If ever there were a Jewish holiday custom-made to the specifications of a gender variant Jew, the Days of Awe would have to be it/them. The Days of Awe are the ten days bordered by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They are not a discrete event, rather, they are ten days of liminality – betweenness – within which we prepare ourselves for our closest encounter with the Infinite this side of death. Sounds like transition to me, nu? This holiday rings, shouts, nay, this celebration of liminality blasts forth, bleats, laments and exults with the shofar call of transformation. I hearby dub them instead the Days of AWESOME! Wake up! The shofar says, for:

This is the holiday that recognizes

Even the gender invariant

May be intentionally reconstructed

May have the benefit of masculine, feminine and

That which lies between and beyond

Recognize who you are

Know what you have been this past year

Die

To your shortcomings

Then think yourself

From one image of G-d to another.

Take a firm grip on the tree

Of your own life and

Hold on with your clutching fingertips

To the illusion you embody

A fruit of that tree, you

Hang over the depths

Of your own abyss

And work within

To bear the darkness

For the potential

The gestation

It offers

Then let go

Fall and fly

And laugh for yichud*

May your Days of Awe lead you toward peace with your Finites and with your Infinites. As a result of your Awesome Transformation, may you be Made of Awesome in the coming year.

* yichud- unification, often used to refer to the unification of the male and female aspects of the Divine

If you are Jewish and a member of the GLBT community, and have experience writing a drash for the weekly Torah portion, please contact Noach Dzmura b r e r r a b b i [ a t s i g n ] h o t m a i l [d o t] c o m for more information and to sign up for a Torah Portion of the Week.

Would that it were! Instead, alas, parashat Korah is about what often happens to those of us who ask troublesome questions of tyrants who have “God on their side,” and it is about the victors who compose the stories we call scripture. This is clearly Aaron’s story, written by a scion of the priestly caste, but wouldn’t it be different if Korah were doing the telling? In the modern midrash below, I have composed a new version of the story in Korah’s own words.

I hated to leave the tents today, since we’re in the middle of pulling up stakes to find a new camp-site. Those last little tremors that went down a couple of days ago—well, that and the rumors of a nasty stomach virus on the East side of camp—spooked my tent-mate. His favorite soup tureen fell off the shelf and broke in the last aftershock, which he says means seven years bad luck, and on top of that the Teitelman’s son fell ill yesterday, so our little Avi has to stay in the tent. They all play together, so the kids are all bound to come down with it. And my tent-mate worries. Also according to Jonah (my tent-mate), Moses borrowed our ass again and hasn’t given him back. So I have to bring that up with him too, Mr. High-and-Mighty Moses, or we won’t be able to move the tent.

I had already planned to hike down to the Tent of Meeting with some of my buddies to protest Moses’ latest move; I just added the ass to my list of things to complain about. It took us about an hour to hike out there, over some quite passable dessert hills. Looking back across the terrain, my neighborhood of tents was hidden behind two rows of hills by the time we got to the Tent of Meeting.

I love Moses, but he is having delusions of grandeur again. Those stories they tell the kids around the campfire, about Moses being responsible for the plagues in Egypt? Give me a break. Yeah, we left because of the plagues, but not because Pharaoh gave credence to our tribal deity! Hey, the domestic situation in Egypt was clearly so bad they couldn’t give us a second thought! Go after a band of slaves with anything like the force that would be required to retrieve them? Forget about it! Everyone was trying to get out of Egypt!

But that’s ancient history. While we were walking along the path toward the Tent of Meeting, there was another quake, not more than a 3.2, so we kept on walking. These things happen. Little did I know the ‘narrative use’ to which this event would be put.

So what am I protesting today? Well, some of the neighbors have been grumbling because Moses wants to set his buddy Aaron and his sons up for life, in a hereditary priesthood. I am already the beneficiary of a hereditary role of temple service as a son of Levi. I understand the desire to help out your friends. They’re tight, Aaron and Moses, and Moses can certainly stand to share the burden of leadership with capable people. It’s also right that priests should receive some compensation for their labors. But get this: priests won’t be able to farm, they won’t be able to herd animals. Slaughtering is tough work, this I grant you. But the rest of it, the rigmarole associated with the rituals? I’m a Levite and even I don’t have much use for it. I resent the fact that Moses is asking the people to give a tenth of what little they earn to support this foolish enterprise. The people are upset already about we Levites being on top of the heap. When my self-importance swells because of my “Levitical duties,” Jonah always reminds me that everyone was present for the revelation. I just want to point the same thing out to Moses. I’m a Levite, so my neighbors think I have influence and asked me to speak for them. So I stood there with my disgruntled neighbors and threw down the challenge to Moses.

“You have gone too far!” I say to Moses. “For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why do you raise yourself above the congregation of the Lord?”

Moses stutters a bit about the pot calling the kettle black, and that angers me. I’m about to retort that this isn’t about being supplanted as a Levite, and then Aaron whispers in Moses’ ear. Aaron, always Aaron. Once upon a time Moses and I were tight, but now it’s always Aaron. While I was throwing down my challenge, a message runner had come up to Aaron from back over the hills, the direction from which we had come. Since messengers were coming into the Tent of Meeting all the time from every corner of the widely disbursed camp, I paid it no mind. After Aaron listened to the message runner for a while, he turned to Moses and whispered again.

Then Moses asks all 250 of us to bring our fire pans to the Tent of Meeting tomorrow, and God will tell us who is right, and who is dead. I am wondering why he says “two hundred and fifty” when there are only ten of us, and then I see the scribe marking away and a cold fear grips me by the nethers. This is PR. This is spin. I’m being set up to take a fall and to establish the authority of Heaven. I know because I’ve seen it happen before, with Nadab and Avihu.

When I got back to my tent that night, I found a disaster: the quake shifted the landscape. Our tent and the neighboring tents were now about 14 feet underground. You could see the faultline. It was horrifying. Thank God, Jonah and Avi and all of our neighbors were a little bit shaken up, but otherwise fine. Jonah called up to me, laughing, “I guess they tried to take us alive down to Sheol!” With a little work, we were able to construct a ramp to haul everybody and all of our stuff out safely. So we moved from that nice centrally located but now subterranean spot to a place on the North side of our neighborhood, along the margins of the camp, and I forgot about protesting Aaron’s priesthood. Whatever, I had to deal with my family.

Later that summer Avi came back from a camp-out with the other kids. He told an amazing story about an uprising, an earthquake, a fire from Heaven, and a plague that Aaron singlehandedly stopped. That night in bed, Jonah helped me see the humor of the situation. All summer long the kids in the neighborhood were pretending they were mighty Korah, whom God destroyed. Avi does great death scenes when he plays Korah.

Avi recovered nicely from the stomach virus even though some others had not been so lucky. Aaron got away with pulling another Nadab and Avihu on my ten disgruntled neighbors. But what could I say? I had no proof, and the burden of evidence in such a claim was mine. And so for now, we have priests. But I have a feeling it won’t be that way forever. It’s really interesting to me that the story they tell about Nadab and Avihu contains the line, “And Aaron remained silent.” One wonders what he might have said.

If you have already written an essay on this broad topic that has been published elsewhere, please be aware that I am also interested in reprinting selected pieces that track transJewish voices in history.

I am looking both for new essays AND for permission to reprint certain essays from other sources.

Details about the anthology below.

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Noach Dzmura
Editor, Jews and Transgender (Summer 2009)

submissions in MS Word format to luke@dzmura.net
2000-3000 words

The book (with a tentative title Jews and Transgender) will be the first in a new series on Jews and Gender that will explore cutting-edge issues in Jewish gender and sexuality studies. If discussions between the prospective publisher and the editor continue along the path we anticipate, Jews and TransGender is slated to go to press in June, 2009. This places the project into an aggressive production schedule that requires a draft manuscript by April 23, 2008.

Intention and Argument
In this anthology, transgender writers and their allies incorporate a trans-inclusive refrain into the multi-vocal Jewish tradition. This unprecedented collection of academic, autobiographical, secular and homiletic essays records triumph as well as struggle, as transgender commentators first encounter the tradition, struggle with it, and ultimately recognize the authority of their unique lens into the texts and rituals of Jewish tradition. An introductory chapter locates and contextualizes the essays in the intersections between Jewish Studies, Feminism and Queer Theory. A concluding chapter attempts to draw from the collected essays a vision of a transgender inclusive Jewish world.

Overview
Noted scholars and activists from the transgender community document the life experience of transgender Jews encountering Judaism—whether they are Female-to-Male (FtM), Male-to-Female (MtF), intersex, “genderqueer” or otherwise gendered. The essays document a journey through fear, doubt and isolation to hope, transformation, and community. They record the discomfort of bringing a transgender body to worship and secular spaces and ritual forms that were not designed to accommodate such bodies. They catalog the unexpected and hopeful encounter of transpersons with the hermaphrodite Androgynos and the intersex Tumtum and other gender variant role models in the Jewish canon. Finally, the essays reflect joy and empowerment as transgender Jewish leaders emerge to create life-cycle events in Jewish space that honor a change from the gender one is assigned at birth, to the gender God has revealed within their hearts.

Chapter 1: Transgender Encounters with Judaism in the Press and in Literature
This chapter will contain an overview of transgender Jews as they have appeared in print, including reprints of watershed articles and first-person accounts

Chapter 2: Contested Spaces
This chapter will contain essays from transgender activists in Jewish spaces (large and small, real and metaphoric spaces) where transgender people encounter challenges with the gender binary in Judaism, where they are struggling to find access and inclusion. There are also essays about expected challenges that never materialized, about the unexpected ease of access to Jewish spaces, and the circumstances that facilitated that easy welcome. These spaces might include Israel, the public restroom, the mechitza, the “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” and the classroom.

Chapter 3: Role Models in Jewish Canon
This chapter will contain essays from transgender scholars, allies, activists and spiritual leaders who have studied Jewish texts and found remarkable support for gender variance in the Jewish canon. Includes essays about Tumtum, androgynos, and the notion of flexibility within even the most orthodox of interpretive traditions.

Chapter 4: Transgender Bodies transform Non-Transgender Rituals, Congregations, and Communal Spaces
This chapter will contain rituals and blessings for transgender life-cycle events and blessings commemorative of phases of transition and tools for congregations interested in extending welcome to gender variant persons. This chapter will also include the voices of Jewish communal organizations leading the way in a drive toward transgender inclusion.

Chapter 5: Closing Words in Support of a Trans-Inclusive Judaism
This chapter will contain a single summarizing essay that draws forth those aspects required for building a trans-inclusive Jewish world.

Editor’s Qualifications
For the past four years Noach Dzmura has been a student of trans/gender and sexuality in Jewish life and scholarship. For the past two years he has served as a teacher and an advocate in service to the transgender Jewish community, and he has been writing essays concerning the need for awareness, welcome and transformation in Jewish communities around transgender issues. Mr Dzmura holds an MA (2007) in Jewish Studies from the Richard S Dinner Center for Jewish Studies of the Graduate Theological Union. His thesis is titled, “Androgynos, Intersubjectivity and the Performance of Gender.” Mr Dzmura spent 2006-07 in Israel courtesy of the Haas-Koshland Award sponsored by the Jewish Community Endowment Fund in San Francisco, CA. He has taught about gender variance in Rabbinic texts at Keshet Ga’avah during World Pride in Israel, he has led workshops at Nehirim GLBT Retreats in New York (on Mishnah Androgynos) and San Francisco (on Isaac Bashevis Singers’ short story Androgynous), and he has guest lectured at the Graduate Theological Union. He has written for the anthology Genderqueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary edited by Joan Nestle, Riki Anne Wilchins and Clare Howell. He has also written essays for Sh’ma, for the Jewish Chronicle (UK) and for Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. He is a transgender activist for a project tentatively called the Trans Think Tank, which is working to identify and address the needs of transgender Jews in the Bay Area, sponsored by the LGBT Alliance of the Jewish Community Federation, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. Mr Dzmura maintains a resource site for transgender Jews called BrerRabbi, online at http://www.brerrabbi.com.

I don’t know how many men have studied this text in yeshivah or on
candlelit kitchen tables over the centuries. As I translate with my
study partner, I know I am one of only a few to fit an anomalous gender
category. I am a transgender man at an Orthodox yeshivah. I arrive
every morning at 8.30 and return home around 10 at night, exhausted,
exhilarated. This time to study is a gift.

What is it like to be transgender in Jewish contexts? Sometimes it is
like being a man. Like men, I enjoy the obligation to study.

There is often a brisk wind on the rooftops in Jerusalem, but at ground
level, it is still warm. I am in the courtyard of an Orthodox shul. I
remove my jacket. A man approaches, extending his hand in greeting. I
shake; what man thinks twice about shaking hands? Later, I wonder.
Should I have touched him? From his perspective, I was  an enthusiastic
guy from the yeshivah down the road. What he could not see is that I
was born female.

What is it like to be transgender in Jewish contexts? Sometimes it is
like being a woman. Like women, I face limits on participation in
Jewish ritual and social life imposed by tradition and custom.

I was in Haifa in my second week of ulpan (intensive Hebrew study) when
the war with Hizbollah began. I thought, “Bombs fall on the evening
news, not on me.�? The Mediterranean sparkled at the base of the
mountain below my classroom at the university, just there, past the oil
refinery. When I looked up from my textbook of Hebrew verbs that
morning, I saw a large metal canister falling incongruously through my
sky. The oil refinery was the target, but they hit Stella Maris, a
beautiful old Catholic monastery, instead. I stood blinking, waiting
for some explanatory words to run along the bottom third of the  screen.

What is it like to be transgender in Jewish contexts? Sometimes it is
like being both men and women. Like both men and women, if you drop a
bomb on me, I bleed.

I discovered my Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. The scriptorium and tiny
shul are in a dark, cavern-like space on the men’s side of the Western
Wall. I examine the work of the sofrim, or scribes, as commissioned
Torah scrolls grow slowly under their capable fingers, and pull out a
volume from the library to browse. It is ironic to me that, while the
women and most of the men must seek God against unyielding stone under
the glare of the desert sun, men who know this place may daven in a
cool and restful womb.

Earlier this year, men who look no different from those who daven here
beside me beat an observant woman who would not move to the “women’s
seats�? on the back of the bus. Men who look no different from these
hung posters in the strictly  Orthodox neighbourhood of Meah Shearim
just before the International Gay Pride Celebration, stating that it
was a religious obligation to kill gay people. It is hard not to jump
to the conclusion that these men would kill someone like me. In this
potentially dangerous Jewish context, I keep my identity to myself.

What is it like to be transgender in Jewish contexts? Sometimes it is
like being neither men nor women. Like neither men nor women, I am
obliged to walk a different Jewish road.

The rabbis’ careful thoughts about our ancient hermaphrodite sibling
may help to resolve the question of transgender space in Jewish life.
What is my obligation? Reveal myself, risk the loss of community, and
give the Orthodox man a chance to refuse my hand?

We are a people of communal obligation. Rather than hiding unknown
among you, I prefer to identify myself, and work through these
challenging differences sitting beside  you in the Beit Midrash, with
the texts of our tradition. In my hometown of Berkeley, California, we
have started to address the question of transgender Jewish lives. Some
of our discussions are Talmudic, some are academic, others occur in
shuls where people of all genders congregate.

Transgender lives are something neither the rabbis nor modern society
could anticipate, yet here we are. Most are neither hermaphrodites nor
transsexuals, who in some cases fall into the purview of modern
halachic teshuvot, or responsa. We are outside of all that, but inside
your shul. We want to study with you, to seek together the authentic,
inclusive life of our tradition.

In the end, we will shake hands.

(Originally appeared 1/6/07 in the Jewish Chronicle, UK under the title “My Struggle as a Sex-Change Man”.  Horrible Title!  What struggle? To live a transgender life is a double blessing!)

I was at the Hesperian offices, purchasing a book co-authored by my friend Julia Watts Belser, who is a soon-to-be-ordained Rabbi, and illustrated in part by my friend Mary Ann Zapalac. If you buy it from Hesperian’s website they donate part of the cost to distribute the book free of charge in countries that cannot afford to purchase it. (It’s a health manual for disabled women, not a Gideon Bible.) I had just told Esther how I knew Julia, which was through our school, the Richard S Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. And as I nodded to explain to her that “demystifying religion�? was indeed what my pursuit of a master’s degree in Jewish Studies was about, I had to wonder if it were in fact true.

Am I not educating myself in order to serve the Jewish people as a writer, a teacher, a curriculum developer, — in short, as an “expert�?? I am. But the purpose of writing, teaching, and building curriculum is not to establish or maintain a hierarchy with an Educator at the top, but to locate myself as one learner among a community of learners who share information and tools and questions and, in all that, because of all that, God emerges, between us. That’s the why of it. To bring about God and live there in the shared spaces, exposed to the Holy Presence. Education is about community. Community is the Mishkan. The Mishkan is the awareness of the collective.

In any situation I find myself teaching, I learn more from my students than they learn from me. But I have to admit that I do want to be the “expert�? – I want to be able to package the teachings of people like Fonrobert and Boyarin for people who are not expert in the field of sexuality or gender or Jewish Studies. I want to be able to use my special abilities and gifts to bring ideas to birth in new ways. I want to be an expert not for lessons of gender and sexuality in and of themselves, either, but because the techniques my role models employ have the potential to change the world. This is cool stuff and I am hopping up and down to share it with everyone. I am a toddler who has vocalized the word “Bus�? for the first time, and how can you not share my joy in the gift of communication? I tell you, God is here.

If, after reading Boyarin, I can internalize the idea that Leviticus 18:22 is about gender transgression rather than “homosexuality�? I have learned a valuable lesson about the invisible structures that support Rabbinic society. If, after reading by Fonrobert’s “against the grain�? methodology, I can hear the faint but persistent echo of a woman’s voice in Niddah, I am presented with a sense of reality that differs from that presented by a straight reading of the text.

I love that what is not written, or what is “written between the lines�? can teach us, that silence can shout for our attention. How cool is that, to a hearing impaired person, that silence is critically important and has been neglected by the difference-engines in our brains? How cool is that, to a visually impaired person, that the white fire of the page reveals as much as the black fire of the text?

Once I know about the invisible and the silenced, once I name them and thus bring them to my consciousness, not only can I change my own damaging way of understanding a particular text, but also I can use the pattern as a template for locating the invisible sturcutres gender norms create in other texts, and in my own cultures. The history of Jewish thought cultivates this kind of pattern matching abstraction.

Esther the bookseller’s notion of “demystification�? has me thinking two things. First, I am not “deMYSTIFYing�? but my goal is rather to “RE-MYTHIFY�? religion. Rather than applying the old heterosexual patriarchally normative myths that underlie Jewish ritual practice, I am trying to find new ways to read that gets PAST the issue of specific bodies and individual lessons, myths that get to the idea of communal learrning and transformation. I have started to read Genesis in this manner, and my reading is yielding some interesting ideas. (See my former posts on Jvoices for early versions of some of these ideas.) I want to show that the Emperor is naked, to learn the lesson of binaries so the Universe can get on to the next cool thing.

The other thing that Esther’s use of the word “demystification�? brings uncomfortably to mind for me is the fact that my new readings keep leading my rational self right up to the brink of mysticism. It makes me uneasy to think that I may be “MYSTI(C)fying�?.

The final thought relates to Esther’s offhand comment about “putting the power into the hands of the people�?. In one sense, this seems to me a Christian comment, originating from Esther’s understanding of Church hierarchy. (Or, now that I think of it, the medical hierarchy). My first thought, of course, was that Judaism isn’t shaped like that, when in fact it is. Rabbis, Cantors, Jewish Educators and Jewish Communal Leaders educate themselves Jewishly to a higher degree than the ordinary Jeiwsh person. There are hierarchies, even though they aren’t centralized and distributed through priestly nodes like the Vatican.

We are not empowered by priests or rabbis. God is not mediated for us through humans. The religious empowerment of the Jewish people was given to each of us, to all of us, by God. No human can take it away.

All the best to you.

In the book of Genesis, G-d creates the various parts of the Heaven and the Earth with an intriguing sequence of phrases. While the pattern is similar enough in each instance to serve as a recognizable literary formula, it is different enough to invite questions. An exploration of textual similarities and differences in these verses opened the text for me in ways I had never before thought possible. I was exhilerated to find insights about the nature of Heaven, the nature of categories, the relationship between heaven and earth, consciousness, metaphysics and stewardship, that led me to feel included rather than excluded from the tradition’s central text.

In this brief essay I will analyze the language of the pattern of creation for “light�? in Genesis 1: 3-5, and then I will compare it to the pattern of creation for “a firmament�? in verses 6-8. I will conclude with a discussion of the implications of this analysis for Biblical cosmology—particularly for those of us who dwell outside the commonly understood Jewish “norms�?, those of us who find particular meaning in crossing boundaries, and those of us for whom “purity�? does not mean “holy.”

Reading the Patterns of Creation in Genesis 1:3-5 and 6-8

Pattern 1. The first pattern of creation is short, starting in verse three with a Divine imperative for light, followed by an acknowledgement of its presence: “And G-d said, “Let there be light�?. And there was light.�? [1] The tradition typically understands this to mean that, post hoc ergo propter hoc, light came into being because G-d spoke. [2]

Figure 1, below, summarizes the pattern and the explanation provided in the following paragraphs.

In verse four, light was present to the senses of a perceiver, in this case, G-d, who “saw�? it, and who understood light to be “good�? or “completed�?. [3] G-d divides light from Darkness, something that is “not light�?, creating a category for light and another for its opposite.

In verse five She names light (Day, or “x�?) and He also names the category from which Zie separated it, (“not-x�? or “Darkness�?). [4] Then, curiously, the verse concludes with a second, and contradictory, notion of the components of “Day.�? In translation, the verse reads: And God called to the light, “Day!�? And to the darkness He called, “Night!�? And there was evening, and there was morning, Day one. [5] In the first part of the verse, Day is composed of that which is “Light�?. By the end of the verse, “One Day�? includes “evening and morning�? which are not, entirely or simply, light.

We learn from this pattern the inestimable value of difference: a foreground of “difference�? is necessary to make distinctions – brains register discontinuity. Darkness was the reason that “light�? was spotted in the first place. [6]

The second lesson we learn from this pattern is that “Day�? is not all light, or, “Light�? is sometimes Darkness. With great delight, we recognize that any way you slice it, this category contains both “x�? and “not-x�?, and that it was up to each “x�? or “not-x�? to define itself: G-d only did the calling. That which was able to respond to G-d’s call to describe itself as “light�? (“G-d called to the light�? presupposes ability to respond) was considered by G-d to fall into the category of “light�?. For those of us who define ourselves as “x�? when society would so much rather see us as “y�?, this revelation comes as a –literal—G-dsend.

Pattern 2. The second repetition of the pattern of creation occurs in Genesis 1:5-8, and describes the creation of “a firmament�? (רקיע , rakia). Figure 2 on page three summarizes the pattern and the explanation in the following paragraphs.

Verse six starts the same way as the pattern for the creation of light: “And God said: ‘Let there be x …�?, but then it diverges. Instead of saying, “and there was x�?, the text continues with: “… in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’�? [7] The pattern for creation of the firmament now mentions where to put it (amidst the waters) and what its purpose is (to separate the water above the firmament from the water below the firmament). Rather than an actual act of creation, this verse records the blueprint for a future creation. For some reason, the pattern for the firmament is more complicated than the pattern for light.

Figure 2

Verse seven contains the next step in the Second Pattern of Creation, the hammering of a firmament, and its actual placement. [8] This verse doesn’t have a parallel in the first pattern. God does not “see�? the firmament, as he “sees�? light before proclaiming it good. The verse concludes, “It was so�? rather than “it was good�?. We understand this to mean that the firmament was not complete.

In verse eight, G-d repeats the pattern of creation for light by naming the firmament. Notably, He does not name its “opposite�? and he does not “see�? the firmament. Then the text concludes with the passage of a second day. [9]

What do we learn from Pattern 2? The firmament is incomplete. This is not to say that the firmament G-d created was not durable or sturdy. In fact, the only time “the waters above�? were permitted to pass through the firmament was during the flood, when G-d destroyed the world. Another way to say “incomplete�? is, “ongoing�?. For some reason, the creation of “a firmament�? is an ongoing process.

Because G-d did not “see�? it, we infer that the firmament was not something that would be visible to humans. I think the text is pointing us toward a reality that cannot be perceived through the senses.

Interpreting the Patterns of Creation

Figures 1 and 2 are augmented and combined in Figure 3: Patterns of Creation, on the following page. The similarities are located in white opposite one another, and the differences are noted in grey. To make comparison easier, the interpretations have been placed side by side in the center of the page. Read Pattern 1 from left to right, and pattern two from right to left. I extrapolated the Interpreation of the “missing areas�? (in grey) based on the interpretation of the pattern where that trait is present (in white).

The differences may be restated as follows:

1. Light exists everywhere; the firmament is a boundary zone (but eternally renewed)
2. Light required no plan; the firmament required a blueprint that described its location and its function.
3. From “and it was so�? we understand Light was (present); the firmament’s presence went without notice, or it went without saying (was ubiquitous), or it was not present in the same way light was – perhaps could not be sensed in the same way light was.
4. God saw light; the firmament either was not able to be seen or it was ubiquitous (rendering it invisible to normative perception which sees “difference�?)
5. Light is complete; the firmament either was somehow not complete, or, its creation was ongoing.
6. Light required no “shaping�? or “bounding�?; G-d hammered flat the firmament, and placed it as a boundary zone between the waters above and the waters belows.
7. Light’s “opposite�? required separation, categorization and naming; the function of the firmament was to create two new categories, the waters above and the waters below, but they while duly separated and categoriezed, (oddly) remained unnamed. The border zone between them was named Heaven, but it is dimensionless, and invisible.

Discussion

I am most interested in what we now know of Heaven based on an analysis of differences between the two patterns. The text tells us that Heaven is a boundary zone with no width or depth that separates the waters above from the waters below. The traditional understanding of Heaven, based solely on this text, is that it is a featureless invisible dome around the earth, an impenetrable shield somewhere in the upper stratosphere. The tradition also tells us that God lives there, connected to Earth through the umbilicus of the Western Wall, which, by extension, is also “Heaven�?.

But the picture gets more complicated when we try to locate the waters below or identify the waters above. What are the waters below? They are the oceans, ponds, rivers, streams, and bogs surely, but also the humidity in the air, the deep trenches that bubble up from under the Earth, the glacial cover of the polar caps, the water mixed with fertile soil, and also, certainly, the 98 percent of animal flesh that is comprised of water. Most of every living cell is water. Water is everywhere.

While we know the atmosphere contains water vapor, we know it also contains mostly oxygen and some nitrogen/ So if Heaven is in contact with the water below, it’s a lumpy surface! In fact, I envision it as particulate.

Water is not a fixed or finite substance. It is an easily disturbed molecule composed of two atoms of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen. Thermal heating and evaporation release solid water as a gas into the air. If Heaven is doing its job, then, it surrounds every molecule of water. Since it was not “tov�? or complete, but is ongoing, we can imagine Heaven in motion, surrounding even the new molecules that form when Hydrogen atoms bond to free Oxygen during electrical or chemical reactions.

But is “the water below�? only on this planet? What about Mars? Water exists on other planets in our galaxy, and water vapor exists in distant galaxies elsewhere in the Universe.

What is the water above? How do we know if water belongs to the category “above�? or “below�?? The simple way to make a distinction is that the water above may never make contact with the Earth. Water in outer space must also be classified as “the water below�? since nothing but distance prevents it from falling onto our Earth as rain, and the “water above�? is prevented from doing that by Heaven (except in extremis). So if the water below contains any water we can possibly imagine, what is the water above?

Perhaps the ancients wanted to locate a band of Heaven encircling our planet, somewhere between ourselves and every other point in the Universe, but I do not feel inclined to suggest Heaven as a physical boundary between Earth and the Universe. And, looked at carefully, the text doesn’t support such a reading. But a metaphysical boundary seems warranted – especially when it locates Heaven, and Heaven’s First Citizen, in every cell of our bodies.

What are the waters below? All that lives is bathed in the waters below. What are the waters above? Water that we will never be able to touch, surrounded by a boundary we cannot perveive. But, because the boundary is a particulate surround for every drop of water below, the “waters above�? must have flowed in to surround us, but because of the boundary we can’t perceive them. In light of this envisioning, I suspect the idea of the waters above is not linked to the idea of “physical water�? at all, but rather, to the realm of perception.

I think the waters above and the waters below remain unnamed because their oppostion cannot be recognized by humans. When G-d names a thing in Genesis it is because he wants us to recognize its relationship with its Other and with the spectrum of gradations between the Thring Named and its Other. The lack of a name seems to me a significant pointer to the unknowableness of the waters above by human sensory perception. I think the fact that they are mentioned at all is significant, and indicates there is another way to get there. If the waters above can’t touch the Earth, most assuredly we are meant to seek them out.

What is the function of Heaven? To separate the waters above from the waters below. Why couldn’t G-d “see�? the firmament / Heaven? To indicate the barrier is not visible to human senses. How then do we perceive the barrier, Heaven, and G-d who dwells therein (and, we can imagine, in more dimensions than the four we can perceive)? I think the text is trying to point our way toward a kind of consciousness, a kind of knowing that doesn’t come through the senses. A kind of knowing that comes from a change in our perceptual state. An awareness that locates Heaven around every water molecule, and the “waters above�? as a realm of perception swimming with life of the mind and spirit.

Firmament – Heaven—is the conductor, the carrier of thought, arising out of every micron of the biosphere. Needs arise from flesh. Thoughts from need. Heaven is the semi-permeable boundary between the world of thought and the world of flesh, the origin of collective consciousness. We float in a bath of perceptions not our own. Thought is localized not in a “brain�? but in all matter. Everything is speaking, but not everything has a mouth.

[2] Post hoc – A logical fallacy which assumes that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second.
[3] “good�? in Biblical parlance means “complete or functional�?
[4] G-d is represented herein with transforming pronouns to demonstrate that Zie is beyond gender and may occupy any gender and transform from one to the next without diminishment. I see single-gendering G-d as an idolatrous practice.
[5] Genesis 1.5 וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹ�? �?ֶחָד לָיְלָה; קָרָ�? וְלַחֹש�?ֶךְ יוֹ�?, לָ�?וֹר �?ֱלֹהִי�? וַיִּקְרָ�?
[6] Genesis 1: 4 וַיַּבְדֵּל �?ֱלֹהִי�?, בֵּין הָ�?וֹר וּבֵין הַחֹש�?ֶךְ כִּי-טוֹב; וַיַּרְ�? �?ֱלֹהִי�? �?ֶת-הָ�?וֹר, The verse reads, “G-d saw the light, that it was good. And G-d divided the light from the darkness�?
[7] Genesis 1:6 וִיהִי מַבְדִּיל, בֵּין מַיִ�? לָמָיִ�? וַיֹּ�?מֶר �?ֱלֹהִי�?, יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתוֹךְ הַמָּיִ�?,
[8 Genesis 1:7 וַיַּעַשׂ �?ֱלֹהִי�?, �?ֶת-הָרָקִיעַ, וַיַּבְדֵּל בֵּין הַמַּיִ�? �?ֲש�?ֶר מִתַּחַת לָרָקִיעַ, וּבֵין הַמַּיִ�? �?ֲש�?ֶר מֵעַל לָרָקִיע וַיְהִי-כֵן And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
[9] Genesis 1:8 וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹ�? ש�?ֵנִי. וַיִּקְרָ�? �?ֱלֹהִי�? לָרָקִיעַ, ש�?ָמָיִ�? And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

In this brief essay, I’d like to read and think through three verses of Genesis, in order to start to establish a foundation for transgender Jewish thought. In particular, to consider hierarchy and binary opposition in the Biblical pattern of creation. (Heaven opposed and superior to Earth; Sun to Moon; Adam to Eve, etc.)

The traditional way to understand the Genesis narrative is that God created through speech. “And God said, Let there be light.�? God’s words caused reality to come into existence.

First I’d like to challenge the traditional understanding that G-d’s words were generative, and propose instead the idea that G-d’s thoughts were generative. This moves our theological understanding from the abstraction of a “word�? creating a reality that is twice-removed from G-dself (G-d –> Thought –> Word/Reality) to the space of reality as a thought existing in the mind of G-d (G-d’s Thought = Reality).

The latter state parallels what we know about human perception: everything a person can know originates in the senses. Reality is essentially a person’s thoughts about sensory stimulation. There’s no way to verify anything “outside�? of human perception. This is not a new idea, but it reinforces my chosen theological position, that “Alles ist G-tt,�? which is a construction of 18th century Hasidism. It also moves us away from the idea of separation from God – implied by the notion that a diety created the Universe external to itself.

Next, I’d like to argue against the grain of the traditional reading of verses three and four, that places Light and Darkness in binary opposition, with the concommitant understanding that Light is superior to Darkness. I will retain the opposition, but I will read the binary differently. Rather than valuing, categories will be used to re-focus attention, and generate links of relationship to everything else in creation. I will conclude with a discussion of the implications of these two points for a transgender Jewish theology.

Part 1. Thought Precedes Speech

וַיֹּ�?מֶר �?ֱלֹהִי�?, יְהִי �?וֹר; וַיְהִי-�?וֹר

And G-d said, “Let there be light
And there was light.�? –Genesis 1:3

וַיַּרְ�? �?ֱלֹהִי�? �?ֶת-הָ�?וֹר, כִּי-טוֹב;
וַיַּבְדֵּל �?ֱלֹהִי�?, בֵּין הָ�?וֹר וּבֵין הַחֹש�?ֶךְ

G-d saw the light, that it was good
And G-d divided the light from the darkness –Genesis 1: 4

The pattern I read in these two verses focuses on the verbs, as follows:
G-d said “x�?
And there was “x�?
G-d saw “x�? and (saw) its goodness;
G-d divided “x�? from “not x�?

What were the tellers who told and retold this tale, the authors who penned these verses, and the redactors who retained it over time, trying to communicate about the nature of reality?
Let’s read and think through it a bit at a time.

Genesis 1:3 says: And G-d said, “Let there be lightAnd there was light.�?
First G-d SPOKE, and light “was�?. The verse does not say, “G-d said, ‘Let there be light, and as a result of the spoken Word, light came into being.�? No causal relationship is made explicit.

Rather, the verse says that, when G-d spoke, light already “was�?. So when did light come into being?

I suggest that G-d thought before It spoke. It imagined the light before speaking the word. Why do I say this? It isn’t in the text. To speak something is to think it again (re-cognize). I suggest that thought (cognition) preceeded His speech, as it does our own.

The first thought of G-d was to envision light. The act of imagination was the creative act. To the mind, a thing imagined and a thing externally perceived are equally real. In G-d’s case, this is not just a semantic game, because, as the Hasidim say, “Alles ist Gott�? (everything is G-d). G-d imagined reality, and it was. Reality exists inside G-d. (There is no “outside�? of G-d.) What we can know of G-d’s nature is the same as human nature because it is, like everything else, filtered through human senses. “Creation�? happens in the silent, dark and fertile spaces before “speaking�?.

If imagination is so important, why did the Authors leave it out of the text? I suggest that the omission was intentional, and serves as a “teaching moment�?. It causes us to think through—to imagine—the process of creation, and therefore to learn by doing.

Part 2: Binary, Hierarchy, Categories and the Nature of Identity

וַיַּרְ�? �?ֱלֹהִי�? �?ֶת-הָ�?וֹר, כִּי-טוֹב;
וַיַּבְדֵּל �?ֱלֹהִי�?, בֵּין הָ�?וֹר וּבֵין הַחֹש�?ֶךְ

G-d saw the light, that it was good
And G-d divided the light from the darkness –Genesis 1: 4

The verb va’yar (and he saw) does double duty: G-d saw the light (“and�? is implied, but not present in the Hebrew explicitly) (saw) that it was good. Our rabbis teach us that the text doesn’t contain errors. If the text were trying to impart a single meaning, it would have said, “G-d saw the good light�? or “G-d saw the light was good�?? Since it doesn’t say either of those things, we have to recognize that there is more than one message.

I suspect that the text is telling us that it is important to distinguish ‘seeing a thing’ (light) from ‘recognizing its “goodness�?’. Why is that? On top of that conundrum, the act of separation (“G-d divided the light from the darkness�?) seems to be integral to an act of creation. Why is that?

The Hebrew word “tov�? which is usually translated as “good�? doesn’t imply a value judgement, or “the opposite of bad�?. Rather, our Sages tell us that the Tov means “whole,�? “functional,�? “finished�? or “complete�?. Light is ‘recognized as complete’ after G-d “sees�? it, but before G-d separates it from the Darkness. What does G-d “see�? when It sees “Light�?? I imagine that G-d saw Light against –and because of—its backround of Darkness.

I suspect that the Torah, by way of juxtaposing seeing/completeness/separation is pointing out that we can only begin to perceive a thing (x) once some difference (not x) is recognized between one thing and another. “Darkness�? is not the opposite of light, but the spectrum of differences that may be characterized as “not Light�?. “Darkness�? seen in those terms seems a broad category that is of limited usefulness. The text is trying to teach us that we may see light as a “whole�? only when we recognize the spectrum in which it occurs, beside and distinguished from, darkness. Light is Light only in the presence of and separated from, Darkness. Light without Darkness can’t be.

Light, by itself, the text is telling us, may not be seen as “whole�? “pure” or “absolute�?. In fact, light, by itself, can’t be seen. While the category of “light�? seems to exclude “darkness�? neither can be understood as a “whole�? without recognition of the stuff that exists outside the “set�?—which might be characterized as hue, value, intensity, color, heat, etc.

In the next verse, G-d names the light day and the darkness night. From space, the line separating day from night appears solid, but neither category is pure: dawn and dusk contain both light and darkness. Day may be clouded and night may be brightened. We know that these two categories are not mutually exclusive, not “pure�?.

I suspect we are not dealing with a binary opposition and its implication of positive and negative valence. Rather, the text is concerned with teaching us that the perception of “Light�? is relational and subjective, and that “Light�? as subject is constructed from discontinuous characteristics (separated from amongst the broad category of “darkness�?).

Read in this fashion, G-d is not talking about hierarchy and valence, but rather It is drawing our attention to the narrowing of focus, the shift of attention and the re-ordering of Creation that occurs when we categorize. She shuffles like a deck of cards when we categorize, and our eyes are on whatever Consciousness has declared wild. But, neither Her nature nor His Participation are changed with shifting Alterity/sunjectivity.

So what is the pattern of creation?
• G-d said “x�? And there was “x�?: Thoughts generate reality.
• G-d saw “x�? and (saw) its goodness: Seeing and recognizing wholeness (identity) are individual cognitive acts. Wholeness means understanding relatedness of one thing to the rest of creation.
• G-d divided “x�? from “not x�?: Identity of “x�? can’t be proclaimed in a vacuum, but must occur in context, in juxtaposition to that which surrounds “x�?. Juxtaposition does not necessarily imply a state of binary opposition. But, the identity of “x�? shapes the identity of all “not x�?.

Discussion

A change of focus from “word�? to “thought�? can start the process of building a solid foundation for transgender Torah interpretation. In an attempt to loosen the interpretive fabric of Jewish revelation as much as possible without ripping it, in this view we understand words to be translations of thoughts, rather than a record of unchangeable pronouncements.

Rather than seeing G-d as the creator of the Universe, a transgender theology considers G-d to be an emerging consciousness that progresses in conjunction with the emerging collective and singular consciousnesses of humans and the rest of Creation. G-d transitions and becomes and emerges.

This G-d is closer to the Jewish understanding of a Messiah. The Messiah will come after we have completed the work of repairing the world, but in some sense, the Messiah is already here in every action we undertake toward that end. Similarly, in a transgender view of God, as we increase compassion and empathy toward one another and as we move toward an attitude of self-care that extends not only to our own but to the planetary resources, G-d will emerge as a result of the planet’s collective endeavor. G-d exists now but G-d is in progress; G-d is becoming. Every part of us is part of that process.

A transgender Jewish theology requires the premise that thoughts generate reality. If that proposition were false, no genderqueer would be where he, she, or zie is today.

A transgender Jewish theology requires that sight and negotiation of “wholeness” (identity) be recognized as two individual and ongoing acts of cognition. As corrollary to that, a transgender Jewish theology requires that identity be recognized as “complete�? only in context. Seeing the form of a transgender person may be enough to indicate wholeness or completion only in the presence of appropriate context. This shifts attention to the social and collective nature of identity. Categorization is otherwise meaningless.

I cried for the LA kids who were given the redemptive gift of writing, but also because their stories are exactly the same as the situation here. Palestinian kids are shooting Israeli kids and vice versa. It’s all about race and territory.

http://www.freedomwriters.com/

Check it out.

I’m reading a book right now called Dancing Arabs. There’s a good review here:

http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/001367.html

It’s a story about the confused identity of an Arab Israeli whose father was “detained” for five years in connection with the bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria in the 1960′s. I didn’t know that when I started the book. But I had to put it down for a couple of days after reading that part in the book. Some students from Pardes were killed in a more recent explosion in the Hebrew U Cafeteira. I didn’t know them personally, but I read their stories, and I commemorated their Yahrzeit, the day of their death, by studying with the other students at Pardes, in their honor.

This book I was reading was about the innocent son of someone related to that other bombing, and I didn’t want to read it anymore. My compassion for the protagonist dried up.

So many people have so much more cause to hate, but even I from this great distance, felt strong feelings at this generational repetition of the same acts of violence, and I focused it on this OTHER guy I didn’t even know, the author of the book, whom the fictional protagonist may or may not have been based upon.

I am almost finished with the book now. The protagonist’s identity confusion is so clearly rooted in his circumstances. His self-hatred and depression seem unescapable. His course in life a kind of destiny rooted in the sins of his fathers (on both sides of the conflict).

BOth Freedom Writers and Dancing Arabs offer a kind of redemtion through writing, and the gift of telling stories to other people, and growing compassion that way.

I wish I felt cleaner; I wish my compassion wasn’t mixed with fear and hatred and anger. But maybe that’s a start.

I used the pseudonym “Levi”. Here’s a verbatim transcript of our convesation.

Levi : I have a question about the effect of my presence on the orthodox community with which I occasionally daven. It will take some time to explain the background, before I get to the question. OK?

Rabbi Yakov L : Welcome. I’ll be with you in a moment…

Rabbi Yakov L : K

Levi : Hi Rabbi

Levi : Here’s the first part of the background

Levi : I am transgender. In my case, this means that even though I was born female, I had surgery to remove my breasts and to construct a male-appearing chest. In addition, I take male hormones.

Levi : As a result of these actions, and with the complete and entire embrace of G-d, I have a deep voice and a full beard. I joyfully live and work as a man, and no one can tell my original gender by looking at me. I am a Reform Jew, and I do not consider myself to be bound by halacha, nor do I consider my behavior to be against God’s will, or against my personal code of ethics.

Levi : While I am mostly not very observant, I daven sometimes in an Orthodox shul, on the men’s side. No one is aware of my transition, and everyone sees me as male. My question concerns the community. Does my presence spiritually change the experience for the men I daven with if they don’t know my history? In what way?

Levi : That’s the background, and the question.

Rabbi Yakov L : A fasicnating journey

Rabbi Yakov L : perhaps this is why I studied this issue out of the blue last night:)

Levi : ha ha! maybe!

Rabbi Yakov L : there would be two immediate issues that could arise..by the way it is very noble of you to inquire, notwithsatnding your personal views

Levi : thanks — it’s a hard thing to do, anticipating condemnation/judgement

Rabbi Yakov L : certainly…amd my answers are intended to covery NEITHER,,,,

Levi : the concern that arises for me becomes, after I learn of your response, given this knowledge, I will become responsible in another way

Levi : and a gift/pleasure/approach to a more observant life … will be removed from me

Rabbi Yakov L : 1. would be a secnario where you are being counted as an integral part of the minyan…as when there are exactly 10 in shul, creating a situation where they are now relying on your status as a male…which in halacha is at best subject to a dispute

Levi : i do not daven in situations where my presence is necessary to make a minyan

Rabbi Yakov L : 2, if someone were to introduce you to a women with intent of marriage…this too is potentially a halchic issue

Levi : just the introduction?

Levi : Rabbi, I am not attracted to women

Rabbi Yakov L : then the only other immediate issues in that conetxt would if u are called to the Torah etc…as halachic issue NOT as a judgement o fu as a perosn

Rabbi Yakov L : then that is a non issue

Rabbi Yakov L : if it is deemed as imappropriate in halacha that cerates a dillema of ‘stumbling block’ were somone to introduce you etc..

Levi : I would only accept an aliyah in a Reform congregation

Rabbi Yakov L : again very ethical of you

Rabbi Yakov L :

Levi : I see

Levi : I am trying to be careful about this issue

Rabbi Yakov L : so those would be the issues, miyan, aliyas etc, and introductions as above,,,

Levi : I am curious (but glad) that metaphysically, spiritually, there appears to be no issue. i am reminded of the tale of the BESHT who entered a synagogue and found all the prayers had not ascended

Rabbi Yakov L : I am familiar with the story…

Levi : if someone had the eyes to see prayer, what would this scenario “look like”?

Rabbi Yakov L : letters being acrried upwards by angels

Levi : beautiful

Levi : another related question: again, this is NOT my view, but can it be said that my physical body renders the men’s side of the synagogue tameh?

Rabbi Yakov L : no such concept….there is of course one major issue I overlooked forgive me..

Rabbi Yakov L : separate seating

Rabbi Yakov L : depending on the halachihc definiiton of your gender that can be a major issue

Rabbi Yakov L : since separte seating efefcts the status of the shul in halacha as a place for prayer

Levi : how is the definition made, halachically?

Levi : (either as “male” or “female” because I suspect I would fit more in the category of ‘androgynos’)

Rabbi Yakov L : In a recent responsum of the Tzitz Eliezer, Rabbi Waldenberg claims that one who undergoes transsexual surgery assumes the status of the sex to which he is now surgically assigned.283

Rabbi Yakov L : Some commentators have attacked this responsum, arguing that it implies that an act which is prohibited in Jewish law, and which the law considers merely to be an act of self-mutilation, terminates a marriage duly entered into without the consent, or even knowledge, of the other spouse. These authorities maintain that transsexual surgery has no effect on one’s sexual status on Jewish law.

Levi : i am familiar with that

Levi : but that is usually for a person going the other way (from male to female) — and the surgical options for people in my position are not as clearcut or successful

Rabbi Yakov L : the issues are related,,,

Rabbi Yakov L : anwyay I realy must run

Rabbi Yakov L : SHALOM

Levi : ok

Levi : thank you

Rabbi Yakov L : very welcome

_____

And here our conversation ended, because the Rabbi had to end his shift online — my roommate Moshe asked a question to the next person, a rebbitzin, and she wasn’t very helpful to him. He said I was very lucky to get the person I did.

I have only begun to ask questions. Maybe, now that I have not been judged for my identity, I might have the courage to speak with a rabbi at Pardes. VERY scary notion. But maybe a window is opening here.

Noach Dzmura is a graduate student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He’s studying Gender, Sexuality and Rabbinics toward a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies. As the 2006 recipient of the Haas-Koshland Award, he’s spending this year at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. He’s keeping a blog at http://brerrabbi.livejournal.com/ This entry, “Conversation with an Online Rabbi,” is cross-posted to the blog.