References
- I have chosen a common English euphemism for sex, “play around”, to translate the rabbinic euphemism “hamesolelot”.
- The expression “hamesolelot” is used in the Tosefta (collection of Tannaitic teachings parallel to the Mishnah) and in both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds as a euphemism for women who engage in proscribed sexual acts— the examples being “a woman that plays around with her son” (Tosefta Sota 5:7; Sanhedrin 69b; Yerushalmi Gittin VIII, 49c) and “women who play around with one another” (Shabbat 65a; Yevamot 76a). Note that Maimonides uses the same expression: “Nashim hamesolelot zo bezo asur”—”For women to play around with one another is forbidden” (Hilchot Issurei Bi'ah 21:8).
- Genesis 19:30–38 relates how Lot and his two daughters dwelt in a cave after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because they believed their father to be the last man left on earth, the daughters got him drunk and had sex with him in order to ensure the birth of heirs. The firstborn bore a son and called him Moab—the father of the Moabites— the younger daughter bore a son and called him Ben-ammi—the father of the Ammonites.
- Genesis 38:12–30 relates how Tamar, the widow of Judah's firstborn, Er, pretended to be a prostitute in order to get her father-in-law, Judah, to sleep with her when he failed to marry her to his third son, Shelah, as he promised. The second son, Onan, having been killed by God for spilling his seed, Judah represented Tamar's only hope for a child. If one goes beyond the Torah to the text of the Bible as a whole, one finds other examples of women taking a sexual initiative— e.g. Ruth, the Moabite, a descendant of Lot's eldest daughter, when she “uncovers” Boaz's feet at the threshing floor during the night (Ruth 3:6–15).
- Of course, there are strong women in the Torah, in particular, Sarah, Rebecca and Miriam. But of these three, Miriam alone is named “nevi'ah” (“prophetess”), remains unmarried and acts in relation to the community of women (see especially, Exodus 15:20–21). And yet, compared to the lengthy treatment accorded her younger brothers, Aaron and Moses, Torah says very little about her. There are only four short narrative texts: Exodus 2:1–10, concerning the saving of the baby Moses; Exodus 15:20–21, describing Mriam leading the women in a song and dance with timbrels after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds; Numbers 12:1–16, focusing on Miriam's (and Aaron's) challenge to Moses's leadership; and one verse at the beginning of Numbers 20— after a lacuna in the text of thirty-eight years—relating Miriam's death at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.
- See Exodus 21, Numbers 5 and 6, and Deuteronomy 21:10ff. for the key legal sources in Torah outlining the dependent position of women.
- 1979 . Jewish and Homosexual London : Reform Synagogues of Great Britain . See Dr Wendy Greengross, (currently being updated); Where We Stand on Homosexuality (London: Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, 1990); Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate adopted by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, 25 June 1990; Homosexuality and Judaism: The Reconstructionist Position. The Report of the Reconstructionist Commission on Homosexuality, Federation of Reconstruction- ist Congregations and Chavurot, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, 1992; Homosexuality lijid Judaism: A Reconstruetionist Workshop Series, ed. Rabbi Robert Gluck (Reconstructionist Press, 1992).
- 1989 . Reconstructionist See, for example, Sharon Cohen, “Homosexuality and a Jewish Sex Etliic” and David A. Teutsch, “Rethinking Jewish Sexual Ethics” (both articles are published in July—August Rebecca T. Alpert, “In God's Image: Coming to Terms with Leviticus”, in Twice Blessed. On Being Lesbian, Gay and Jewish, ed. Christie Balka and Andy Rose (Boston, 1989); Robert Kirschner, “Halakha and Homosexuality”, Judaistn, Autumn 1988. My sermon on the double Torah portion “Archarei Mot-Kedoshim” at the Erev Shabbat service of the Thirteenth International Conference of Gay and Lesbian Jews, 30 April—3 May 1993, explored the implications of interpreting the Torah's preoccupation with “uncovering nakedness” (Archarei Mot, Lev. 18) in the context of the command “You shall love your neighbour as yourself' (Kedoshim, Lev. 19:18).