedes, oracles typically require interpretation. And even when an oracle is most forthcoming, truth seekers must still come up with the questions to ask. Oracles need input. Even in instances when an oracle provides an answer known to be true, the meaning behind the answer often remains unclear, left up to human interpretation.

Maybe the Urim and Thummim were mysterious objects resting close to the heart of the High Priest because they were simply vehicles that facilitated his discovery of what was in his heart all along. The Urim and Thummim act exactly like our most trusted advice-givers, helping us to create a space for our own heart to respond.

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So what happened to my classmate in rabbinical school?

The school decided that this student would need to take a year off, seek counseling and engage in service to the Jewish community. He actually ended up resigning from the Reform seminary and is now at another rabbinical school.

In my classmate’s case, a decision was being made for him, but the process of facing a decision can surface values, agendas, fears, and dreams ­you’ve never confronted before, or it can send you down paths ­you’ve long avoided. Some decisions can be deeply challenging, as they “require” us to come clean with others about what we truly believe and how we want to live.

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The V’Ahavtah commands, v’hayou hadvarim haeleh, asher anochi mitzavcha hayom al l’vavecha, that the words of Torah “be on our heart.” When we create a space for our own Urim and Tummim, we find the words we need. The answers are ours, drawn m’levavcha, from out hearts.

                                                            Shabbat Shalom.

V’et zachar, lo tishkav mish’kvei isha; toevah hu. Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is a taboo.[1] As the Marriage Equality Bill will be signed by Governor Gregoire as early as possibly tomorrow, I wanted to explore and interpret one of the passages in the Tanakah that has been recited against gays and lesbians and has caused families and communities such pain.

V’et zachar, lo tishkav mish’kvei isha; toevah hu. Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is a taboo. First, this verse must be read in context. The chapters before it forbid avodah zara, foreign forms of worship, which are considered toevah, taboo. God doesn’t want the Israelites to imitate the behaviors of other nations. We read: When you come into the land which the Eternal your God gives you, you shall not learn to do the toevot of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or is a fortune teller, or an enchanter, or a witch…. For all who do these things are toevah to the Eternal.[2] Six other verses identify idolatry, child sacrifice, witchcraft, and other “foreign” practices as toevah[3]. This section of the Torah is about setting the Israelites apart through cultic purity, and the prohibition of foreign actions which contaminated it. A toevah, taboo, confuses the distinction God is trying to set. These verses are not about “homosexuality,” not about what is natural, not morality. No, the context is the distinction between Israelite and Canaanite rituals. As we shall soon see, it is that violent male penetration is taboo for Israelites.

Let us examine the Hebrew further: “V’et zachar…” The word et is                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          untranslatable, but it suggests something humiliating done to or at a man. If the prohibition meant something other than degradation, it would have said im adam – “with” a man, not et adam, “to” or “at” a man.  This verse is better rendered “And to a man you shall not lie….” Thus only male-male sex acts characterized as being done et adam, forcibly at a man, are forbidden.

Leviticus 18 is only about sexual violence and humiliation. In the misogynistic, ancient-Greek culture of the Torah, being sexually penetrated was a form of degradation. Penetration was something done to a person, not with them—a form of humiliation. To be in this category was to be demeaned; in most cultures, it included only women, slaves and non-adult boys. Ancient Judaism extended the sphere of moral consideration, and said that no man should be “womanized.” This verse demands that this degradation never be visited upon another man. Where penetration has none of the earmarks of violence or humiliation, the prohibition does not apply.

Lesbian sexual activity, incidentally, is not mentioned at all in the Torah. It was treated very lightly by the Talmudic rabbis (as a form of “mere lewdness,” akin to wearing a bikini) and was not proscribed until much later in Jewish history.

The verses prohibiting this toevah address activities, not sexual identities. The Bible does not forbid homosexuality. “Homosexuality” is a modern term, referring not only to sexual acts, but to a sexual orientation, an identity.   In biblical times, the possibility that same sex couples could establish stable, monogamous, loving relationships and even have children was non-existent. To say “the Bible forbids homosexuality” is as ridiculous as saying “the Bible forbids the internet.” Neither are part of the biblical worldview.[4]

And yet, we do have instances of same-sex romantic love in the Tanakh. In the David and Jonathan story, the two make a lifetime pact openly, they meet secretly and kiss each other, shed copious tears at parting, proclaim that love for the other surpasses his love for women, and publically display love.[5] And it is this romance which prepares David for his ascent to kingship. Their passionate love seals the transmission of the Davidic monarchy and shapes the messianic redemption.

Here is a biblical universe with multiple configurations of sexuality.[6] While a modern conception of homosexuality did not exist in biblical times, we do have a touching story of one man’s love for another and every reason to believe that it was a homosexual relationship.

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But Rabbi, some might say, “it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” We’ve heard the cliché, and we’ve heard the claim that male and female are at the heart of God’s plan for the world—that heterosexuality is the only natural sexuality. But, homosexuality is present in hundreds of animal species, and in every culture in the world. Sexual diversity is the rule, not the exception. And even the story of Adam and Eve isn’t as simple as it sounds.[7] The pairing of Adam and Eve was the solution to a problem. God creates humans but then has to tinker with the original plan because of the first flaw God finds. What is the flaw? // Loneliness. “It is not good for the human being to be alone,” God says in Genesis 2:18. This is a shocking pronouncement; six times God has remarked how good everything is: light, heaven and earth, stars, plants, animals—all of these are “good.” Yet suddenly God realizes that something is not good—the condition of being alone. God presents Adam with every animal in the world but none suffices. As Jay Michaelson asserts, this story validates the importance of human love and companionship in all its forms.[8]

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Our Tanakh contains 4 verses out of a possible 27,570 which forbid male-to-male violent penetration. The rest of our sacred texts teach the values that loving partnerships heal the primary flaw in creation, they command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” that sexual diversity is natural and a part of the Eternal’s creation, and moreover, that inequality is an affront to Jewish values. Critics like to say that homosexuality is just about sex, but sexuality is about so much more than that—it’s about love. How we love, whom we love, how open we are with the channels of love in our lives. And when those channels are blocked, deep emotional pain wracks us. If the Eternal creates sexual diversity, and is a loving God, can Leviticus 18 possibly mean to proscribe loving, committed relationships?

In addition, by understanding these verses as a product of their place and time, we recognize that we have evolved morally, widening our sphere of consideration, and becoming more tolerant. There are instances of the Rabbis deciding that certain laws no longer apply (such as the law of the sotah, a woman accused of adultery who was commanded to swallow poison). Judaism is a tradition of evolution and growth which builds on new understandings as we more deeply comprehend that our fundamental ethics support, rather than oppose equality for sexual minorities.

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There are many ways to address problematic texts. We can ignore them. We can understand them as a product of their time and place, less relevant to us today. We can dissect the Hebrew and look at concordant words to reach a more nuanced understanding. This Shabbat, our exploration uncovered that the word toevah, often translated as abomination, really is an effort to discourage Israelites from following Canaanite customs. The word et refers only to sexual violence and humiliation, not to homosexuality or lesbian relationships. We recalled the Eternal’s assertion that loving partnerships heal the primary flaw in creation, and we reiterated our recognition of the Torah as a product of its place and time.

An understanding of these verses and our tradition’s teachings about loving partnerships enables us to consider whether our scripture dictates the intolerance that many claim it does. At Shabbat services in two weeks, we will further explore the intersection of religion and politics. Together we will seek to better understand political justifications for law. Today, may we hold in our hearts the affirmation that as humans and Jews, we have evolved in our acceptance to embrace a spectrum of loving partnerships, and may we also feel pride that our Torah demands that we grant others equal civil and social privileges, and extend compassion and caring to all of Divine creation.

Shabbat Shalom.