The Movement for Reform Judaism

This text is based on a lecture delivered at the Leo Baeck College, November 3 1993

Ask 'What is the Jewish attitude to homosexuality?' and you are more than likely to be referred to two verses in the Book of Leviticus; others may prefer to waft some of the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah in your direction and consider the question even more emphatically answered (ignoring the fact that for Jews across the centuries, the sin of Sodom was not sexual but criminal inhospitality, rendering the very word 'sodomy' a misnomer).  Those who would count themselves among the more halakhically informed, may direct you to the Talmud, Kiddushin 82a, which states that 'Israelites are not suspected of either sodomy or bestiality', which effectively means that a Jew engaged in an act of sodomy, is either not a Jew or (despite appearances) engaged in some other activity.  In any event, it will quickly become apparent that for those who would seek to enlighten you, not only is sodomy to be equated with homosexuality but to speak about a Jewish homosexual is to be involved, quite literally, in a contradiction of terms, to speak as it were of 'the Jew who never was'.

If, on the other hand, you were to check the sources for mishkav zakhur (sodomy) and its variants in a male/male context, such as ba al (he mounted), not only will you find that in halakhic terms the 'Jew who never was' certainly 'was' but the very vehemence his presence engenders in a legal system more often marked by mercy than strict justice, suggests that there is no room in society for the sodomist who is, as it were 'the Jew who must not be allowed to be'.

It should be noted that in our time, when political correctness demands that where possible 'gender-inclusive' language should be used, a discusion of homosexuality is a singular exception that 'proves the rule'.  Halakhah, in common with most legal systems, displays a considerable imbalance in its attitude to, and consequent treatment of, male homosexuals and female homosexuals.  D. J. West, in his study Homosexuality (pp. 14-15), notes: 'Lesbians owe their immunity from arrest and imprisonment to the masculine pride of legislative authorities who tend to resist the public admission that many women prefer to bestow their sexual favours elsewhere'.  There is no evidence to suggest that rabbinic legislators were not similarly considerate of the male ego, both their own and and the ego of those for whom they legislated.

Consequently, while sodomy in both Torah and Talmud carried the death penalty for the active and the passive partner, lesbianism was a very different matter.  There is no direct reference to female homosexual practice in the Torah; rabbinic Judaism derived its prohibition against such activities from its interpretation of Leviticus 18:3: 'After the doings of the land of Egypt wherein you dwelt, you shall not do and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, you shall not do'.  Sifra 9:8 describes these 'doings' as including lesbianism.  In comparison with the severity with which male homosexuality is viewed, the female equivalent is regarded as a 'mere obscenity' (Yebamot 76a and Shabbat 65a and b) which, it was suggested, might serve as a disqualification for marriage with a priest, yet even this possible disqualification was overruled.