TORONTO — Rabbi Steve Greenberg, left, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, was in Toronto last week to discuss the conflict between homosexuality and Judaism and to offer a “poetic” way to interpret the biblical texts that are understood to condemn same-sex relationships.

His lecture, titled “Gayness and God,” at the Wolfond Centre for Jewish
Campus Life, sponsored by groups including Hillel and Kulanu Toronto,
was attended by more than 100 people on Jan. 22. He is a senior
teaching fellow at a think-tank called the National Jewish Center for
Learning and Leadership,

Before delving into the different ways the verse in Leviticus – which states: “a man shall not lie with another man as  with a woman; it is an abomination” – can be interpreted, Rabbi Greenberg shared his story about his introduction to Orthodoxy.

Coming from a Conservative family in Columbus, Ohio, it wasn’t until he went to a Shabbat service at an Orthodox shul and met an elderly rabbi that he realized Judaism was so important to him.

The rabbi offered Rabbi Greenberg, who was 15 at the time, and three of his friends, the opportunity to study Torah with him each Shabbat morning. He later began to go to shul each morning to daven.  

“I became Orthodox because this world was so precious to me,” he said.

Two years later, he enrolled in a yeshiva in Gush Etzion, near Jerusalem.

While in school, he found himself attracted to a fellow yeshiva student. Struggling internally with his feelings, he sought the advice of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, a posek in Jerusalem, one of the most respected arbiters of Jewish law in Israel.

Rabbi Greenberg, who hadn’t had any physical relationships with women at that point, said to him, “I’m attracted to both men and women. What should I do?”

Rabbi Eliashiv responded, “You have twice the power of love. Use it carefully.”

Rabbi Greenberg said he felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“Had I said, ‘Can I have a boyfriend?’ I’m sure the answer would have been no. I don’t want to make it seem like he was permitting anything. He understood that he needed to tell me that my inner life was not ugly. That’s what I needed to hear, and that is exactly what he told me.”

He said that in the years that followed,  he moved to New York and dated women, which became increasingly difficult for him.

In 1983, he was ordained as a rabbi and every year on Yom Kippur, when he read the verse in Leviticus that said that a man lying with a man is an abomination, his heart would break.

“Every year, for nine years, I would sit in the corner of the synagogue… I’d put my tallit over my head and I would weep.”

He said in the 10th year, he was out of tears and decided that he wanted to get an aliyah to the Torah during the reading of that verse. When he was called to the Torah and the verse was read, a calm came over him that was completely unexpected.

“It is totally out of the blue, and it dawns on me that my willingness to be vulnerable to the text requires it to be vulnerable to me and to everybody else… Whoever reads that text – if they haven’t heard my story, our stories, the thousands upon thousands of stories, the people who live every day with that verse around their neck, crushing their spirits and their thoughts, and their hearts – then they don’t know what the verse means… How could they know what it means?”

He said it was then that he realized that it was his responsibility to go to Israel, study the Torah and figure out what the verse means.

What he learned, he outlined in his book, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. He said that it is not a halachic response, but a poetic one.

Rabbi Greenberg presented a list of rationales for the prohibition in Leviticus.

Among the rationales, the argument that the idea that Jews should only have sex for the purpose of reproduction, is not legitimate.

“You still have the obligation of reproduction, but the sex act of itself does not need to be reproductive. It needs to be relational, connected… So to claim that the Torah prohibits sex between men because it isn’t reproductive, can’t make a great deal of sense.”

The second rationale is based on a story in the Gemarah that explains that homosexuality could cause a man to stray from his wife.

“Homosexuality is a problem because married men wander from their marital bed to fool around with men… The reason is because we force everyone to marry. When you have a rule that every one marries, somebody is going to marry a kid who is gay or lesbian and their lives are going to be really hard. And then people will either suffer, cheat on their spouses… So the solution to that problem is… don’t force gay people into marriages.”

Rabbi Greenberg also argued that the verse is more misogynistic than homophobic.

He said that in biblical times, to punish and humiliate a man was to “penetrate him like a woman.”

Women were beneath men in value and power and so sex is associated as an act of humiliation, he said.

“The best way to humiliate a man is to insinuate that he was taken by another man… That is how the verse in Leviticus can be framed – do not have sex with another man if it humiliates and debases him.”

He said that by viewing homosexual sex within a different frame “it opens up the imagination that sex between men is loving, committed, generous, and just has nothing to do with that abomination.”

During the question-and-answer period, an audience member asked Rabbi Greenberg about his thoughts on gay observant Jews who choose to be celibate.

“I am not against a person deciding that celibacy is the most appropriate way to go. I just don’t think it can be demanded on someone. The rabbis understand that a man who isn’t married is poverty stricken. He is considered an ani. Why? Because to be without a partner for love, intimacy and companionship is to really be poor… Given the Jewish understanding of what it means to be partnered and in a relationship and how central that is for Jews, I don’t think that it would be something the tradition could reasonably demand.”

Rabbi Greenberg, who collaborated on the film, Trembling Before God, a documentary about Orthodox gay Jews, said he hopes that his interpretations could provide a way for gay people to read the verse and still feel like they belong to the Jewish community and are embraced by God.

He said that Orthodox rabbis don’t have to agree with his rationale, but Orthodox synagogues should adhere to three principles that would make observant gay Jews feel more welcome.

First, a rabbi should never speak in humiliating ways about homosexuality in the pulpit.

Second, gay people shouldn’t expect an Orthodox congregation to rally behind them as social and political allies.

“The reason is because the Halachah isn’t there yet, but it is also because it took me 15 years to get where I am and I’m not going to go to some straight fellow in an Orthodox synagogue and say, ‘Right now, you’ve got to accept everything that I accept about myself…’ I’m a member of the shul, not for political liberation. I’m a member of the shul to be part of a sacred community.”

Last, a gay person should never feel like they have to lie about who they are.

“We have been obligated to shame ourselves, and it’s causing incredible damage to not be real about who we are… We get to be real, the way that every one else is real. We get to be human in shul. Not lying, not demanding advocacy, but real.”

Rabbi Greenberg came out of the closet in 1999, the same year that he helped found Jerusalem Open House, Jerusalem’s first gay and lesbian community centre, where he serves as the educational adviser.