Rabbi's Blog

We recently celebrated our annual Pride Shabbat at Seaside. Thank you to organizer Ellen Rabinowitz and everyone who participated in the meaningful evening, and thank you to Todd Hacker for creating the original outline and handout with beautiful readings.

The symbol of the rainbow is well known for Pride, and the rainbow is also integral to Judaism because it represents the first covenant of peace, harmony, and safety – after the flood – with ALL of creation.

But in Judaism, the rainbow could also be a sign of warning, because after all God shared it by saying something like, “I could destroy the earth again, but I’ll look at this rainbow and remember my promise.”

That warning echoes in my mind as I think of all that LGBTQ people have endured throughout history but also in my lifetime.  My mind goes back to my youth in Texas, to Gay high school friends and a closeted Gay rabbi who would die far too young in the AIDS epidemic, and to a Trans friend who took his own life. In each case the tragedies were individual but also a symptom of society’s lack of acceptance and compassion.

I think back more positively to when I was living in California, when things were more open and I got to learn Talmud at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley from Rabbi Benay Lappe, the first out Lesbian Conservative Rabbi, founder of SVARA, the Queer Yeshiva. I learned that the Rabbis of the Talmud experienced Torah as something dynamic and growing, not set in stone from 3000 years ago. Moreover, we explored how the Talmud’s stance on gender was ahead of its time (recognizing multiple genders). But most of all I learned to be a better ally by listening to the Torah of people’s lives as Queer, Gay/Lesbian or Trans Jews.

LGBTQ people have experienced much greater prominence, openness, rights, and acceptance in the ensuring years, but there is also a reaction and a concerning escalation of harsh anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric in many states of our Union.

I hope that Pride Shabbat, and every Shabbat at Seaside Jewish Community, will continue to be a time of beauty, love and acceptance for the beautiful rainbow of our community, and at the same time encourage us all to action to preserve hard won freedoms and gains.