Happy for Resources to Facilitate Acceptance
My daughter Rebecca, 35, is getting married this August. Rebecca is the last of our children to marry, but she is the only one to merit a column concerning her engagement. Why?
Because Rebecca is getting married to her girlfriend, Shir Tirosh, 25.
I should back up a few years. One fine day in 2017, when Rebecca was living near Jerusalem’s city center, we met by chance in the shuk. Rebecca’s apartment was nearby and she invited me up for coffee. After chit-chatting for a while, Rebecca told me that she was going out with someone. Except that rather than using “mee’sheh’hu,” the male form for the word, she used: “mee’sheh’hee.”
Rebecca and I have since laughed about this scene many times. It was like I was minding my own business, expecting a nice cup of coffee and then, wham, out of nowhere, a brick upside the head.
I grunted something like “Uh-oh” and immediately felt a need to lie down.
Rebecca was surprised at my surprise.
Hello?! Didn’t I know that my daughter was a professional basketball player? Hadn’t I heard about all those poor, discriminated-against heterosexuals in the WNBA? Didn’t I know that homosexuality is common among high-performing female athletes?
Yes, I knew that all that was true; I just didn’t know that it applied to my own daughter.
In the years following Rebecca’s disclosure, Sarah and I kept a very, very low profile concerning her romantic life. We had heard so many stories (or perhaps we especially gravitated toward them?) of women like Rebecca who just hadn’t met the right guy.
This could happen to Rebecca, right?
It didn’t help matters that one of Rebecca’s own teammates, after going out exclusively with women for many years, met a wonderful guy and married him. It turned out, however, that the person who came along for Rebecca was Shir—but I’m getting ahead of our story.
Sarah and I each bring a very different perspective to having a daughter who has a female partner. Having grown up with parents who had a disastrous relationship, I know that heterosexuality does not guarantee a good marriage—whereas Sarah’s parents, may they live and be well, have an unusually warm and loving relationship.
There is also the fact that I, as a heterosexual male, can certainly understand the attraction to women–were I to have a gay son, that would have been much more difficult to accept.
What about the religious aspect to Rebecca’s relationship with Shir?
On the one hand, the Bible does not expressly forbid female homosexual relationships (whereas it does for men—see Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13—though it has been argued that these prohibitions concern idolatrous and/or coercive sexual relationships).
Add to this the traditional imperative to be kind to all people, to “receive every person with a pleasant countenance” (Sayings of the Fathers, 1.15), and there is no question that when you see two women together, your primary religious responsibility is to be nice to them.
The problem for some Orthodox Jews concerning Rebecca and Shir’s wedding is the couple’s desire to imbue their ceremony with traditional Jewish elements. While I am definitely supportive of this, when it comes to marriage between two people there are those Orthodox Jews who are guided by Genesis 2.24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall unite with his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”
I liken the perspective of many Orthodox Jews on homosexual marriage to my own perspective of Jewish observance of the Sabbath; i.e., I believe that some kind of meaningful observance of the Sabbath (though not necessarily Orthodox) is an objective good for all Jews. Similarly some Orthodox Jews, with Genesis 2.24 as their prooftext, say heterosexual marriage is an objective good that is relevant for all men and women.
Thankfully, we live in an age of acceptance. And so even though our immediate family contains several Orthodox people, it would be unthinkable for anyone to absent themselves on Rebecca’s wedding day.
Also thankfully, there are various resources in Israeli society to facilitate this acceptance, including an organization called Tehila that, according to its website, “strives to help parents have a meaningful dialogue with their LGBTQ+ children.”
Rebecca likes to joke with me, “I know that you are always looking for interesting material for your column, and so that’s why I decided to marry Shir.”
Yes, the girl has a sense of humor.
Still, there’s no getting around it: Rebecca’s engagement and marriage will certainly keep me busy for quite a number of columns.
Next up: A Wedding or A Wedding***?
TEDDY WEINBERGER is a contributing writer to Jlife magazine. He made aliyah with his family in 1997 from Miami, where he was an assistant professor of religious studies. Teddy and his wife, Sarah Jane Ross, have five children.