The Shalom Center - Sexuality & Spirituality

Prop 8, the White House, & Same-Sex Marriage

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:51:44 -0500

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

The issue of same-sex marriage has engaged religious progressives in some important ways in the weeks since California voters voted 52%-48% for "Proposition 8," which canceled their Supreme Court's decision that same-sex marriage is a constitutionally protected right.

On the one hand, many religious progressives in California have been working to overturn Proposition 8 through a lawsuit.

On the other hand, President-elect Obama has invited Rev. Rick Warren, a leading supporter of Prop 8, who has said that homosexuality is as sinful as pederasty or bestiality, to invoke God at his Inauguration on January 20.

"Newsweek," Torah, and Same-Sex Marriage

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:53:25 -0500

Same-Sex Marriage: The Evolving Bible
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Newsweek magazine recently (December 2008) published a cover article endorsing same-sex marriage. The article caused a storm. I think the article could have taken the same bottom-line position, and yet imaginably have stirred a lot more thought and maybe even a little less explosion. Here is why:

Preparing for the article, a Newsweek reporter interviewed me at considerable length about my theology of same-sex marriage, Then she called back to say her boss had said to ask me whether I thought Judaism should be inclusive toward gays. I answered yes, and then that pretty simple-minded question and response were how I got quoted in the cover article.

Emerging Torah of Same-Sex Marriage

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:46:07 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Twice in the Torah portion of "Acharei mot" we are told, "You shall not lie with a man as in lying with a woman." (Lev. 18: 22 and 20: 13). Today this has become perhaps the world's most contentious Torah teaching, far beyond the Jewish people.

Some have argued it prohibits all male-male sexuality. Others have argued that the verse must mean something else, for this "lying with" seems anatomically impossible. Is it only about casual or ritual homosexuality, not committed relationships? How did some of the greatest rabbis of the "Golden Age" in Spain write glowing erotic poems about male-male sex?

The Seven Who Danced in Paradise*

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:42:21 -0400

The Seven Who Danced in Paradise*

[by Phyllis Ocean Berman and Arthur Ocean Waskow, from their book TALES OF TIKKUN: NEW JEWISH STORIES TO HEAL THE WOUNDED WORLD.]

Imma Shalom was dancing like a storm of fire. Not for nothing did the people call her “Mother of Peace, Daughter of the Flame!” For all her solid middle age, she was no staid matron but a blazing energy.

She leaned even deeper into the dance, looking around for the others in her study band of six: gentle B’ruriah, who showed deep wisdom in her loving knowledge of the Torah; awkward Akiba, who was so deft with language; the dour Elisha ben Abuyah; and the two tall Shimons — ben Zoma and ben Azzai. B’ruriah had joked again and again that it took all four men to keep up with the Torah-learning of Imma Shalom and herself.

Do Not Stir up Love until It Please: the Song of Songs

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:27:30 -0400

[Some passages below are from Rabbi Arthur Waskow's book Godwrestling (Schocken, 1978) and were incorporated in Godwrestling -- Round 2 (Jewish Lights, 1995), along with other thoughts on the Song of Songs. This book can be ordered from The Shalom Center. Send a check for $12.95 per copy plus $3.50 postage per package to -- The Shalom Center, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia PA 19119.]

According to tradition, during Passover every year there is a special reading of the Song of Songs—just as the Book of Esther is read for Purim and the Book of Ruth for Shavuot. So in the spring of 1973 the women and men of a Washington havurah, Fabrangen, gathered in the house of one member family to sit in a circle on the floor, munch fruit and matzah, and for the first time fulfill the mitzvah of reading the Song of Songs together. …

SHADOWS: A Letter in the Middle of the Night

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 18:33:19 -0400

Dear dear chevra,

It is an unending joy for me to be able to open my Email here, even in the middle of a sleep-deprived night, and find such thought-full, thought-provoking letters. (Our list is not always this way; let’s not, as I am about to say, forget the shadow; but let’s celebrate the light as well.)

Some thoughts, perhaps some spice for the nourishing stew we are collectively creating about the relationships among charisma, domination, sexuality, and abusiveness, and especially about how to deal with some gifts that come from the same people who are otherwise abusive:

1. Avraham Avinu sent one wife and one son almost to their deaths in the wilderness, took the other son up a mountain to (almost) kill him. What behavior could be more abusive? Gafni & Carlebach pale beside that. Are we wrong to remember him ALSO as a great spiritual adventurer, idol-breaker, walking forth to search within, challenging God?

The Nazirite in us all: Ego, Anokhi, Samson, & Abuse

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:37:54 -0400

When Philadelphia P'nai Or's Shabbat-morning Torah-study group gathered to learn Torah on Shabbat Naso (June 2006), something unexpected happened:

As we studied the teachings in Numbers 6 and in the Haftarah about the consecrated role of Nazirite, we found ourselves addressing what happens when a spiritual teacher turns to sexually abusing students and staff subordinates.

The learning was at two levels – in process and in content.

Process first:

When I lead Torah-study, my usual mode is inter-experiential, in which I "weave" more than I "teach," and wisdom arises from the kahal (grass-roots community) rather than through my imposing my interpretation.

Obviously, this is oceans away from a teacher's literally jumping up and down to drive the kahal "higher," and then using the aura of his "hyper-highness" to – you might say – "jump the bones" of students.

Ecstasy, Frenzy, Domination, and Sexual Abuse in Spirit's Name

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 18:57:33 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Today (May 2006) as on some occasions before, we face the discovery that a respected teacher with great spiritual gifts has turned them to the service of sexual abuse.

We face the rediscovery that a spiritual teacher may think he is deepening a community into ecstasy when he is actually only stimulating it into frenzy, in which his own intensity domineers over the community's self-understanding.

And then he may use the frenzy to press his sexual desires on his students or other subordinates. Or he may create emotional and intellectual dependencies that are not quite physically sexual, but damaging all the same.

What if the Bible's Ruth came to America today?

Thu, 09 Jun 2005 01:00:00 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 6/9/2005

In the biblical story, Ruth was welcomed onto the fields of Boaz, where she gleaned what the regular harvesters had left behind. Boaz made sure that even this despised foreigner had a decent job at decent pay. When she

The Pope, the War, Modernity, & Sex

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 01:00:00 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow *, 4/7/2005

What did John Paul II intend, and what did he accomplish, in his long reign?

First, a personal vignette of my own. During the pre-war crisis of early 2002, some American activists who opposed the war knew that the Po

NEEDED: Clergy support, legal brief on same-sex marriage

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 12:20:47 -0500

Chris Cormier & Ted Jacobs, Esq., 3/24/2005

Dear Rabbinic Chevra,

I am enclosing here an invitation for us as individual rabbis to join in an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief favoring the legitimacy of civil-governmental same-sex marriages, and if we wish, to encourage our congregations to join as a body in the brief.

Wendy Rabinowitz- Artist Profile

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:00:00 -0500

2/16/2005

Born & raised in Chicago, Wendy A. Rabinowitz is a Judaic weaver/mixed-media artist, eco-feminist & peace activist. She returned to Judaism through 'hiddur

Religious Service /March for Women's Lives

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 01:00:00 -0400

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, 4/28/2004

PRAYERFULLY PRO-CHOICE
Sponsor: Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Cosponsors: Clergy Advisory Board of Planned Parenthood; Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Heali

The Bible's Sleeping Beauty and Her Great-Granddaughters

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:35:29 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 4/14/2004

One of the most interesting critiques of modernity has gone beyond condemnations of capitalism to describe all forms of modern life (including those that call themselves socialist) as dominated by technology, patriarchy, hierarchy, and alienation, all focused on the race for mastery of the earth and of society. This critique finds its roots in the life experience of women; it affirms the earth-web of life, and celebrates a kind of spirituality that wells up from community

According to this view, the religious traditions based on the Hebrew Bible, with their strong emphasis on the Father-God in Heaven and male leadership on earth, are not only the sources from which patriarchy and the technomastery originated, but also continue to provide the most rigidly role-ridden, male-dominant versions of how men and women should live in the world.

Reader Responses to Anti-Marriage Amendment

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:19:25 -0500

3/2/2004

A few weeks ago, we wrote to our email lists suggesting that people write to Hannah Rosenthal at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, to their Senators and Congress and to letters to editors pages of their local press through our new grassroots action technology.

We have already received about 300 letter-copies. Many were deeply thoughtful, reflecting a range of political and emotional responses to an issue which is so charged at this time. We are printing just a few of the letters we received below.