Wrestling with God and Men with R. Steve Greenberg

Wrestling with God and Men: A Six-part Series on Sex, Gender, Power and Love

with Rabbi Steve Greenberg

Register here!

In 2004 Rabbi Steve Greenberg’s groundbreaking book appeared on shelves in the US and created a new starting point for exploring the Jewish tradition’s engagement with same-sex love and relationship. Join Rabbi Greenberg in May and June as he lays out in six sessions the key insights of his book, along with an interview with Joy Ladin on her new book. The series closes with a presentation on what’s been accomplished and what remains to be done.

1. In the Beginning: Creation and Sex – May 13th 2pm ET

Starting with the key texts in Genesis and Leviticus we will begin our exploration in order to lay out the fundamental questions that the texts raise, both for us and in us. Close reading will help us meet the twin challenges of personal meaning making and society building which these verses offer us.

2. The Body and the Mind: Making Sense of Sex – May 20th 2pm ET

Employing a little known medieval reading of Leviticus that rationalizes the purpose of the law in Leviticus, we will embark on a journey of discovery that highlights the powers and the threats of the mind and the body.

3. Social Order and Marriage: Women, Wandering and the Problems of Desire – May 27th 2pm ET

An aristocratic rabbinic wedding becomes a scene of bawdy humor and bedtime worries about female sexual desire invite an array of questions on wealth, gender, marriage and most importantly, sex.  These two key texts on male and female homosexuality will be studied side by side to see what can be discovered.

4. Gender and Identity: The Trans-formation of Difference – June 3rd 2pm ET

The tradition understands bodies as ordinarily either male or female. However, reality proves more slippery that the binary frame articulates. We will explore an array of texts that attest to multiple grey areas and at moments, with some anxiety, actively highlights the power of difference.

Interview: Transgender Religious Discourse – June 10th 2pm ET

Steve will lead a discussion with Joy Ladin on her book: The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective.

5. Gladiators and Kings: Stories of Love and Violence between Men – June 17th 2pm ET

This session introduces us to two very powerful narratives of male same-sex sexuality that helps to clarify the concerns we discovered in Genesis and the law we have been exploring in Leviticus. This last rationale for the prohibition will be explored for its redemptive possibilities alongside others.

6. Goldilocks and the Three Orthodoxies: Facing the Challenges of Same-Sex Relationships – June 24th 2pm ET

While the work is still in motion, over the past decade of Eshel’s work, real substantive movement can be seen.  On the basis of contemporary rabbinic responses and alongside recent Eshel Surveys of 175 Orthodox congregational rabbis we will discover how far we’ve come, where resistance still thrives and the way forward toward a more embracing Orthodoxy.