Dover Emet: Speaking the Truth

METRO WEEKLY Leap of Faith: An interview with Rabbi Gil Steinlauf Last fall, Rabbi Gil Steinlauf of Adas Israel Synagogue sent an email to his congregation. He told them he was gay. (And it was good.) By Randy Shulman on May 28, 2015   Rabbi Gil Steinlauf – Photography by Todd Franson “I’m not going to go on record as saying Moses was gay.” Rabbi Gil Steinlauf says this with a laugh — he laughs often and warmly, it turns out — but he’s also quite serious in response to a reporter’s offhand remark that Moses could be viewed as history’s first gay activist. “But the story of Moses is a kind of coming out story,” Steinlauf says. “He grew up as a Prince of Egypt in the house of Pharaoh, completely in the center of power. Yet, he was nursed by his Israelite mother, so he knew that he had this secret identity. He lived in inner-conflict over those two worlds, those two identities of himself, until he finally came to a head when he killed an Egyptian who was oppressi...

http://tabletmag.com/scroll/190732/why-embracing-same-sex-marriage-is-modern-american-and-jewish Embracing Same-Sex Marriage is Modern, American—and Jewish Ruth Bader Ginsburg says unions, once defined by gender dominance, are fundamentally changed. It’s time for the Jewish community to catch up. By  Gil Steinlauf | May 4, 2015 10:18 AM The  proceedings  about same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court last  Tuesday  began on a tense note. I was there. Almost immediately, Justice Roberts asserted that we are talking not simply about expanding marriage to include same-sex couples, but about fundamentally redefining marriage in America. The term “millennia” was echoed around among the justices: Hasn’t marriage “for millennia” been defined as a union between a man and a woman? Who are we to suddenly change it?  As a rabbi present for the deliberations, I found it remarkable that the justices seemed to speak of marriage in such binary term...