![]() ![]() I really didn’t have the “baggage” that many people come to Halakha with as a rigid system of rules. And I remember being so transformed by the idea of Halakha as a lens and a framework through which the entire world can be refracted. That wasn’t a high school assignment - my mom had been reading Soloveichik and gave me her copy and we read it together in some sense. LS: The first time I came into contact with the idea of Halakha as a word or an enterprise was in high school reading Halakhic Man. is a way to deepen my learning, to focus on my relationship to myself and my family and God and Jewish community. I would say that my relationship to Halakha right now is one of continued learning, and of an experimentation process. I’m not even sure when I first heard the word “Halakha.” My relationship with Halakha has been a personal one, one that is in constant development as I continue to learn about what the Halakhic system is in the most traditional sense: as in this is how the Torah has been translated into action through the views of the ancient Rabbis and the not-so-ancient Rabbis. ![]() Rabbi Becky Silverstein: I grew up in a reform but mostly secular reform home, without a relationship to Halakha of any sort. What role has Halakha played in your own lives? But essentially Halakha is the way we talk about and do Jewish in the world. The worldview that the Trans Halakha Project is situated in is trans experiences as the foreground for how we use that language, what that language is saying. That language is situated within a worldview. Laynie Soloman: Halakha means a lot of things to a lot of different people, but Halakha for us is a language of Jewish action and expression, a way we express our values. This project reveals the power in a Jewish practice that is borne out of the way real people walk through the world.Ībigail Fisher: What does Halakha (Jewish Law) mean to you and how would you define it for the purposes of this project? The word Halakha itself comes from the hebrew root hay lamed caf, which means to walk. Silverstein and Soloman share the ways that Jewish learning that includes queer and trans Jews not only enriches the lives of those individuals, but ripples outward to strengthen surrounding communities. The Trans Halakha Project, housed at Svara: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva, aims to provide trans Jews with a framework within which to develop meaningful Jewish practice that affirms their identities as trans folks. In honor of Shavuot, a holiday celebrating receiving the Torah, I spoke with Rabbi Becky Silverstein and Laynie Soloman about the ways they are helping queer and trans Jews receive and create Torah in new ways. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |