Marriage Equality, Kashrut and Truth

Rabbi Philip WeintraubApril 6, 2013Parshat Shemini

My homiletics teacher at JTS told me I should never ask more questions than I intend to answer, that when you do so, people think about their answers rather than yours.  Great advice, but sometimes it needs to be ignored!  So I ask you:How do we read the Torah?  Do we read it literally?  Do we read it allegorically?  What is Truth with a capital T?So before I continue (and lose you), what are your thoughts on any of those questions?


You might ask what inspired me1) Letter saying marriage is defined by GD (and that we shouldn’t support gay marriage)2) Parshat Shmini discussing death of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu3) Parshat Shmini discussing rules of kashrut


On Friday I read a letter in Thursday’s paper telling us why, since Gd said marriage should be between a man and a woman, the state or federal government should agree.  Ignoring the Constitutional issues, such as the first amendment’s establishment clause, as much as I support Gd and Torah, I think that I read it just a little bit differently than the letter’s author.  On that note, before I continue,I want to share with you a letter I wrote to the editor of the Times Herald Record.  I think it is important for people to know that people of faith believe that gay marriage should be legal.  Even if you religiously believe that it is unacceptable for your church or synagogue to perform gay marriages, it should be legal for those that are not members of your church or synagogue.


My letter read:I read in the THR Friday  (oops-Thursday’s paper-I read it Friday) from a minister saying that only G-d defines marriage.  While that may be the case in his church, as is his first amendment right, NY state defines marriage within this state.  He is free to perform any marriage legal in the state and is under no pressure to perform gay marriages in his church.

On TV and in the paper, we often equate religion and anti-gay or even homophobic sentiments.  As a Conservative Rabbi, I remember that one of the first parts of creation was G-d noting that it was "not good for man to be alone."  I cannot imagine a loving G-d, who would create people with no acceptable marriage possibility.  That is why I support marriage equality.

If fundamentalists of any stripe are going to spend a lot of time parsing Leviticus, they should join me in keeping kosher: abandoning pork, shellfish and mixed meat/dairy meals.  If they aren't willing to live by the laws of the Bible, perhaps they shouldn't impose them on others.  That, too, is the principle of the First Amendment.

Additionally, our parsha speaks about the story of Nadav and Avihu, who offered “strange fire” before Gd.  The commentators fall over themselves trying to explain how this must be a just punishment from a just GD against evil people.  They say Nadav and Avihu made all sorts of different mistakes, that they disobeyed Gd.  Modern commentators speak of them being under the influence, perhaps that “strange fire” was them imbibing in illicit substances or drinking too much.  Others take another task, that they were so righteous and so so desired to be one with Gd, that they purposely sacrificed themselves!  However we read the story, it is a different one, that challenges our ideas about Gd and ourselves!

Finally our parsha concludes with animals we can and cannot eat.  It literally discusses the sacred and profane, implying that “we are what we eat.”  There is a great holiness to keeping kosher.  If we are aware of all that we put before our lips, if we say blessings over what we eat, we create a connection to Gd’s holy creation.

I found it particularly appropriate that the letter writer wrote this week, as we read about Kashrut.  I find it fascinating how so many people take the Bible so literally, yet are very selective in how they follow it.  Many people are quick to judge others for their sexual morality, yet have no interest in the numerous other prohibitions surrounding those.  

Returning to my original questions:How do we read the Torah?  I read the Torah with a loving eye.  I see it as the source of my life, the source for all life, the place where all secrets are hidden and the place where Gd shows Gd’s love to us and the world.  (While that may sound a little Christian, in my recent studies of the Christian Bible I discovered that 97% (my guess) of what Jesus says is either elsewhere in the Jewish Bible or in rabbinic literature.  It is Saul/Paul who drastically changed Jesus’ message.)Do we read it literally?  Yes, sometimes.Do we read it allegorically?  Yes, sometimes.In the Middle Ages, Saadia Gaon argued that a biblical passage should not be interpreted literally if that made a passage mean something contrary to the senses or reason (or, as we would say, science; Emunot ve-Deot, chapter 7). Maimonides applied this principle to theories about creation. He held that if the eternity of the universe (what we would call the Steady State theory) could be proven by logic (science) then the biblical passages speaking about creation at a point in time could and should be interpreted figuratively in a way that is compatible with the eternity of the universe.It is only because the eternity of the universe has not been proven that he interpreted the verses about creation at a point in time literally (Guide, II, 25), but he still insisted that the creation story as a whole was written metaphorically (Book I, Introduction). (http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Science/Creationism_and_Evolution/Bible_as_Allegory.shtml)

What is Truth with a capital T?  Truth is love.  Truth is the spirit behind the words.  Truth is what lives deep inside of us, in the light that is our soul, in the Gdliness that is demonstrated by Bereshit’s note that we are all created in the image of the Divine.  Truth with a capital T is not found simply by reading the words on the page.  It is in the words, under the words, struggling with the words.  It is reading 4 translations and 8 commentaries.  It is parsing with a chevruta, studying with a friend.  Truth is Divine.Shabbat Shalom.