I’d like to share a reflection with you this morning regarding the formation of the first humans in the creation myth of Berashit, the book of Genesis, and what we might learn about the way Judaism frames, and reframes conceptions of gender.
These initial passages in Genesis are in many ways the central building blocks of how we mentally construct notions of gender in judaism, and we celebrate LBGT (lesbian gay bisexual and trans) pride this weekend, I would like to attempt to disassemble and reassemble these building blocks.
In recent years, Jewish communities have been creating space for diverse expressions of gender, prompting a reexamination of biblical interpretation, and of Judaism’s relationship to gender.
Many of us have a sense that this is a very new innovation.
But this reexamination is not new.
Our sages understood these complications as early as the second century. If you Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Make no mistake!
The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than many assume.
The Talmud, a huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains in fact no less than eight gender designations. Not only did the rabbis recognize that six of these genders were neither male nor female, they had a tradition that the first human being was both male and female.
In order to dive a little deeper into our understanding of these potentially complex concepts, let’s just focus for a minute on the meaning of one word - the word ‘אָדָם’ (Adam) and how a translational shift merely in this one word may help us in our understanding and unpacking of these complexities.
In most translations of the Tnakh, אָדָם is translated as ‘man,’ and in a contemporary sense, we are most likely to think of אָדָם / Adam as a man’s name, and one that has existed for centuries across many continents.
Binding ourselves to certain myths and narratives (like the Genesis creation story) relies on a heavy and fixed attachment to language and the meanings and ideas attached to that language.
In schools and cheders we are taught (and may ourselves teach) that Adam was the first man: he was created first; and Eve was the first woman and she was created second, from the flesh of Adam.
We are attached to a narrative painted with words that signify binary gender; Adam and Eve are at least superficially a model of the natural male-female binary and an example of the heterosexual monogamy which God has apparently intended for all of us.
What I suggest is the importance and interest in detaching the word אָדָם from its meaning as a proper noun / man’s name, and even from the word ‘man’ itself.
The word Adam shares a root with אדמה meaning ‘earth’ or ‘clay.’
For example when eating vegetables we bless God who has given us the fruit of the אדמה, of the earth.
To interpret the word אָדָם according to its Hebrew root gives Berashit 1:27 a radically different meaning from the traditional narrative outlined above.
So that Instead we might say: ‘And G’d created an earthling /a being in God’s image...male and female he created them.’
The rabbis suggest that man and woman were not merely created at the same time, they were in fact the same being.
In Berashit Rabba 8:1 we read: “Rabbi Jeremiah, son of Elazar said: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the first human, he created a hermaphrodite (Greek: androgynos)...
Rabbi Samuel son of Nachman the sage said: When the Holy One created the first human he created that human ‘double faced, then split the human and made it of two backs.”
In ‘Carnal Israel,’ Talmudic professor Daniel Boyarin calls this אָדָם ‘the primordial androgyne,’ claiming that rather than binary gender being the model of original humanity, the first person is, to use contemporary terminology intersex.
To reframe the meaning of אָדָם from the proper noun or from the first man G’d created, into an androgynous ‘earthling’ which encompasses both male and female, creates a radical reframing of the binary gendered nature of the creation myth.
This rendering of the narrative would be impossible without deep consideration of the Hebrew word itself, and how the shift in meaning of the biblical word אָדָם also shifts our understanding of the Genesis story into one that’s more sustainable for a future of equality and freedom from oppressive patriarchal structures, for which we strive all in the reform movement.
‘Zachar u’nkeivah bara otam’ (male and female God created them) - Biblical scholar Rabbi Margaret Wenig argues that the words in Berashit) is in fact a merism, meaning ‘ a common biblical figure of speech in which the whole is alluded to by a small fraction of its parts. ‘
She says
“When the biblical text says ‘there was evening, there was morning, the first day’ it means of course that there was evening, there was dawn, there was morning, there was noon time, there was afternoon, there was dusk all in the first day. Evening and morning are used to encompass ALL the times of day, ALL the qualities of light that would be found over the course of one day.
“ So too’ she says “in the case of Genesis 1:27, the whole diverse spectrum of genders and gender identities is encompassed by only two words, male and female. Read not therefore, God created every human being as male or female, but rather, G’d created humankind zachar u’nkeivah, male and female and every combination in between.
“And G’d created the human being b’tzalmo - in g’ds own image - this connection between the creation of humanity and the divine image suggests that the unfolding of gender possibilities which these sources clearly present reflect how the world and God are united by diversity and multiplicity rather than a binary finality.
As we celebrate LGBT pride this weekend, and every week, and every day, in every year, let us consider how whilst many of us may believe that seemingly modern and possibly confusing categories of gender and sexuality are an invention of a younger generation, in fact they are well documented in our ancient rabbinic texts.
As reform jews, we have the immense privilege of being able to delve into our ancient texts, to imagine and reimagine them, to construct, deconstruct, reconstruct as the rich fabric of our lives and our culture evolve.
I imagine some of you here today don’t fully understand the language and categories of contemporary LGBT culture. THIS IS OK. There are SO MANY many things we don’t understand, that are currently beyond our comprehension. Again, this is ok.
For example. How many of us understand G’d? How many of us comprehend the existential depth of our liturgy? Definitely not me, probably not many of the people sitting here today. Yet here we are, sitting deep within the confusion, the mess, the doubt, the struggle, the fraughtness, together with our community. To you I offer this blessing (read last night by Newt who couldnt be here today): the words of rabbi Reuben Zellman. Whilst it’s for the evening, I wanted to share it with you for it’s beauty and clarity in putting words to something unknowable, unnabable, and infinite.
This blessing is called Twilight people, by Rabbi Reuben Zellman, twilight being a metaphor for the sometimes natural and inevitable inability to cateogrise things. Came alongside an oral history project involving LGBT people of faith, also called twilight people:
As the sun sinks and the colors of the day turn,
we offer a blessing for the twilight,
for twilight is neither day nor night, but in-between.
We are all twilight people. We can never be fully labeled or defined.
We are many identities and loves, many genders and none. We are in between roles, at the intersection of histories, or between place and place.
We are crisscrossed paths of memory and destination, streaks of light swirled together. We are neither day nor night.
We are both, neither, and all.
May the sacred in-between of this evening suspend our certainties, soften our judgments, and widen our vision.
May this in-between light illuminate our way to the God who transcends all categories and definitions.
May the in-between people who have come to pray be lifted up into this twilight.
We cannot always define; we can always say a blessing.Blessed are You, God of all, who brings on the twilight