Back in October I went to Philly with my friend Pedro. We met up with a couple of his friends and went to a bar called Sisters. Great place. I ordered a Cuba Libre as I usually do, while the boys drank beers. When I finished my drink I consulted the boys as to what I should order next.
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So for those who don’t have the time or whom I don’t want to read my thesis in it’s entirety, the crux of the whole argument is basically that the biblical prohibition against homosexuality outlined in Leviticus was essentially a prohibition against subjecting an equal to a humiliating position, namely, the position of a woman.

I draw on gender theorists and studies of power and sexuality in middle eastern culture to show that sexual relations were seen in the society which authored the Torah as inextricably tied to power, that dominance and humiliation were seen as inherent in the act.

Further, women being by definition the penetrated partner in licit sexual relations were therefore, also by definition, cast in the unfortunate but necessary position of a humiliated and therefore lower class. There is even a midrash which implies that this submissive position of women was an accident of the creation process and one that we pray one day to be rectified.

Combining this with Judith Butler’s theory that gender is not essential but performative, that is, that gender is not only expressed but comes into being when the defining characteristics of that gender are taken on, a whole mess is created which Judaism has simply been unable to deal with throughout most of its history except through the social and religious subjugation of women and the outright prohibition of male homosexuality. This also explains the prohibitions against displays of gender category confusion, dressing in the apparel of the “opposite” gender and also the lack of any biblical mention of female homosexuality.

What it all comes down to in the end is that if the Conservative movement can call itself egalitarian with regards to gender, can ordain women as rabbis, can count momen in a minyan, can recognize the legitemacy of women as witnesses, then there is no excuse for not acknowledging the equality of non-heterosexual individuals and the validity of same-gender relationships as they are all tied up in the same archaic and obsolete notions of…

Well, see, it gets complicated here. I didn’t go into this in my paper, but power and sexuality are not unconnected. Anyone with any connection to anything kinky or BDSM related will give you plenty of an earful about that. But it’s not inherent, it’s chosen. Now the next question to ask I suppose is whether or not BDSM must therefore be construed as biblically prohibited if my whole argument is built on the notion that the prohibition is in fact against using sex as an expression of power over an equal. I think it must be and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I exist. Can you believe it?

I finished my thesis at 3:30 Monday morning, May 9th. I don’t consider it to be a completed work. It’s a jumping off point. And yes, some of you will get to read it now. Some will have to wait.

This paper is, in large part, what I love about Judaism, specifically Conservative Judaism. What I take from it is mostly derived from the sort of scholarship it allows for. I love studying the highly symbolic narratives and then taking that and plunging back into the symbology of the era of its authorship, finding underlying meanings and cultural currents and connecting them up with the applications of the derived law in Mishnaic and Talmudic times by the Rishonim, and looking at modern applications and seeing and playing with and figuring out how it can be maneuvered to remain meaningful.

That’s what my thesis is really about. I strongly believe that The Conservative Movement is the only movement of Modern Judaism that takes this challenge seriously, and this one critical decision that is about to be made my the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is a fundamental turning point, and will make or break the movement’s potential to remain relevant, to maintain what I believe to be the true scholarly tradition of this religion.

God fits in there somewhere too. We can discuss theology later.