When I see that rabbis are still advocating for celibacy if an LGBTQ+ individual wants to remain Orthodox, I wonder if they have heard the Tina Turner song, What’s Love got to do with it?
Because the answer to Ms. Turner’s question is, in their eyes, clearly, nothing.
The education I received at Yeshiva University ingrained in me the value of Torah U’Mada – that what we know about the world and the human condition can be harmonized with the Torah, and we must take this information into account when making halachic decisions. We know that being LGBTQ+ is not a choice. We know that finding a partner to create a Jewish home is a Jewish value. I thought that this knowledge had refuted the argument that LGBTQ+ people should be advised to remain celibate in order to stay in the Orthodox community, that we had moved past this “advice”. I was shocked recently to hear it from a middle-of-the-road Modern Orthodox Rabbi. While I might have expected to hear this from someone who didn’t believe LGBTQ+ identity was real, I didn’t expect to hear it from an “ally”. When I hear that argument, I wonder: what about love?
Too often, when I hear Orthodox Rabbis and leaders talk about lesbian, gay, and bisexual Jews, all I hear them talk about is sex or abstinence. Love rarely comes up in those conversations. For a community that centers love, marriage, and family so strongly, I don’t understand why these leaders are so quick to forget that queer Jews need love too.
When I was first discovering my spiritual, emotional and physical attraction to women, I entertained the idea of living a celibate life in order to maintain a connection to the community that I loved and grew up in. However, I knew that that was not an Orthodox ethos. It would force me to go against a value that I understood was fundamental to living a Jewish life.
Lo tov heyot adam levado. It is not good for us to be alone. During the six days of creation, this is the first thing that is found to be not good – loneliness.
Moreover, I always knew that I would have children, and I did not want to mother them alone. I wanted to raise them in a Jewish home, with a Jewish spouse. I wanted it all, and I was determined to have it all. No one was going to take that away from me. Now, several decades later, I am living that dream.
It is surprising to me when the same Rabbis who preach about the importance of building a Jewish home, who uplift the mitzvah of making shidduchim, and who find creative ways to allow a wife to go to the mikvah as soon as possible, would force LGBTQ+ Orthodox people to live a life alone. That seems cruel, unless that person chooses to remain single. Luckily, I didn’t listen to the Rabbis who would have asked me to give up my dream of having a wife, children, and creating my beautiful Jewish home with them. I never allowed anyone else to own my Orthodoxy. It belongs to me.
It is hard for me to imagine that these Rabbis would be willing to live the way they are asking queer people to live. Would they remain in this community without the ability to have their basic needs met? If they had to suppress their drive to love and be loved and to build a home with another person? To raise children alone or not at all? Are they willing to build the kind of community that would fully support and include someone in this position? I doubt it.
The celebration of Tu B’av each year is a reminder of the beauty of loving relationships. Tu B’av is held up as a day as joyous for the Jewish people as Yom Kippur, and both days are auspicious times for making matches. Tu B’av is a celebration of romance, longing, and love. It is a reminder that we all deserve to be loved, to be held, and to take care of another and be cared for.
Tu Bav affirms that relationships are not only about sexuality, they are about love.
In a new book, “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” researchers Robert Waldinger and Mark Schulz have distilled this: Strong relationships are what make for a happy life. Loneliness, on the other hand, damages our physical health. “I believe loneliness is one of the defining public health concerns of our time,” says Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
To have to choose between a person I love and the Orthodoxy that I live seems like an unfair choice. It leads people into a false dichotomy and to have to make choices where neither outcome will support their chances for happiness. This is why Eshel exists.
Individuals need love, and love has everything to do with it.
Miryam Kabakov, Executive Director
Eshel is proud to support Yente Over the Rainbow, helping LGBTQ+ love flourish through matchmaking.