Parshat Ki Teitzei

SERMON   PARASHAT  KI TEITZEI / VERMONT PRIDE SHABBAT September 5, 2025

Rabbi David Edleson     Temple Sinai   South Burlington, Vermont

The other night,  I was working on this service handout while Tim was watching his reality TV program du jour,  THE CHALLENGE ALL-STARS RIVALS.    In this season, the contestants have to work in pairs of rivals, and one pair were named “Adam and Steve.”  As I’m sitting there deep in formatting this service handout, I kept hearing “Adam and Steve,” over and over, and it started to irritate me.   It took me a second but then it hit me:  it was the old  protest signs against gay marriage: “Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve.”  Remember those? 

Remember during the fight for gay marriage, many people on the right were convinced that gay marriage would destroy marriage as we know it, and the result would be massive divorce rate and the end of American life and Western civilization as we know it.  

Well, I suppose I should say “thank you.”  I wish we were that powerful. To think that a small minority of people have the mythic power to destroy civilization is almost flattering.  As if heterosexuals aren’t perfectly capable of divorce all on their on, but based their decisions on whether or not that gay couple up the street was married or just living in sin. 

If we were so powerful, I don’t think we’d be living through what we are living through right now.  The LGBT community is under a very well-organized attack, and it is particularly focused on the trans community.   Trans people are about 1% of the US population,  and while that number is rising,  to hear some people tell it, that small percentage of people is the greatest threat to American civilization, from sports to marriage to motherhood to the holy of holies – public bathrooms, and whatever our individual opinions are about this or that issue related to trans and gay issues, it is clear that a very small number of  incidents that are used to hype up fear and hate against that community. 

This experience is very familiar to the Jewish community.  I feel the same way sometimes when people say “Jews control America,”  Or “Jews control the world.”   I wish!   We’re 2% of the population here, and .2% of the population worldwide.

Jews know from this pattern.  Throughout our history, our tiny minority has been blamed for every social and political ill, from the fall of Rome to the rise of Communism, and Capitalism and that pattern is more true today than ever where a tiny nation the size of New Jersey is somehow responsible for all the sins of the West.   That the only Jewish nation is made to be the infection that is threatening the good people of Western society, it is not at all new to us.  That is what we have been called through Western history.  

Being made a scapegoat for the world’s problems is something our two communities understand deeply and it should be a place of mutual support and understanding.   This pattern of blaming huge social tensions and rifts on tiny minorities is profoundly dangerous to our communities for three key reasons. 

·      First, it endangers both of our communities physically and emotionally. 

·      Second, it takes attention away from attempts to actually address some of the problems plaguing the larger society.   

·      Thirdly, it gets in the way of keeping strong alliances between our communities. 

That third one is key.  One of the key tactics being used in this attack is finding issues that might divide the community.  In the LGBTQ world, focusing so clearly on trans people is intended to drive a wedge between them and the gay and lesbian community.   It subtly divides us into “good” gays and “dangerous” queers.  It makes those with more privilege feel “in”.

There are similar strategies at work in the Jewish community, dividing us into ‘good’ Jews and ‘bad’ Jews, and both sides see the other side as the threat instead of realizing we are both being used in a strategy that is not at all about us.

And we in our communities are allowing ourselves to be divided as allies for one another.  I would like to say this is about the war in Gaza, but as the reading we did points out, it goes back long before.  

That’s how wedge issues work in political systems:  they divide the opposition and turn factions against one another. They are succeeding, and we are part of the problem.  

Our own sense of danger often results in our communities fanning the flames by being reactive and speaking in apocalyptic terms. Our histories of trauma and violence make us reactive.  Our deeply held values are being played to turn us against one another.  We need to pull back and recognize when our sensitivities and fears are being used to divide us, as they are now.  

Both our communities are a tiny fraction of the places we live and those who oppose our rights know how to divide us and they have been much better at doing that than we have been at solidarity.   Here at Temple Sinai, we hold on to that solidarity despite the challenges, because we know that by lifting one another up, we both do better.  That is why we are marching in the Pride parade on Sunday despite the challenges and fears.  We can’t let those who would attack us both divide us. 

Shabbat Shalom.