On an ideal Sunday, I get up and quietly make my wife breakfast, so that I can present it to her with great gusto before she's emerged from bed. After dining and doing the dishes, I throw on my gym clothes and go for a run and a lift, as I've been doing since high school. If it's a truly fortunate afternoon, I then put on the grungiest clothes I can find and meet my guy friends at a bar to holler at the screen while watching football and guzzling beer. (No buffalo wings, of course; I'm a vegetarian.) Then I progress into the evening with my wife, getting a pedicure at the small nail salon next door and enjoying a romantic dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant. After getting home, I read some of my favorite works of Jewish literature (whether rabbinic texts or more popular pieces). I often get hooked on whatever I'm reading, stay up late and end up tired for my early classes in rabbinical school the next day.
To me that is the making of a wonderful day. Yet I have at various points been called "gay," "metrosexual," "manly man," "jock," "nerd" and (prematurely) "rabbi" for the way I spend my free time. Even my wife lovingly jokes that I am a miraculous mixture of her "lover" and "gay best friend." Why is it that a guy who gets a pedicure -- even with his heterosexual partner -- is assumed to be gay? Why is it that a guy who watches football and drinks beer with his friends is assumed to be straight? The need for labels itself suggests an insecurity on the part of those wielding them.
Within the progressive Jewish context, the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements are expending significant resources to reduce or remove the hurdles that women rabbis face as they enter the workplace. Those hurdles are unfair, unfortunately common and terribly hurtful to women rabbis throughout their careers -- emotionally, socially and financially. (As for the lattermost, in 2009 Forward published the statistic that female communal professionals in the Jewish community earned only 61 percent of what their male counterparts earned.)
It is a testament to the three major progressive Jewish movements that they are investing heavily in the push for gender equality in the workplace -- through training programs, regulations and more careful templates for rabbinical contracts. Such efforts have begun to bear fruit, as manifested in the growing tide of women leading rabbinical organizations (the Rabbinical Assembly), seminaries (multiple branches of Hebrew Union College), and synagogues and non-profit organizations across the country.
But male clergy are not immune to the undermining force of expectations that accompany their gender. What about the hurdles that I will face as a male rabbi when I want paternity leave or even to take time off from work entirely while my children are young? What if I want to cry when something sad happens rather than posing as the calm executive of our synagogue non-profit? As a straight man who does not readily fit within the narrow bounds of present gender norms, I find the sexism that plagues my female colleagues cuts both ways.
I do not want to be thought of as the "straight rabbi who acts gay" simply because I express genuine emotions in a professional setting. I do not want to be thought of as the "alpha rabbi" on occasions when I do not find it comfortable to express my emotions in public. Both tendencies are parts of my personality -- even though they at times lie outside the social norms, further amplified for clergy in the congregational setting.
Archetypes for men and women -- and especially clergy -- press us to conform to the norms dictated by our genders. People want religious leaders to look, sound and seem familiar. But if rabbinic leadership requires authenticity, then I, like so many others, must be allowed to lead from within the gray space I inhabit between the overgeneralized norms that seldom apply to anyone.
This article is republished with permission from the Tikkun Daily.
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It remains a frustration, though, that my male colleagues are paid more for the same work.
Like Christ using the marriage, bride the groom, when man woman, join themselves to each other, to be faithful to one another, they became ONE not 2 anymore. St Peter said: I will tell you the great mystery of the marriage. And the 2 shall become ONE.
A child is born OF the mother, is also OF father, but the child has the mother IN him, feminine, and the child also has the father IN him, masculine also. The child now has 2 people, in him, but the child is ONE. We all have many different body parts, but all are members of the ONE Body.
Each member of the ONE body, works for the good of the whole, Body. God is the Head of the ONE Body and all the Universe are members of that ONE Body, God is Head over the whole Body. ONE Kingdom, ONE Government, ONE Family. Men woman cause division, chaos, because one thinks they are superior to the other. When neither are superior, but are of equal value.
God is NOT chaos. God said: Let -US- create man-woman, in -OUR- IMAGE and IN -OUR- likeness. US< OUR> means more then ONE, can also mean many, millions, trillions who knows. All were ONE, in agreement, having same -ONE MIND, ONE thoughts, all in agreement, moved as ONE, had the ONE Will and ONE Desire, all were ONE. No chaos. for man woman fell to understand, neither man or woman could EVER exist with out the other. seed, egg, needs a vessel, to bring forth birth. When they do, they are Both -ONE in a child. Ever hear others say to a child, oh you are so much like your mother, and oh you look so much like your father, but you have your mothers calmness, but you are strong like your father. No longer 2- people, but now 2 people, in ONE.
Christ speaks of the POOR, the widows (women) orphans, the down cast, the refugees, cured the ills of , walked among, choose to remain poor, to serve the poor and stayed among and served all the sinners, Christ did not bow down to no religion nor had palls in Government. Those who held power were men and woman were considered lower, by men. God calls Wisdom a her, and all we are his brides. Christ said He is the Bridegroom, so that means to men and woman also are his brides. With God there is NO sex gender. There is only with God, the ungodly, the lawless ones, the unrighteous.
I'm also in seminary, just four months from my ordination.
Gender struggles are nothing new, but in all the places I've worked and lived, one of the hardest is within the religious communities who claim that God "intended" us to act within the boxes of Western feminine and masculine traditions.
I hope that your congregation welcomes and loves you as you are, just as I hope mine will.
Which will we chose, to serve the good ONE or the bad ONE, which master. For each have different house rules, laws. One House has Laws, for order, the other House, is lawless one, ungodly ones. The choice is ours, do we become the IMAGE of the Good Father, or do we become the IMAGE of the Bad Father. Depends which wolf we feed inside, that comes out. The good wolf or the bad wolf. Love all for all are dearly loved. WE will know and see, who is the child of who. Christ taught us the Lord's Prayer, it begins with OUR Father, meaning, we are all his children in the eyes of God, very little children.
Did not see, nor was written, any men were, there at the foot of Christ cross, only once in one gospel mention John was there, other gospels, do not mention such. The disciples, all ran, in hiding, fearfully, far away from, in fear, they to would be crucified. Only the woman, the ones right from the beginning to end, were present. For only the woman at the foot of cross, would of known what, Christ last words were spoken. For Christ was beaten, torn, shredded to pieces, left dying, hanging on the cross, bleeding to death all over, with massive 10s of thousands standing far off, watching it all. They would not of heard what Christ said.