We Don’t Need to Get It

Tzav, 5784

I don’t get it. That’s what a lot of people tell me when they read through what may seem like the endless list of sacrificial rules in Vayikra, Leviticus. I don’t get why there are sacrifices, and why there are so many rules about them. The epitome of this is definitely the Parah Adumah, the red heifer, that we read about this week in our special parshah. You might have read my E-News piece this week, or perused it in the weekly handout, but it really is a standout of “I don’t get it.” Even King Solomon, who understood every other law, did not get it! So you are in good company.

Still, there are reasons for the sacrifices. If King Solomon only did not understand the Parah Adumah, then he must have understood the other sacrifices. And sure, there are plenty of interpretations. Historians and critical scholars of the Torah believe that the sacrifices were seen as a way of cleansing the altar, removing mundane impurity from the Temple so that the spirit of God could come and dwell inside of the Temple. If too much impurity built up, God would be ejected, and so sacrifices were made as a type of holy Clorox. Maimonides famously suggests that sacrifices were offered because the people were used to seeing them offered up to idols, and expected it, and so God gave the people sacrifices to fulfill that expectation. Even so, says Maimonides, we will still offer sacrifices in the time of the Third Temple.

Now, assuming either of these explanations is true, or any of the other explanations for sacrifices, did the people in the time of the Temple know them as they brought their goats and sheep and lambs and grain offerings? Not necessarily. Maybe they didn’t get the sacrifices. Maybe it made sense to them on an emotional level, not a logical level. But they brought the sacrifices all the same. They didn’t need to understand them to respect their power.

I saw something on Thursday, reading through the local news, that gave me pause and made me shiver. The Georgia Senate had passed two bills that specifically targeted transgender kids. One bill was aimed at preventing those kids from utilizing puberty blockers—considered safe and reversible by the medical community. The other was aimed at preventing trans kids was playing on sports teams or utilizing the locker rooms of the gender they are most comfortable with. Taken as a whole, these bills have the effect of telling trans kids: we don’t understand you, and we are scared of you. One lawmaker who supported the bills, when he realized the girl he was talking to about protecting her right to play sports was trans, got up and ran away.

These bills aren’t about politics. I know that because both chambers of the Geogia Congress are dominated by the same political party, and the Georgia House yesterday refused to call to a vote the Senate’s bills targeting transgender kids. Those bills will not become law, for now. I hope they never do. All those bills accomplish is making life more difficult and harder for kids who already have it pretty tough. We are supposed to treat one another with compassion, and yet those bills cannot extend that compassion to these kids that they do not understand.

I have had a lot of people tell me “I don’t understand what it means to be transgender.” I get that. I don’t either. I am what is called cisgender, from the Latin cis, or on this side of. I have felt like a male my entire life, and everyone has always treated me like one. I simply don’t understand what it feels like to be the opposite of what everyone says I am, or to not feel male or female. I can’t wrap my mind around what that feels like. And that’s alright. I don’t have to understand what it means to be transgender to respect transgender people and kids. And I don’t have interrogate transgender people about their experience in order to comprehend it. Some things in life don’t function according to our personal understanding of logic. And that is OK. Even that which we do not understand may be understood by someone else. It can be important, and have power. It is not about us.

Why doesn’t the Torah explain the point of sacrifices? If there is a point, if Maimonides is right, or the scholars are right, why doesn’t the Torah just come out and say it? Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter if we understand the sacrifices and their rules, or if some people do and others do not. All that matters is the power the sacrifices do have, and that the Israelites paid them respect.

We don’t need to understand what it means to be transgender in order to love trans people. We just have to love them.

What is my challenge for you? What can you do? I was going to tell you to call your local representative and tell them to vote against those bills I mentioned, but as I said before, those bills are not coming to the House for now. Still, it is always worth letting our representatives know our thoughts about these issues. But there are things you can do that are closer to home. I know that you speak kindly to your trans friends, children, and grandchildren. You address them by their chosen name and pronouns. You treat them like anyone else you care about, and love. And that little bit of love you put out into the world can have a profound effect. Just by treating trans people with the same basic dignity we owe everyone, we tell our friends, neighbors, and colleagues that they can count on us. That we have their back, the same way we care for everyone in circles. That they are part of our community. But we can also take it one step further. We should have compassion not just in how we talk to our trans friends and loved but ones, but in how we talk about being transgender, and how we talk about trans people as a whole and the specific challenges they face. We don’t have to understand it, and I know that can be difficult. But it is incumbent on us to speak and think about these issues with love, care, and compassion. Thinking about how we speak might seem like an easy challenge. But it can make a world of difference.