Posted on 08/16/2016 6:07:30 PM PDT by Morgana
PLEASANTVILLE, NY (ChurchMilitant.com) - A New York rabbi is claiming God is transgender.
In an op-ed published Friday in the New York Times, Rabbi Mark Sameth of the Pleasantville Community Synagogue maintains the Hebrew Bible's "highly elastic" view of gender leaves open the possibility that God Himself is transgender. Citing various examples of pronoun usage found in several passages in Genesis, the rabbi comes to the conclusion that, "counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel — the God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong — was understood by its [sic] earliest worshippers to be a dual-gendered deity."
"Why would the Bible do this?" the rabbi asks, referencing passages in Isaiah in which the future kings of Israel are foretold to be "nursing kings." Dismissing the possibility of "typos," Rabbi Sameth maintains "well expressed gender fluidity was the mark of a civilized person" in ancient times, and such people were deemed as being "more 'godlike.'"
"The Israelites took the transgender trope from their surrounding cultures and wove it into their own sacred scripture," he continues, going on to declare the four-letter Hebrew name for God, abbreviated as YHWH and most often spoken as "Yahweh," is best translated as "He/She." This is how the Israelite priests would have read the letters, he asserts.
Sameth makes the claim, despite the fact that scholars have noted that among the more than 6,000 times the name YHWH occurs, the name appears only as masculine.
"I'm a rabbi," Sameth explains, "and so I'm particularly saddened whenever religious arguments are brought in to defend social prejudices — as they often are in the discussion about transgender rights."
The truth of gender identity, the rabbi claims, is today confirmed by scientific research. This "truth," however, was realized thousands of years ago.
"In court challenges, administrative directives and popular culture, the issue is playing out in real time, before our eyes," Sameth says. "But behind the unfolding legal drama lies the reality of human nature: the fact that gender is not, nor has it ever been, a matter of 'either/or.'"
The position taken by Rabbi Sameth were countered in an opinion piece published Monday in TownHall. Michael Brown, author of the article, contends that "the rabbi is not simply making a mountain out of a molehill, he is making one out of a non-existent molehill."
"[H]ad he argued that both male and female derive their personhood from God's image ... I would have agreed," Brown writes. "And had he simply stated, 'God's Word teaches us to be compassionate towards all, and that include those who identify as transgender,' I would have affirmed this as well."
"But his attempt to use the Hebrew Scriptures to support transgender activism is utterly misguided," fatally flawed, and unworthy of serious consideration," Brown concludes, referring to Sameth's story of cousin Paula Grossman, one of the first people in the United States to undergo sex-reassignment surgery and was subsequently fired from a teaching position.
"Forty years after the Supreme Court refused to hear Paula's appeal in 1976, the transgender story is still unfolding," Sameth notes. "There is real reason to be hopeful, even if social prejudices don't disappear overnight."
The Catholic Church has clearly maintained Her position against the push for gender identity rights, with Pope Benedict XVI declaring in 2012, "The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious." Likewise, Pope Francis has denounced transgender ideology, decrying the "ideological colonization" being forced on children.
This is sick and abominable.
This guy is a graduate of a Reform “seminary”. He would not be considered a rabbi by Orthodox folks or even plenty of Conservative folks. Therefore, keep in mind, he does not speak for Jews. Basically, he’s making it up as he goes along.
Somebody send this turd a copy of “100 Pounds of Clay” by Gene McDaniels.
Yet another rabbi of the hard left liberal religion.
It’s always been understood in Judaism that The Lord transcends humanity, and is neither male nor female. So of course the leftists, in their warped little minds, come to the conclusion that if their deity isn’t male and isn’t female, well, that just leaves tranny!
I’m really at a loss for words, but I can say that I continue to be amazed at the depravity of the left. Just when I think they can’t possibly get more inane, or just disgusting, they never fail to amaze me.
Mark
God would not be “transgender”, because strictly speaking a truly all-powerful God would be entirely asexual, not assigned any arbitrary human sexual roles. Theologically, it would not make any sense.
Biology does not apply to deities.
I think maybe God might feel a little offended by that remark?
If God were transgendered, per se, then why are only men “circumcised” as a sign of their Jewishness, according to the Old Testament?
One reason is that, as we say in the “ghetto”, it’s a Jewish thing. Not a good reason but a reason.
Other religions later copied circumcision but did not originate it as far as we know.
Judaism is opposed to female genital mutilation. As far as I know, so has Christianity throughout its’ existence.
Only Islam is a promoter of this horribly painful and psychologically damaging act against women. WHY?
Only the Reform school of Jewish thought would come up with this transgendered God crap. We often say that Reform Judaism is the Jewish equivalent of the Unitarian Church.
Both bare little resemblance to what the concepts of organized religion require - a language (Hebrew, Latin); original books of concepts (Torah/Old Testament; New Testament); foundational prayers; religious garments; a belief in protecting one’s religion, not trying to merge it into others. Realizing that there is something, someone out there who is far superior to us, and that we should be humble in our assessments of ourselves.
If you look at the design of the planets, the galaxies, the structure of a tree, its limbs and leaves, or the structure of a spider web, you should understand that we can’t do this. We cannot naturally create this orderliness in nature, the world, the universe.
God is God. He does not wear a hunter’s shirt and a dress.
Of course, Liberals are obsessed with sex.
He’s not really a rabbi. He is rabid.
The “Jewish” branch of the church of whatever serves ruling class interests.
Next thing you know, he’ll be telling everyone that they’ve also been confused for thousands of years, because ‘good’ is really ‘evil’, while ‘evil’ is really ‘good’.
This “rabbi” should be burned as a heretic.
Maybe his schmekel was snipped a bit too close.
Or he is an idiot.
Actually, liberals are obsessed with destroying sex.
Making it first un-sacramental, then sterile, then superficial, then diseased, then distorted, then non-user-friendly, then ungendered, then depersonalized, then dehumanized, finally totally deconstructed: destroyed.
Odd, isn't it? Who is sex-positive? The secularists? Really? The Left?
Don't make me laugh and wince at the same time. It hurts.
`
I’m sure it will come as a big surprise to Rabbi Fakeski but Hashem is not human.
Pleasantville Community Synagogue
“PCS is a widely inclusive “trans-denominational” community drawing on the best teachings and practices from across the spectrum of liberal Judaism.”
In other words, they like to think of themselves as Jews, but not actually do anything that religious Jews do. Probably vehemently anti-Israel as well.
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