Voeskhanan, Orthodoxy, and Kink / ואתחנן, אָרטאָדאָקסיע, און שגעון

This is a weekly series

of parsha dvarim (Tōrah commentaries) written by a frum, atheist, transsexual anarchist, with guest posts from comrades. It's the work of each generation to extricate meaning from our cultural and religious inheritance, and it's crucial that we resist the narrative that Zionism owns Judaism. I aim to offer comment which is true to the pshat (i.e. engages with the plain meaning of the text, especially when it's difficult) and uses Tōrah like a light to reflect on our modern times.

An appeal

My friend Kamal needs help to leave Gaza. He is trying to immigrate to Greece to search for his missing son, who in desperation took a small and dangerous lifeboat across the Mediterranean. Please donate what you can.

Content note

Genocide in Palestine; sexualization of Nazis and the Holocaust; Nazi imagery; kink and softcore pornography; mentions of rape.

Grief and optimism

This week's parsha always comes after Tisho b'Ov, when we read Eykho and lament the destruction of the Beys h'Mikdesh (the Temple). After the Three Weeks of mourning the loss of Hashem's dwelling place on Earth, we comfort ourselves with Voeskhanan: a reiteration of the earlier promise that we will inherit the land. This promise is from long before the Beys h'Mikdesh was built. We pivot backwards to an earlier point in our history/mythology when we were filled with optimism, despite knowing how the bleak narrative goes: after we enter the land, the Beys h'Mikdesh is destroyed not once but twice. Jewish history—and human history at large—trudges from violence to violence. The establishment of the Jewish state culminates in fascism and genocide. We are grieving, and this week we're soothing our grief with the memory of naive optimism.

Jewish time is cyclical, and Tōrah is rounding off the narrative. The long journey of the Israelites is almost over.

Before we enter the land, Mōshe Rebeynu reminds us, again and again, to remember and keep the commandments. We know that we will not, and Yerushalayim will fall as a result. We know that the Holocaust will be used as cover for the Nakba. We know that the state of Israel will kill at least 60,000 Palestinians since October 7, and that the Knesset won't even pretend to care about the hostages. We know things will go wrong and Hashem will be furious with us. And yet we take comfort in the promise we know will not be fulfilled.

Still, we try to follow the rules. We play in the sandbox of strict religious observance. Hashem hits us. Our queer Jewish peers, disillusioned with orthodoxy and resentful of our continued proximity to it, hit us. Our homophobic frum peers and rabbis hit us. The goyim hit us. Hashem hits us again. We grieve. We know better. We're optimistic anyway. It's something not unlike fun.

As Tōrah scholars, we are beseeched to insert ourselves into the story. This week, you and I are not only 21st century Jews mourning the mass murder in Palestine done allegedly for our safety; we are Israelites, gazing across the river at that promised land and listening to Mōshe deliver a final soliloquy to prepare us to enter it.

Mōshe recalls asking to see Knaan and being rebuked by Hashem. Mōshe doesn't get to cross the Yardeyn (Jordan) into the land, and is only permitted to look upon it from atop a mountain. This is punishment for the sins of the first generation of wandering Israelites, all of whom have since died; only Mōshe remains, guiding their children. The captain is going down with the ship.

Mōshe reminds the people to follow the laws that Hashem has given them. The 10 commandments are reiterated along with many other rules. Should we fail as Jews and, for example, worship false idols like Zionism, Hashem will kill us and scatter us among hostile nations. Should we return and repent, Hashem will not let us fail or perish, for Hashem is compassionate and will remember the covenant made with our ancestors. This compassion is conditional on our good behavior, and we're subject to collective punishment.

The autistic desire for rules and clarity

Don't worship idols. Don't take oaths in vain. Don't work on Shabos. Honor your parents. Wrap tefilin. Don't test the word of Hashem. Don't covet. Don't kill.

Orthodoxy holds every commandment as sacred and immutable. The rabbis have argued back and forth across centuries, pondering and guessing and "what if"-ing and perfecting the finer points of each mitsve. Some movements see halakha (Jewish law) as just a historical document or an anachronistic set of superstitions, politely indulged but ultimately overruled by modern norms and conveniences. On the contrary, in orthodoxy you can add but you can't subtract. Once something is codified—whether by Hashem in Torah, or by rabbis in the divine act of co-creating halakha—it's there forever.

Maybe I like orthodoxy because I like rules. The structure is appealing but it puts its queer leftists in a tough spot. Orthodoxy is quite blatantly patriarchal, homophobic, and racist. Why engage with a tradition hostile to our identities and values? Why not abandon rabbinic Judaism altogether as we create new Jewish institutions?

As my dear friend Josephine said to me, sometimes the medium is problematic or even hostile, but that's where we're compelled to make art because we can achieve something that we can't elsewhere.

Horror movies. Pop music. Judaism. Did you know that stand-up comedy has its origins in minstrel shows? All of these formats are tainted with exploitation and real violence, but their flaws allow us to be in a point of interesting tension.

To put it another way: we like playing in the mud.

Stalags and the sexualization of the Holocaust

The 1961 Eichmann trial coincided with the advent of Stalag fiction—Israeli erotic pulp about evil-sexy sadistic SS female officers torturing and raping Allied POWs, before they are themselves raped and killed in revenge. This popular smut was consumed mostly by the teenagers: the first generation of native Hebrew speakers and children of Holocaust survivors. While the typical Stalag story didn't involve Jews explicitly—the heroes were captured soldiers from America and England—for the Israeli child reader in the 1960s, "he doesn't think of Poles of Frenchmen. For him, the inmates are all Jews".