Hashem - Blog Posts
“I knew only one other person who was queer, and that person – G-d – was much, much queerer than I was.”
— Joy Ladin, “The Soul of the Stranger: Reading G-d and Torah from a Transgender Perspective”
“One of the biggest problems with religion is that people stubbornly, insistently reduce God to their own size; they imagine that God loves the same people they love, and that God hates the people they hate. This is not just insidious theology; it’s actually idolatry, because people are just worshiping a blown up version of themselves. So let me say it simply: God’s love transcends all of that. When your parents reject you, God loves you; when your friends or classmates make fun of you, God loves you; when your priest, minister, imam, or rabbi tells you that you are an abomination, God loves you; when politicians cater to people’s basest prejudices, God loves you. No matter how many times and in how many ways people make you feel less than human, God knows otherwise, and God loves you. When you feel frightened, or abandoned, or humiliated, I hope the unshakeable conviction that God loves you can help hold you and enable you to persevere.”
— From a Rabbi, An Open Letter To People Who Are LGBTQ by Rabbai Shai Held (via jewishtransition)
In the Mishnah, Rabbi Yosi makes the radical statement: “androgynos bria bifnei atzma hu / the androgynos he is a created being of her own.” This Hebrew phrase blends male and female pronouns to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’ identity. The term bri’a b’ifnei atzmah is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary categories. It recognizes the possibility that uniqueness can burst through the walls that demarcate our society. The Hebrew word bria (created being) explicitly refers to divine formation; hence this term also reminds us that all bodies are created in the image of God. People can’t always be easily defined; they can only be seen and respected, and their lives made holy. This Jewish approach allows for genders beyond male and female. It opens up space in society for every body. And it protects those who live in the places in between.
Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla and Reuben Zellman
Something I think a lot of xians don’t get is that while Judaism and Tanakh are absolutely essential to xianity and it making any kind of sense, Judaism in no way needs anything xianity has to offer, nor is modern rabbinic Judaism dependent on the existence of xianity. We exist entirely outside of and independent of xianity and Judaism (both as it was before the fall of the Second Temple as well as modern rabbinic Judaism) would have continued just fine without xianity. If xianity somehow disappears from the earth entirely, Judaism will still be here and will still make sense.
On the other hand, if Judaism and all of its texts were to disappear, xianity is no longer intelligible. And that is what I mean when I say that xianity is parasitic on Judaism. This is not a mutual or symbiotic relationship, no matter how hard xians seem to want to think it is.
gaza-evacuation-funds
I’m Hashem Al-Shawish. My family, including my wife Samer and our newborn baby Omar, has been severely impacted by the war. Our family of eight lost our income when my brothers' supermarket was destroyed. My father, who was already in poor health, died after we were displaced multiple times, eventually living in a tent. Since October 7th, we’ve faced continuous displacement and extreme conditions, leading to Omar’s premature birth and health complications due to poor living conditions.
@el-shab-hussein @nabulsi @irhabiya @appsa @wellwaterhysteria @moayesh @stuckinapril @sar-soor l