Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz writes: When God finally crafted the Human on the sixth day, the assumption for most students of the Bible is that Man was created first, and from him, Woman was created. This reading is widely accepted and has been taught for centuries, ignoring the other biblical version that they were created simultaneously and interconnected. While it is certainly true that a plain reading of these early biblical passages suggests that the dyad of man and woman was one of the most pertinent intentions of Creation, a closer textual analysis presents another more radical view: the view that identities of gender, sex, race, and ethnicity are not determined by nature but are largely developed as social constructs to make sense of the world. It would be blasphemous for one to apply one’s chosen construction of what is “normal” or “natural” to marginalize another. Doing so would be nothing short of challenging the full Divine potential of the first human who subsequently encapsulates all future human natures. Denying that any unique permutation was fully created in the image of God is akin to denying God…
How all this biblical material relates to contemporary events is of the utmost importance. I fear that today, with the lingering effects of racism, xenophobia, and the stigmatization of gay and trans people, humanity is still needlessly looking for reasons to divide itself. While I may not understand or approve the underlying reasons why each person chooses their particular lifestyle, as a Modern Orthodox pluralistic rabbi guided by the Torah, I feel it is my obligation to seek out those who are most vulnerable and advocate on their behalf. It is not enough to tolerate differences, but to cherish and nurture individuals so that they have the fortitude to go out into the world to live an actualized life. The raison d’être of the Torah is to enhance human dignity and freedom and never, God forbid, to diminish it.
Diversity is not something to push back against in the name of human uniformity. Rather, one of the vital acts we can do is reach out to someone struggling with their identity and give them the space to flourish. Too often, societies have pushed away those who grapple with their inner selves, even cutting them off from the broader world. Our post-modern globalized systems of interaction necessitate that the connection between humans is now weaker than ever. We can bring much kindness and justice back into the world, if we embrace the opportunity, indeed imperative, to support those who are suffering from marginalization and shaming. Indeed, it stems from our ancient mandate of giving aid to the stranger, giving succor to the weak, and being kind to all. And in doing so, we embrace the notion that all of us were contained in God’s first human creation. This makes each of us all equal yet –paradoxically — completely unique.
COMMENTS:
* I suppose that we can’t have opinions about what is normal or natural without automatically marginalizing someone or denying their imageness of God. This denies the capacity for humans to have common sense. Sounds like the writer is the one who is marginalizing and diminishing human potential. Not sure what he mean by Divine potential. The serpent tempted Eve with the possibility of having Divine potential. Is he talking about the same thing?
* Just when you thought there could not be any sillier ideas to be presented to the world, somebody posits an even sillier one. If this article had appeared on Purim I would have assumed the obvious, that it was satire. Alas, I fear that the author is actually serious and somehow impressed with his own cleverness. So on the sixth day, G-d created Adam and Steve in Gan Eden?
* If we are going to talk stupid, why not say that Adam was a transgender lesbian and Eve was a shy but gay man who decided to become a woman. They mastered artifical insemination and walla: a snake was born.
Embarrassed Adam and Eve re-wrote the book of Genesis to become a popular science fiction drama and never realized that it would take off.
Never realizing that they needed a copyright, they lost their shirts in trying to sue those people who took it from them without giving them a royalty and had to cover themselves with fig leaves.
Maybe someday we will see rabbis with brain transplants and then we can get better and more weird ideas for the future generations.
* Most if not almost all of Orthodoxy does not view his ordination as Orthodox nor his worldview/theology as anything resembling Orthodoxy. Taking a far left social justice agenda and trying to use the Torah to legitimize it doesn’t make it a Torah agenda. Orthodoxy is beautiful majestic and true, I hope Shmuly embraces that one day.
* This is just a fancy but abominable and purely political contrivance that tries to reverse engineer a definition of Hashem’s perfect wholeness.
And for what ? This darkness just generates pain, foments division, forestalls healing, and prevents progress toward people understanding the Torah’s relevance to humanity and His desire for the revelation of truth to the world through Israel.
