For the final unit assessment of our 12th grade Jewish Studies elective called “Love, Gender, and Relationships,” students had to address the prohibition of same-sex intimacy found in Leviticus 18:22. They could either explore the inclusion of this text in the Yom Kippur Minha Torah reading or respond to a (fictional) friend’s request for advice regarding Jewish practice and same-sex relations. Gabby—a dedicated student who had never missed a deadline—requested an extension because she cried every time she sat down to write. As an individual committed to halakha and who is lesbian, she explained that the classical sources challenged her identity and she struggled to reconcile them both.

David, who also took the course, reflected on the class this way:

As an individual, I support the full equality of all gay people. Reading the traditional texts was… quite challenging for me because they explicitly challenged my long-held beliefs. Besides the infamous passage from Vayikra, a passage from the Shulhan Arukh stood out to me. It states that a man should receive lashes if he is suspected of benefitting “from the nearness of the flesh” of another man. After reading this, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the fence that was built around the Torah. From my understanding, few other mitzvahs have such severe punishments. Why is it only this one? Homosexuality has ostracized individuals from traditional congregations for generations, while in contrast I am allowed to freely enter [an Orthodox shul] and join services even though I drove to shul. This duality is strikingly unfair. What makes anal sex “worse” than breaking the Sabbath?

Gann Academy’s “Love, Gender and Relationships” Class

“Love, Gender, and Relationships” has long been a popular offering among the Gann Academy 12th Grade Jewish Studies classes and, no matter who the teacher, the course has invariably included a unit on same-sex relationships and intimacy. The class, colloquially known as “LGR,” is an overview of how the Torah, our tradition, and our modern thinkers have encountered essential questions of sex inside and outside of marriage; romantic, platonic, familial relationships; how we relate to our bodies and the bodies of others; and same-sex intimacy and relationships. The unit on same-sex partnerships has been the last part of the class for the almost twenty years it has been taught. It is also one of the most complex and fraught units in our four-year Jewish Studies curriculum.

Most of our students, including those who have opted into LGR, come to the class with the fundamental conviction that same-sex relationships are normal, that challenging this premise is homophobic, and that there’s not much that Judaism has to teach them about this particular subject. Put simply, this unit is loaded because we risk students leaving our class thinking that Judaism is an archaic religion with regressive and destructive views on matters they care about. In what is their final unit of study of their Jewish Studies tenure, students confront what might be the most challenging and dangerous set of texts they will encounter in their time in the school.

We hasten to add the following caveat before continuing: Texts like Leviticus 18:22 are anxiety-provoking and dangerous for other reasons. Gay and lesbian students might feel diminished or marginalized when reading words like “abomination” that describe acts that they consider to be expressions of love. The same would be true of rabbinic pronouncements that prohibit same-sex intimacy or relationships. While this article focuses on other aspects of the dangerousness of these texts, we do not mean, in this alternative focus, to devalue the experience of students who feel hurt when encountering these texts.

Gabby and David had put into words the reasons we might avoid teaching such risky topics. So what is the purpose of this particular unit? And why do we engage in a topic so risky (let alone as the final taste of Torah learning the students may have)? Simply put, we study this topic—and we study it now—because it is so risky, because it is so dangerous and fraught. We give students the opportunities to struggle with challenging topics in Torah, alongside those that feel more easily approachable, so that they can develop a more complete relationship with Torah. We ask that students open themselves up to the messiness of our texts to better know our texts. Only through exploring this complexity can one be in a full, deep relationship with Torah.

A Central Assumption of Torah Study

One of the central assumptions of our Jewish Studies teaching philosophy is that we are not permitted to critique any text, author, or idea until we understand what we have just read. Our first task is to ask: What does this text mean? What does this text have to teach me? Only after we have thoroughly answered those questions may we bring other texts (or our own opinions) to challenge the one on the table. In many ways, this unit puts to the test the habits of mind and heart that we’ve worked to instill in our students over four years.

The unit unfolds over three weeks beginning with the two Levitical verses that (ostensibly) condemn male same-sex intimacy (18:22 and 20:13). The class then examines Mishnaic, Talmudic, and medieval halakha, and culminates with the various rulings of the modern Jewish denominations.

Students are assessed on their ability to explain the various sources, to compare and contrast the different approaches to same-sex relationships and intimacy, and to explain which approach made the most sense to them. What interests us most for the purpose of this essay, however, is the emotional impact of these texts on our students. Would one of their central takeaways be that Judaism or Torah does not have anything meaningful to contribute to the important questions of their lives? Such a conclusion would undermine the essential purpose of our Jewish Studies department and would call into question the wisdom of teaching such a unit.

Our Students Weigh in

To measure this emotional impact, we interviewed a range of students from the years we (the authors) have been teaching this course (2021-present).

Galit, a self-identified Orthodox Jew, articulated some of our fears. She began our interview by remembering her feeling sad after reading the 2010 “Statement of Principles” of dozens of Orthodox rabbis and community leaders. She remembered thinking that the statement perpetuated homophobia, just with kinder language:

[It] felt unrelenting. Its restrictiveness felt so sad to me. The statement felt a little dangerous; it openly allowed for discrimination. It was difficult to read and I’m not sure how detached from the orthodox community I now feel as a result of this statement.

Galit then recalled the Conservative Movement’s (CJLS) 2006 Teshuvah on same sex partnerships. “The Conservative approach took as a central pillar that people shouldn’t suffer and they were able to conclude that everything but anal sex is allowed.” She appreciated the CJLS approach and found it intellectually and religiously satisfying. For Galit, there was still a deep connection to Torah and halakhic Judaism but her relationship to an Orthodox approach to Torah and halakha—at least in this regard—may be a bit more wobbly.

Josh, who identifies as male and gay, was not compelled by the CJLS responsa. Josh (a textualist in his approach to law) asserted that the most right-wing Orthodox position we read (an absolute and unapologetic ban from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) was the only halakhic ruling with integrity (even as he found the final results repugnant). So how did this leave him in his relationship with the Torah from which that ruling emerged?

Josh reflected on this question. He then recalled our reading of Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s seminal book Wrestling with God and Men in which Greenberg argues the need to reevaluate the key Leviticus word mishkevei (the “lyings of”— as in “a man should not lie with another man the lyings of a woman”). While Josh still questioned the textual integrity of some of the more progressive teshuvot, he found Greenberg’s literary analysis compelling—and empowering:

This interpretation empowered me to have conversations with people on my college campuses. They may know the two verses from Vayikra, but I know a lot more. They don’t know about the only uses of mishkav in the Torah. I can explain that to them.

While Josh may not have found a teshuvah that was compelling to him, he did find texts that were and has affirmatively shared them with others.

Galit’s reflections echoed Josh’s. “This class allowed us to use ancient texts with a modern spin.” She remembered the story of Ben Azzai from the Talmud where the scholar claimed that he was not going to fulfill the mitzvah to procreate because his “soul yearns for Torah.” Galit saw this story as suggesting that gay people also did not need to bear the burden of procreation because, as Ben Azzai said, “others will do that.” Stories like those “made halakha more nuanced for me.” She then reflected on why she took the class to begin with. “This is exactly what I hoped would happen.”

Paula, who grew up in a Modern Orthodox community, began the unit with low expectations. From her experiences in her community, she anticipated that she would encounter prohibitory views of same-sex relationships and intimacy. Paula underscored her concern, noting that in cases where ethics and Torah law conflict, that “the Torah won’t bend and that my ethical analysis will always prevail.” This unit would certainly be fraught for Paula.

While many of the texts were what she predicted, Paula looked back with surprise at the range of responses she ultimately encountered. The unit actually shifted her general thinking about cases where Torah and ethics collide. “This class definitely put the notion on my radar that you can go back to halakha for ethical questions,” she reflected. “I didn’t really think of things like that before.”

Paula reflected on what made this possible for her. She thought about the “echo chambers” that make it seem as if there’s only one way of interpreting Torah and how this had led to her initial belief that the gulf between Torah and her own personal ethics might be unbridgeable. But after the class she’s reconsidering this. “I love the model of studying different reflections on [Leviticus 18:22] all at once. This is an important way of studying that not enough of us use. You can read the range of possibilities and better decide what path you want.”

For Paula, like many of the other respondents, studying the texts for themselves was what made the difference. She felt after the unit that her “relationship with Torah was stronger.” And it was the power of the text that made the Reform Responsa less appealing for her. While the Reform (CCAR) position may have landed where her ethics had led her (embracing and sanctifying gay marriage) “it didn’t feel as powerful to me because it didn’t really grapple with the text as much.” She then clarified. “Grappling with the texts in the original Hebrew,” she said. “This unit allowed me to delve more into the Hebrew as the best way for me to draw my own conclusions.”

Like Galit, Paula, originally from a Modern Orthodox community, was drawn to the Conservative Movement’s teshuvah. Each read the CJLS responsa as an authentic and rigorous close reading of the text while bridging the gap between their ethical values and halakha.

A key theme that began to emerge in our interviews is that many students came to the class with deep beliefs about the rightness of same-sex relationships and that the Torah might not land where they would want it to. A second theme was that students ultimately found texts that helped them reevaluate their initial expectations and that it’s been particularly empowering to further work through these new beliefs in settings beyond the school. For Rachel the experience would be the same.

Rachel (openly lesbian) is four years removed from having taken this class. She recalls entering the class with two significant assumptions about same-sex relationships: 1) these are legitimate relationships, and 2) people often point to the Tanakh to delegitimize and discredit the legitimacy of these relationships. But rather than reject Leviticus 18:22, Rachel had a notion that there was another interpretation that she could use.

She ultimately found the interpretation that made sense to her through Keshet. While not part of the unit’s curricular materials, Keshet offered Rachel another way to understand a guiding principle of the Torah. “My taking issue with what [the Torah] says doesn’t reduce its significance […],” says Rachel. “It’s a prompt for further discussion rather than a prompt to disregard it. [… Leviticus 18:22] is a worthwhile text to read and evaluate because of its global significance.”

Rachel’s final paper in 2021 mirrored what she says now. In it, she wrote that the “very point of reading the Tanakh is for it to be taught; for its lesson, morals, and laws to be taught, and also to be challenged, in order to find nuance and to find loopholes in need of reevaluating.” This statement concluded a paper in which she argued an alternate interpretation of Leviticus 18:22, claiming that this verse prohibits “forced sexual relationships” with both men and women. Rachel was empowered by a reading that had energized Josh as well.

Rachel had come to understand that the Torah’s “seventy faces” provide a range of interpretive possibilities for her—and she thus now has a deeper relationship to that Torah.

Like Rachel, Talya did not find the answers she was looking for in her LGR class. But also like Rachel, Talya was not discouraged. Recently out as bisexual and a member of an Orthodox synagogue, Talya walked into her LGR class with concrete beliefs and lots of questions. She enjoyed learning Torah, believed that same-sex relationships were okay, and was unsure how to reconcile all of these things. Looking back on the class, Talya shared that she wasn’t satisfied with the options to which she was exposed. She left wanting more.

But for Talya it was the act of asking questions that was ultimately empowering. “Avoiding those hard topics would limit my relationship with Torah, and by extension Judaism,” she said. As it was for Rachel, the very fact that this class opened the door to discussing a hard topic about which she felt a tension, created an opportunity for Talya to deepen her relationship with Torah. Then and now, she says that her identity can be, should be, and will be intertwined with her Judaism. For Talya, just raising the hard questions—even ones that did not help resolve the tensions she’d long been feeling—was empowering.

Conclusion

David, the young man who struggled to reconcile his Modern Orthodox synagogue’s embrace of members who violate Shabbat but rejection of same-sex couples, reflected on the many texts we studied, largely rejecting them all as either being cruel, misguided, or inauthentic. While David agreed with Josh’s appreciation of Rabbi Greenberg’s interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 (see discussion of mishkevei isha above) he was pessimistic that the Torah-abiding world was ready to hear what he had to say.

But David concluded his observations with the following charge: “As we continue this conversation, let’s hold our Jewish community to higher standards.” Even as David expressed his disappointment with the hypocrisy of his co-religionists, he still considered himself as part of “our Jewish community” and still in the fight to hold that community to higher standards. Even students like David seem to have emerged from this unit committed to fighting for a Judaism they would like to see and not alienated from a Torah that seems to have rejected one of their core values.

Ultimately, Gabby (the student who could not turn in her final paper because she cried every time she tried to put pen to paper) wrote, “I have been trying to sit with my discomfort and dissatisfaction with my current limited answers. Perhaps over the course of many years of examining my faith I will come to an answer.”

While few of our other respondents (straight or gay) responded to this unit as viscerally as Gabby, they all shared deeply reflective responses to grappling with the two problematic Leviticus verses. Every one of the students felt grateful to have encountered these texts head on. They felt empowered by our fearlessness in delving into these questions no matter how risky it might have been. They each found at least one text or source that helped them bridge their social justice ideals with the Torah. And even though some found those texts only after taking the class, each of those students said that the class had both encouraged and inspired them to want to do so.

Our overall takeaway is this: When we run and hide from the risky texts, students implicitly learn that there is something we inherently need to avoid in those texts. This will push them away from Torah. When we face texts head on, we signal to the students that these texts are ours, that they belong to all of us, and we all have a responsibility to own them and ensure that they work for us—because they are a part of who we are and are not going anywhere.