sing it like a love poem

There are many beautiful verses in this week’s parsha, Acharei Mot, and yet it is best known for its most perverse teaching. Leviticus 18:22 reads, “Man shall not lie with a man as he does with a woman, it is an abomination.” The Hebrew word for abomination is To’evah - and I have a piece of art in my office with just that word. This verse has been used to shame and scar generations of Queer Jews. 

A few years ago a colleague of mine, Rabbi Guy Austrian, gave a very memorable d’var Torah on this week’s parsha that did not redeem the verse, or reverse the harm, but did give me a way to relate to this and many other painful verses in Torah. 

Rather than wrestling with the translation or interpretation, he opted to wrestle with the trope, the melody with which they are sung. Classically there are six different melodies with which we sing the Torah. The most common is of course the trope we use on weekdays, shabbat and holidays. In addition, we often hear the Haftarah for the prophetic readings and the special trope for the High Holidays. And but once a year we get to hear the special trope of Lamentations on Tisha B’av, Esther on Purim, and if we are lucky the three megillot that are ready on the festivals of Passover (Song of Songs), Shavuot (Ruth) and Sukkot (Ecclesiates). 

That particular Shabbat, Rabbi Guy posited: what happens to this verse if we make it a lament and read it in Eicha trope? What happens if we eroticize it and sing it in the trope of Song of Songs? Can we flip it on its head with the playful trope of the Purim megillah? Can we give it gravitas with the Days of Awe trope? 

Changing the melody was an unexpected way to reclaim agency over this verse in Torah. To reclaim queer sexuality and sing it as a love poem. To reclaim queer grief and cry out in lament. 
The one thing I wasn’t able to do was make it into prophecy and sing it like the Haftarah. I offer you all of these options as a way to heal this part of Torah.  

Honestly, these days this verse hurts less than many others. The treacherous teachings about the sotah waters, the instruction to stone the rebellious child, the endless chapters of conquest in the land. 

Which is why, despite being musically challenged, I think it is so beautiful and important that we chant the words of Torah week after week. To remind ourselves that their meaning is not static. Every Torah service truly is an act of revelation. What Torah “means” is contextual, impacted by the reader, the teacher, the time, and as it turns out, the trope. 

Torah is a tree of life, and we give voice to its evolving truths. How might we sing our way back into the painful verses of Torah?  What might that teach us about how to relate to the harm and contradiction present in other parts of our lives? 

In this complex political moment, Rabbi Mó pointed me to another verse in Torah, a prayer which is typically sung as a way to bless the places we gather. It emerges from the book of Numbers (24:5) and blesses the places where we pitch our tents. These words have taken on new meaning in this time, in which college students are bravely rising up and calling for divestment on college campuses around the country. 

מַה טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ, יַעֲקֹב; מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ, יִשְׂרָאֵל
Ma tovu ohalekha Ya'akov, mishk'notekha Yisra'el.
How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; your encampments, O Israel!

In singing these words, may we like Balaam, transform the harshness in our hearts, and in the world, into blessings for protection.