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adapted from Jay Michaelson’s, God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2007) I once heard a modest man bemoan the fact that it is human nature to have physical pleasure from sex. He preferred that there be no feeling of pleasure at all, so that he could have sex solely [...]

On my desk this morning is a newsletter from the employment law firm that my company retains – I work for an insurance broker, so we get regular employment-related updates. This month’s update is titled: “New Jersey Extends Statutory Rights and Protections to Civil Union Partners and Prohibits Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity [...]

I received notice today that Nehirim, Keshet JTS and the JCC of Manhattan are planning to hold a healing service (see details below) to mark the wounds that LGBTQ Jews have felt as a result of the public discussions and repudiations of our lives. I appreciate this, but this event sparked another question for me–and [...]

Introduction 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.) [...]

I’ve been lucky in the past week to have rediscovered an old friend, one of my best friends from first through third grade. She now lives in Massachussetts with her husband, where they spend huge amounts of time organizing and writing letters and garnering support for MassEquality. We grew up in an extremely conservative town, [...]

I received an interesting email this morning. My fellow chorister Mike Finesilver has decided on what is probably the most thought-provoking resolution I’ve encountered, and now I’m having a crisis of conscience. In the changing room at the gym, I overheard two (seemingly Gay) men talking. One mentioning that he was attending a wedding of [...]

I try not to post events too, too much, but I didn’t want to pass this one up as SVARA is a great opportunity for folks who want to open themselves up to learning text, especially if it’s something you’ve never done before. The first time I went was because friends dragged me. They saw [...]

CBST Rabbis’ Sharon Kleinbaum and Ayelet Cohen, leaders of the largest LGBT synagogue in the world, have offered one of the best concise responses I’ve seen thus far in noting the outcomes of the Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards decision this week. I say concise because while I agree with a lot of it, [...]

This past Saturday, December 2, was the 17th anniversary of my Bas Mitzvah. A few months ago I called the rabbi at the Conservative shul in Connecticut where I grew up and asked if I could come back and sing my torah portion again. He was excited to hear that I wanted to come back, [...]

The arrangement reached with the police and the ultra-orthodox is not a compromise but a surrender. There is no difference between ‘don’t march’ and ‘do what you want, but in your houses behind closed shutters’. In both cases we are banished from the streets into a space that is fenced-in, policed and worst of all [...]