Parshat Vayera: Genesis 18:1-22:24 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

This last week has been tumultuous in many of our lives. The first person of color to be elected president in our country is an historic milestone regardless of one’s party of political affiliation. President- Elect Obama smashed the color barrier in new ways not just for our nation but in truth for the world. President-Elect Obama’s election is extraordinary progress especially when we consider that the Emancipation Proclamation was first issued in 1862 and that prior to that blacks were consider slaves and property.

But also this week has been a devastating and difficult time for our community, our state and yes, for our country. Because even as Sen. Obama’s election is symbolic of the changes in our attitudes about race, what became painfully clear is that our state’s electorate has not yet changed their attitudes about sexual orientation. Too many Californians who voted wrongly believe that sexual orientation is a choice not something that is innately part of one’s being.

And sadly and unjustly, they continue their misreading and misunderstanding of the Bible as their so called “proof” of how society should be structured and then spew their venom and lies about our lives across the airwaves and across their pulpits. But the Bible is a malleable document. The Bible endorses slavery. The Bible describes families with multiple wives. The Bible endorses many situations where now our world view, our knowledge of science has changed and our conclusions are different. In Reform Judaism we understand that there is an idea of progressive Revelation—God keeps revealing to us new truths and prophetic ideals. One of the many places that we understand our world to have changed is the role of women and another place our attitudes and understanding and knowledge has grown and expanded is in understanding that gay and lesbian people are not only part of God’s plan but fully a part of our community with full equality!

In the progressive religious communities we are angry that somehow in the minds of many including the media—the fundamentalists of both Christianity and Judaism and other faith communities define religion. Nothing could be further than the truth. They are not correct. They are not speaking the truth and sadly, they lead their people down a path of immorality and idolatry with their heinous and bigoted lies about GLBT lives.

We assert profoundly that all people –including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are created in the Divine Image-B’tzelem Elohim. We assert as Reform Jews that gay men and lesbian can if they desire create marriages, sacred holy relationships to be blessed beneath the wedding canopy. We assert as Reform Jews that to lie to achieve an end is blasphemous. And to confuse the law of the land with one’s religious perspective is dangerous.

That is why we hold dearly to the separation of church and state or in our case, synagogue and state. But there is much confusion about marriage in the mind of the public. They seem to think that marriage and its definition is controlled by a specific religious tradition. But in truth in our country, marriage is controlled and defined by the state. If your religious tradition wants to celebrate or bless a marriage they may do so. But you don’t need to have a priest, rabbi, imam, or minister to sign a wedding certificate. Any approved civil official, judge, certain electeds, wedding commissioners are able to make a marriage legal.

This week’s portion Vayeira has many important stories of our tradition. Some so important that we read them on Rosh Hashanah such as the story of the dissention between Sarah and Hagar and the subsequent banishment of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham’s household. This is followed by the story of the binding of Isaac that is read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. But the parasha opens with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps one story so responsible for the harshness and hatred directed at gay men and lesbians. But a story completely misread by early Christianity and they were influenced by the writing of Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo who first misread the story. The big lie was that the sin of Sodom was the sin of the mob who wanted to rape the visiting men in Lot’s house. To appease the unruly mob, Lot offers to throw his daughters to the dangerous horde (Is this a loving father figure?).

Abraham, Lot’s uncle, pleads to God to save these two cities despite God’s determination of their sinfulness. Abraham bargains with God to save these cities for the sake of the righteous people who live there. But according to Jewish tradition what was the sin of Sodom? What was their sinfulness? According to Jewish tradition the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality but the sin of inhospitality. The mob that pounded on Lot’s door, desiring to know the strangers he hosted were guilty of the sin of being inhospitable to strangers. The Jewish way is to be inclusive, to welcome, to be kind to those different or unknown to us.

This was Abraham’s way and his legacy to us today.

We must welcome the stranger in our midst. We must love our neighbor as ourselves. And we reject firmly, and strongly those who would claim that gay and lesbian people are responsible for all things that go wrong in society and the world whether Jerry Falwell or Thomas Aquinas or Pat Robertson or James Dobson. It is no sin to be gay or lesbian bisexual or transgendered. In truth the sin of Sodom is on their shoulders—those who provide no welcome, no home, no comfort for gay men and lesbians. They will bring about a destruction of the very moral fabric of our society by what they have wrought through the passage of Proposition 8.

But we who continue to seek peace and seek justice and to restore equality to our Constitution—must also continue to walk in way of peace, and walk in the ways of Abraham welcoming the stranger and advocating for the righteous ones in our midst.
Because just as Abraham and Sarah found out—you never know who just might be an angel!

Posted by Jimmy at November 10, 2008 11:54 AM