Shabbat Shalom. If you are like me, and have many friends who are spiritual members of the LGBTQ community, you may have seen as many responses as I have in the last week to the recent decision of the United Methodist Church to keep its ban on same-sex marriage and the ordaining of openly LGBTQ clergy. Other denominations before them have also had to deal with this issue, in some case approving amendments to their doctrines to allow greater inclusivity, in some cases not. In some cases it has led to denominational splits, although such a dramatic measure does not seem to be on the immediate horizon for the UMC. Many of my friends engaged on the issue have only become more committed to ensuring their Christian spaces are open and affirming to LGBTQ people.
We're fortunate that this is not as much an issue for us as a Reform synagogue. Most Jewish movements now embrace LGBTQ members, most rabbinical schools accept and ordain Queer students and rabbis, and most non-Orthodox rabbis perform same-sex weddings. The first openly gay rabbi in the US was, unsurprisingly, a Reform rabbi, and though the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College beat Hebrew Union College by about 6 years in officially adapting its admissions rules to accept gay and lesbian students, HUC was the first to ordain openly trans rabbis. Ner Shalom is proud to follow the party line on this issue and embrace members of all sexualities and gender identities, and see members of the LGBTQ community in positions of leadership in our synagogue.
That certainly doesn't mean that we are perfect or that our synagogue and Movement can't be doing more to be inclusive of LGBTQ folks and to center experiences that have previously been marginalized. But it at least shows we understand what it means to be in sacred relationship, and that there are many ways to express the sanctity of love beyond the love that is limited to “marriage between a man and a woman.”
In fact, the Jewish relationship to God is often throughout our texts referred to as a marriage. Yet God is not a person and Am Yisrael are many people, and there aren't really discernible genders to be ascribed to the Divine or to a nation. So we know from the most basic view of our Scripture that gender cannot be the sole defining factor in legitimizing relationships.
In the BimBam video for this week's Torah portion, Parashat Pekudei, the narrator suggests that the Mishkan, the building of which is finally finished in this parasha, is the starter home for the newly weds God and the Israelites. The revelation on Sinai was the wedding, the Torah is the Ketubah, and now they are ready to settle in to a shared living space and marital bliss. He also comments on the Torah's reiteration of all the fine materials used to make the Mishkan, saying, wouldn't you want your marital home to be well-decorated, furnished with fine things that represent both personalities. It's a grown up couples’ home, not a bachelor pad, after all! But what truly makes the Mishkan or a newlywed couple's home beautiful isn't simply that it is beautifully decorated, perhaps with gold angels and silver crowns and fine fabrics of bright colors. It's that it is full of love: the love of a new family, the love between Israel and God, a holy space for a community to get closer to each other and to the Divine.
So too, what makes our synagogue, and all houses of worship beautiful, should be the love of the community and the devotion to a higher purpose. Denying the humanity and equality of some subsets of our communities does not allow for the optimum level of love to fill the space. It limits the sanctification of the space by keeping out some of those who might otherwise serve and enrich our worship, our efforts toward tikkun olam, or our fellowship as a community. This is at least one reason why Ner Shalom will always be a safe space and a welcoming community to those who have felt marginalized in other houses of worship. Our hearts go out to our Queer Christian friends and family this Sabbath, and we reaffirm our commitment to seeing the full humanity in all worshippers, all loving couples, and all potential spiritual leaders.
May we build our own Mishkan of love and holiness that honors sacred relationships of all formulations, and may our Tent of Meeting be big enough to welcome in all who seek communion with the Divine. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.
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