Today's Out Spotlight is Steven Greenberg the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi in the United States and a founder and educational advisor to the Jerusalem Open House, a LGBT community center in Jerusalem that advances the cause of social tolerance.
Rabbi Greenberg's aim is to "mark a path" by which a person of faith can be committed to God and tradition and still be a self-evincing gay person. Even the most traditional of communities can make such reconciliations, he said.
And while most other Orthodox Rabbis can ignore Rabbi Greenberg, they cannot "expel" him from Orthodoxy the way many Protestant churches do with LGBT members and clergy. Rabbi Greenberg who reminds everyone of fact that every Orthodox rabbi knows very well...as does every Jew, Orthodox or otherwise. The Bible is an interpretive relationship between each individual man and his God.
And while many Orthodox Rabbis would disagree with Greenberg's interpretation of the Bible, all would agree with his right to his understanding as an understanding equal to their own. The majority religious Jews are followers of the Reform movement and then the Conservative movement and both communities now widely recognize openly gay clergy and same sex marriage.
Rabbi Greenberg is a Senior Teaching Fellow at CLAL The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He was featured in the acclaimed 2001 film Trembling Before G-d, about Orthodox gay Jews, and has appeared in over 500 post-screening community dialogues throughout the world. He serves as the educational coordinator for the film’s outreach project, and arranged for screenings in Israel’s religious school system, reaching over 2,000 principals, educators and school counselors. A popular speaker on issues of faith, sexuality, and tradition, he has helped organize the first Orthodox Mental Health Conference on homosexuality, and has worked with numerous families in reconciliation.
Rabbi Greenberg is the winner of the Koret Book Award for Philosophy and Thought, for his groundbreaking book Wrestling with God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), which explores homosexuality and Jewish tradition. In the book, Rabbi Greenberg presents readers with surprising biblical interpretations of the creation story, the love of David and Jonathan, the destruction of Sodom, occasions of same-sex love in Talmudic narratives, medieval Jewish poetry and prose, and traditional Jewish case law literature and the condemnatory verses of Leviticus. The Koret awards are the most prestigious in Jewish prose. The book was also selected as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.
In Wrestling with God he writes about his meeting with Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashuv :
...beset with an inceased awareness of my attraction to a fellow yeshiva student, I visited a sage, Rav Yosef Shalom Eliashuv [sic], who lives in one of the most secluded ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem. He was in poor health but still taking visitors... Speaking in Hebrew, I told him what, at the time, I felt was the truth. "Master, I am attracted to both men and women. What shall I do?" He responded, "My dear one, my friend, you have twice the power of love. Use it carefully." I was stunned. I sat in silence for a moment, waiting for more. "Is that all?" I asked. He smiled and said, "That is all. There is nothing more to say."
Greenberg noted that Rabbi Eliashiv's comment was not meant to endorse homosexuality, nor to imply that there is no conflict between homosexuality and Orthodox Judaism. The point of the story, and the significance of Rabbi Eliashiv's response, is that it is possible for religious Jews to have compassion and empathy for Jews struggling to remain devout and who have homosexual urges.
Trembling Before G-d
Jersusalem Open House
Wrestling with God & Men
Happy Hanukkah
Happy Winter Solstice
OMG Season of SharingJewish National Fund Founded in 1926, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) America has been a vital part of Zionist history, achieving its goal of purchasing the land that would become the State of Israel, helping to develop that land into a thriving nation, and protecting Israel's environment. Over the past century, JNF has planted over 240 million trees, built over 180 dams and reservoirs, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 1,000 parks throughout Israel and educated students around the world about Israel and the environment. As a global environmental leader focusing on Israel, JNF is committed to improving the quality of life for all who live in the Middle East.
Looks like there is a consensus. (....professionally speaking)
Happy Winter Solstice!
