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Leviticus; A call to Awareness: The Rabbi & Rebecca

Rachel Wahba ; 10-05-10:- Protect our LGBT teens.

My granddaughter Becca was 11 last year, in 6^th grade, when her Judaic Studies teacher stepped over the line. He had to know that quoting that one infamous rant in Leviticus would land him in hot water. But then again, religious zeal morphs into arrogance and the bigot pops out. Just the way it usually is.

After all, missionaries must push their agenda. Rabbi S. belongs to a Jewish missionary sect known as Chabad. What he is doing teaching in a liberal Jewish Day School is another story.

“Guess what happened today with Rabbi S.?”
“What?”
“I really got to argue with him today but it was kind of creepy”.
“What happened”? (It was Becca’s “favorite class” because Rabbi S. is a nice, easy- going guy. He talks about his family, his beliefs, and ostensibly is giving the children a look at different practices in Jewish life. People like him; he is a likable guy if you ignore the sexism, the fact that Chabad is its own sect, outside of mainstream Judaism, and a gay person can never be whole within the ideology. Becca loves the class.)
“I get to argue with him, its FUN!” She finds his (Chassidic) ideologies odd and interesting. Most of all she loves to challenge him, to find a place for her voice. She is appalled that his wife has to wear a wig, and that “even his ten year old son has never seen her hair!” She loves to “bug him”. And he doesn’t shame her.
“He said homosexuality was an ‘abomination, today!”
“what?”
“an ‘abomination’”
“he used that word?”
“Yeah, I never heard it before”

I immediately contacted the principal who then referred the head of middle school to me. She called—she was intent on damage control. Apparently, Becca had made such an issue of it once he used the word “abomination” and wouldn’t stop. Rabbi S. (defensively) confronted her: “Why is this so important to you?”  She explained that her “grandmas are lesbians” and that she has a lot of gay men in her life.

Several boys in the class began their “eeeuuuwwww disgusting” thing at this point, and Rabbi S. stopped them by saying he “ had nothing against gays, and has gay friends.” “So?” Becca kept at him.  He had to hold the line: Torah says it’s an abomination. So what can he do? What can he do?

I want to scream: Shut up or list the entire list of rules/SINS, in Leviticus! How dare he? It’s the old “Love the Sinner not the Sin” argument, I tell the head of Middle School, when she tries to soften me with, “he has gay friends, he is a very nice man– would you like to meet with him?” What I would like? I would like to know “what he is doing there in the first place? Do we know if there are any gay children in that classroom of 12 boys who would have had to cringe in their seats ? Future classrooms? Damage that this “nice man” is advocating? “Are you aware of the number of teens who commit suicide because of this kind of thinking?  This is acceptable in this school”? I am beginning to lose it.

“No, he will not do that again. ” she reassures me, and moves into, “Is Rebecca all right?”
“Its not Becca I am worried about.” I am concerned about the child, a boy (since Leviticus is speaking of gay male sex)–especially the boy someday, if not already he has forced into a secrecy shrouded in shame—an ABOMINATION.  A child sacrificed on the altar of Torah. In a Liberal School for God’s sake! Is it really possible to curb missionaries of whatever denomination from spouting what they truly believe is a serious sin? How do we keep our children safe?

by Rachel Wahba.

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