To Whom It May Concern,
I am a rabbi at Columbia University and a graduate of Beis Midrash Gavoah in Lakewood, NJ.
I have transgender students, transgender congregants, and I have a transgender child. As Jewish educators, we don’t teach Torah, in that the Torah doesn’t need us as a rebbe. Rather, we teach children, God’s children – in God’s dwelling place, the classroom. We are taught in Shabbos 119b that God’s house in Jerusalem was only destroyed because schoolchildren were diverted from learning Torah. The Maharal observes that the purity and holiness of schoolchildren is greater than that of the Holy Temple. He explains that the wood and stones of the Temple are limited in their ability to accept holiness by their finite physical nature. By contrast, children, possessing an eternal soul, have an expansive capacity to hold God’s holiness through Torah learning. When the Jewish People prevented schoolchildren from being the natural receptacle of Torah that they are, it showed that they were not sensitive enough to appreciate even the lower level holiness of the Temple, and were therefore unworthy of it.
What do our actions say about our understanding of the Torah, which doesn’t itself have a soul, when we deny its intended purpose, which is to be learned by the souls of God’s children? We are only worthy to teach Torah when we can appreciate the holiness and goodness of those whom we are teaching. All of God’s children are equally loved and entitled to the inheritance of a Jewish education, because they are the holiest among us.
No child should be denied admission based on gender identity. Further, Jewish schools should be welcoming, respectful, and affirming of the gender identities expressed by students. This means at least assuring safe and comfortable bathroom access, usage of preferred pronouns, and gender-affirming application of school dress codes.
The divine mandate to teach Torah comes with the holy responsibility to teach it properly – holding in our hearts that each child’s most pronounced identity is being created in the image of God.
- Rabbi Mike Moskowitz