Inheritors of a Complex Torah
Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim contains some of the strongest ethical writing in the Torah. We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, leave the corners of our fields for the poor, and to not stand idly by if our neighbor is injured. But, this double parsha also contains two verses that have been used, for a very long time, to tell LGBTQ Jews that they do not belong in our communities. As a queer, nonbinary, soon-to-be rabbi, I want to be honest with you: sitting with these Torah portions is not simple for me. There's a particular kind of dissonance in reading a text that calls you to act in holiness in one breath, and then denies your holiness in the next. And yet, I return to these verses each year, as do we all, because wrestling with Torah, even when it is hard, is one of the most Jewish things any of us can do.
Our tradition has never read the Torah as a static document. Every generation of interpreters asks "What does this mean for us now?" The two verses in question, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, are analyzed by Dr. Avi Rose, a psychologist and Jewish educator, who notes, "[The Torah] must be understood as a document which emerged out of very particular political and sociological conditions, which was intended for a society in a specific context and time frame, and which had as its goal a very limited social order." What Dr. Rose describes is a text shaped by the moment is was written, and not a timeless verdict on who we are as people. These verses in Leviticus do not prohibit loving and committed relationships between people of the same genders because those relationships were inconceivable to the Torah's human editors. Rather, the Torah prohibition is against non-Israelite religious practices or abuses of power. The understanding of what it means to be gay has changed dramatically since the origin of this text, due to sociological and biological research. Our communities today not only welcome, but fully embrace LGBTQ Jews, due to the generations of wrestling with the Torah and modern understandings of the world we live in.
Sandwiched between these two verses, we have a great refrain woven throughout Kedoshim. "Ani Adonai" - "I am the Eternal" - appears 16 times in the 37 verses of chapter 19, grounding every commandment not in social order, but in divine relationship. The circle of that relationship keeps expanding, guiding us to love our parents, our neighbor, the stranger, and anyone who dwells among us. LGBTQ Jews belong in that expanding circle, not despite the two painful verses in Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, but within the fullness of the Torah. We are all inheritors of the Torah: of its complexity, of the wrestling, its beauty, and the call to holiness. And we are all holy, exactly as we are.
Shabbat Shalom
Eden Anolick, Rabbinic Intern
