Rabbi Diana's Weekly Message

Chodesh tov! This evening brings in the Hebrew month of Nisan, during which Pesach falls, z’man heyruteinu, the season of our freedom. I look forward to spending the second night of Passover with many of you over Zoom. Details are in the e-bulletin.

One way that many people are coming out from narrow places (mitzrayim) in our culture is through the expansion of gender identity.

Yesterday was International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day on which to celebrate transgender and non-binary people around the globe and acknowledge the courage it takes to live openly and authentically. Many organizations and advocates also elevate awareness around discrimination and violence that trans and non-binary people still face.

I remember in high school finding gay bars and drag shows, and the relief and delight I found in discovering that there was more to life than narrow versions of gender expression.

This morning I heard on NPR that starting on April 11, nonbinary, intersex or gender-nonconforming Americans will be able to select an X as their gender marker on their US passport application, and the option will become available for other forms of documentation next year. [https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/1090192947/the-white-house-announces-moves-to-gender-neutral-passports]

As more Americans are exploring, discovering and claiming an identity outside of the one they were assigned at birth, this may feel like something new and innovative. Actually, within the Jewish tradition, there has been an acknowledgement of several genders for millenia, with at least six categories of gender expression. [https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/gender-diversity-in-jewish-sacred-texts/] One concept is called androgynos.

In midrash we read: Said Rabbi Jeremiah ben Elazar: “When the Holy One, blessed be the One, created the first adam[human being], [God] created him [an] androgynos. [Midrash Rabbah 8]

In the Mishna we learn that androgynos is in some ways like men, and in some ways like women, and some ways like both men and women and in some ways neither like men nor women. [Mishna Bikkurim Chapter 4]

Current trans and non-binary rabbinical educators caution: The terms in the texts are the language of their time, just as we have our own language for describing gender and sexual diversity. In an effort to identify with the texts, we must always be careful not to erase the particularities that each of the terms carries in the context that created it. [https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/gender-diversity-in-jewish-sacred-texts/]

May we always delight in and support the variety of ways people express our divinely-given human nature.

Today is also the beginning of National Poetry Month. This Sunday we are having poet Rabbi Pamela Wax present a program through Bagel U at 1:00 pm. Please register and attend. Details are in the e-bulletin.

I look forward to seeing you this evening in person or on Zoom at 7:00 pm:

Kabbalat Shabbat 
And tomorrow morning in person or on Zoom for Shabbat Zimra:

Zimra Shabbat

Shabbat shalom and Chodesh tov,

Rabbi Diana