This was another long, hard winter, with the pandemic continuing, and too much isolation for all of us. Today, on Valentine’s Day, we had flurries of snow here in DC, but the delicate snowdrops are already blooming with the promise of spring.
Valentine’s Day, for me, always means remembering the epic interfaith marriage of my parents. They got married on February 13th, 1960, in a snowstorm in upstate New York. When they woke up the next morning, they ate a one-pound chocolate heart for breakfast on Valentine’s Day together in bed. And every year, for Valentine’s Day, my father drew awkward and hilarious valentines for my mother, and for each of his four children, on the cardboard that came from the dry cleaners with his folded business shirts.
Valentine drawn by William Emanuel Katz
So Valentine’s Day has always been a family tradition for us. Every day for over 50 years of marriage, until death parted them, my parents demonstrated for me the idea that you can have a successful interfaith marriage. All of my work is a tribute to their joy, their creativity, their way of accentuating the positive.
And as a result, I look forward to the fact that I get to retell a bit of their story every year, when I get calls from media wanting to talk about interfaith love stories as Valentine’s Day approaches. This year, I was honored to be part of an hour-long show this weekend about interfaith families, on Interfaith Voices, the radio show broadcast on 90 radio stations across the country. And I have more podcast appearances coming up, so stay tuned.
I am also appearing at more than one interfaith couples workshop this season. My parents taught me that being in an interfaith relationship depends on deep communication skills. So I am always eager to talk to couples just starting out on their journeys together, and to provide them with the tools and advice built into The Interfaith Family Journal.
Even after more than a decade of talking about interfaith families professionally, I am finding new ways to see the world through the lens that is my legacy. Right now, I am putting together a new talk for college students on Complex Identities and Interfaith Relationships, after an invitation to return to Lafayette College this spring. I look forward to bringing that talk to more colleges, universities, and seminaries, so contact me now for 2022 bookings.
And coming up soon, on Sunday February 27th, I have the honor of co-facilitating a completely new interactive workshop with Rabbi Mark Sameth, entitled “Non-Binary God, Non-Binary Spirituality.” Watch this video, in which we get excited about the workshop. And register now to join us. I know my father, the grandson and nephew of rabbis, would have been proud of this new work. He wanted me to be an engineer, like him, but I know he also understood why making space for interfaith families became my calling.
As more young couples continue to move away from institutional religious affiliation, some people have wondered if there is any need for a book (or two) on interfaith families.
And then, just yesterday, I realized once again how relevant this book still is. Mya Guarnieri Jaradat, an author and religion reporter for the Deseret News in Utah, published a lovely and moving piece centered on her Jewish and Muslim family. And I was honored to serve as a source of ideas, counsel, and affirmation, for that piece.
And then, this morning, a new study of the Jewish community in Chicago found 21% of (Jewish) interfaith families raising kids with two religions, as well as 12% of single Jewish parents, and even 1% of Jewish/Jewish parents. (This last category intrigues me. Presumably both parents identify as Jewish, but one or both also practices Buddhism or Paganism, or one or both parents are interfaith kids themselves).
So, even after eight years, and even in the pandemic, new people continue to discover the idea that you can honor more than one religious heritage. And I continue to be invited to engage with new communities, and new experts, as a consultant and speaker sharing my personal experiences as an interfaith kid and adult, and my research on #BeingBoth and #DoingBoth families.
I gave a Shabbat talk on the interfaith family in the Yitro portion (the story of Jethro), for a community with the delightful name, Wandering Jews of Astoria, in NYC.
I made a second appearance on the Interfaith Alliance’s State of Belief radio with Rev. Welton Gaddy, speaking on Love Across Differences, for Valentine’s Day.
I was on the Array of Faith podcast with J. Dana Trent, recorded for her World Religions course in North Carolina. Listen in to Susan Katz Miller: Interfaith Practitioner.
I gave a guest lecture in a Jewish Studies course taught by Rabbi Vanessa Ochs at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville.
I was a guest expert at an Interfaith Couples Workshop, sponsored by the Jewish outreach organization 18doors, in NYC. (They used to be interfaithfamily.com).
I co-facilitated a workshop with Aisha Hauser on Supporting Interfaith Families in Our Communities, at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (UUAGA).
I was a guest on the Tattoos and Torah podcast with Rabbi Iggy Gurin-Malous at the T’Shuvah Center in NYC. We had a marvelous conversation on interfaith, intercultural, bilingual, and LGBTQ relationships, in the contexts of spirituality, addiction and recovery.
And coming up, I have the honor of co-teaching a workshop with Rabbi Mark Sameth, entitled “Non-Binary God, Non-Binary Spirituality.” Watch this video in which we get all excited about the workshop, and register now to join us!
So, yes, Being Both still feels relevant, and important. People from interfaith families are setting new tables, creating new spaces, and changing the way religion and spirituality will be practiced in the United States, and around the world, going forward.
This work is not done. And this work still brings me joy.
Rabbi Mark Sameth’s new book, The Name: A History of the Dual-Gendered Hebrew Name for God, chronicles how the God of ancient Israel was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a non-binary, male-female deity. Recently, I had a chance to ask the Rabbi about his new book, and how it might be particularly relevant to interfaith families.
Q: Your book chronicles the idea that the secret, unpronounceable name for God in ancient Israel is Hu-Hi, or “He-She,” an entity equally male and female. Tell us a bit about the influences of other religions and cultures on this idea of a dual-gendered God in the ancient world.
A: Dual-gendered gods were utterly normative in the ancient world. The Mesopotamians had them, the Egyptians had them. No one questions this. Israel sat between these two ancient regional superpowers. It’s hard to imagine how Israel could not have been influenced by them.
Q: And briefly, how is this idea of a dual-gendered God manifested in the Torah.
A: Well, for instance, in the Book of Deuteronomy it says that God “your Father” (32:6) “convulsed in labor for you,” (32:18) “gave birth to you,” (32:18) and “suckled you” (32:13). And there’s a lot more where that came from, if you can read the Hebrew. Moses addresses God in the second person masculine singular (attah) and the second person feminine singular (at). The adam, the human being — pointedly said to have been created in God’s own image — is referred to as “them” (otam). Indeed, the rabbis took this to mean that the original earth creature had been created as an androgynous being, which was later separated by God into the male and female characters Adam and Eve.
Q: So then, how and why did that male-female aspect of God become suppressed and subsumed? Do you see that suppression as related to power and patriarchy? After all, there are no women commenting on the Torah in texts, until the 20th century.
A: I do wonder about the how and why. But yes, of course. I mean, there were occasional exceptions when women rose to power. Pharaoh Hatshepsut — considered one of the greatest of the pharaohs — was a woman, as of course was Deborah in Israel. In the early twentieth century, Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, known as the Maid of Ludomir, was a Chassidic master. But again, these were the rare exceptions. Gerda Lerner, some thirty years ago, wrote that “the system of patriarchy is a historic construct; it has a beginning; it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course—it no longer serves the needs of men or women and in its inextricable linkage to militarism, hierarchy, and racism it threatens the very existence of life on earth.” Amen, late sister.
Q: We are in the midst of a dramatic shift in American culture in which individuals who have non-binary gender identities are telling their stories, creating space, and rising to leadership. How much did you think about this, while writing this book, and how is your book and this historical moment intertwined?
A: I have to say that, at first, I wasn’t thinking about it at all. I was really just trying to figure out the puzzle; trying to figure out why, in Hebrew, the Torah is gendered the way it is (men are referred to in the feminine; women are referred to in the masculine). It was only later that I began to consider how this intertwines with stories in my own family — stories about one pioneering, transgender cousin in particular, as well as about elderly gay and lesbian cousins who had been closeted their whole lives — and, as you say, how this intertwines with the historical moment. That’s chapter seven of my book.
Q: I think for many progressive Jewish leaders, it has become relatively comfortable to speak about the intersectionality of being a feminist and Jewish, or gay and Jewish, or Italian and Jewish, or Black and Jewish. But when interfaith families want to talk about the enriching and formative effects on us of Hinduism and Judaism, or Paganism and Judaism, or, heavens forbid, Christianity and Judaism, the room goes silent. Has your historical work changed the way you see interfaith families who insist on teaching their children, or practicing, more than one religion?
A: It has. In Hinduism, the six-sided Shatkona star — in form and meaning — is indistinguishable from the Magen David (Jewish Star of David). They symbolize the intersection of male and female energy. As does the six-sided star of Shintoism, the Kagome Crest. Paganist reverence for the physical world is not alien to Judaism. The Chassidim teach what’s called avodah b’gashmiut, “bodily prayer.” Mystery — which we associate with Christianity — was central to how Jews did religion. The Zohar was considered a holy book, on par with the Torah, until historical circumstances (the Shabbatai Tzvi debacle, a story for another time) made Jewish mysticism seem too dangerous. So when you ask about teaching our children more than one religion, I think it’s worth considering that very important, spiritually essential, core Jewish beliefs and practices — such as non-dualism, body-centrism, and mysticism — have been nurtured in non-Jewish communities, and in some of our Jewish communities have been lifted up again only as people who grew up elsewhere have entered into contact, alliance, and sometimes affiliation with us.
Q: In interacting with interfaith families, religious institutions often present the idea that different religions are completely distinct, and that to be authentic, one must practice them in some pure, unadulterated, static form. In contrast, as with gender identities, many people from interfaith families see their religious identity as more “both/and,” or hybrid, or non-binary. It may not be a coincidence that a growing percentage of young adults are no longer affiliating with religious congregations (of any religion). I find religious scholars like yourself often understand the complexity and shades-of-grey realities of the history and culture of religions, and how interfaith families might be claiming that complexity. But how would religious institutions need to change to accommodate this kind of thinking? And is that going to happen?
A: Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, may his memory be for a blessing, said a religion is like a cell. If anything can pass through the membrane, the cell dies. If nothing can pass through the membrane, the cell dies. I think it would behoove religious institutions to bear in mind that there’s no such thing as “pure, unadulterated, static” religion. It never existed; it doesn’t exist today. Religions — like all other eco-systems and organisms — evolve. And they keep on evolving. The Jewish community is evolving toward a greater awareness of and appreciation for how much the community is enriched by all the panim chadashot — all the new faces, new talents, new perspectives.
Binaries will always exist, of course. You and I are speaking just after a presidential election, right? Not everything can be both/and. Sometimes we have no choice but to make a choice. Having said that, the families of the president-elect and vice-president-elect alone comprise — in addition to a host of ethnic and racial backgrounds and blends — Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Jews, Hindus, and Baptists.
Welcome to America. Seeing the opportunities, approaching each other with openness and curiosity, wondering what we might learn from each other, developing a nuanced sense of what religions are capable at their best of doing — all of this can all help us progress as humans, individually and collectively. Is it going to happen? It’s happening.
Being Both 