Photo courtesy of Anna Sophia Boyd. Mollie Leibowitz joined members of the Mount Holyoke community via Zoom on Sunday, Nov. 20.
By Lucy Isaacs ’25
Staff Writer
“Where does the need for partnership/heteronormative gender roles in partnership come from in Jewish mysticism?” This was one of the essential questions explored by Mollie Leibowitz on Nov. 20, when the Office of Community and Belonging and the Mount Holyoke Jewish Student Union co-hosted “Torah Queeries: Jewish Mysticism, Relationship Dynamics & Queerness.” Leibowitz, who has served as a Springboard Ezra Jewish Education Fellow at the University of Vermont since August 2021, joined the conversation virtually and assumed the role of an active facilitator.
Providing each attendant with a source sheet that included both biblical commentary and contemporary scholarship, Leibowitz led the audience through a conversation concerning gender and sexuality constructs within Jewish mysticism. Welcoming all members of the Mount Holyoke community, regardless of their previous experience studying Torah, Leibowitz provided both historical and religious context. She shared about historically constrictive and narrow understandings of gender and introduced work aimed to expand these constructs. Leibowitz dedicated a significant portion of the conversation to the work of Joy Ladin, who served as the first openly transgender person employed by an Orthodox Jewish institution and is described by the Poetry Foundation as “a nationally recognized speaker on gender and Jewish identity.”
A respite from the frosty November weather, the environment in the Eliot House lounge was warm, as participants were seated on couches that had been arranged in a circle and offered tea, hot chocolate and baked goods.
“Everything the JSU does is conversational in nature. In Jewish tradition, we are taught that Jewish texts are to be studied in pairs called chevruta, which is a word derived from the root for ‘friend.’ This teaching informs the way that Jews around the world study and gather together,” Emma Mair ’23, co-chair of the JSU, said. “We believe that everyone can learn from each other regardless of background or experience. The role of a Jewish educator is to facilitate learning, conversation and thoughtful engagement with the texts, not to impose ideas on their learners.”
This spirit of communal learning was embodied throughout the afternoon, as Leibowitz both posed and received a number of thoughtful questions and attendees frequently responded not only to Leibowitz, but to one another. Participants were willing to broach complicated and weighty topics: Much of the conversation explored the relationship between God and the gender binary, and the means by which the latter’s strict enforcement has often served to exclude or dismiss a multiplicity of identities.
Acknowledging the difficult nature of such a discussion, Leibowitz concluded the conversation by sharing the prayer “Twilight People,” written by Rabbi Reuben Zellman, which includes the lines: “We are all twilight people. / We can never be fully labeled or defined. / We are many identities and loves, many genders and none. / We are in between roles, at the intersection of histories, or between place and place. We are crisscrossed paths of memory and destination, streaks of light swirled together. We are neither day nor night. We are both, neither and all.”
“I hope that attendees took away that the Jewish Student Union is a safe place to come and explore Judaism, regardless of any previous experience with Jewish tradition or texts. It is also my hope that LGBTQ+ people see themselves represented in Jewish traditions, that they gained a deeper understanding of some of our foundational texts and that they felt affirmed in our space,” Mair said. The Office of Community and Belonging and the JSU will be co-hosting a related event, “Torah Queeries: Enemies to Lovers, A Gay Rabbinic Love Story from the Talmud,” on Dec. 8.