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This chapter presents the account of twelve scouts—one man from each Israelite ancestral tribe—who were commanded to survey the land of Canaan. The scouts returned to the Israelite camp enraptured by the beauty of land, saying “it does indeed flow with milk and honey,” however, they were also terrified by the giant settlers of the land—the Anakites. Even as God had promised the Israelites that they shall overcome the Anakites, the spies succumb to doubts and refused to fight. The contrast between the giants and the spies represents the duality between the Normative versus the Other. Specifically, the act of coming out and living as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender can be likened to a territorial battle for autonomy and self-definition against dominant culture—the gigantic power and privilege of mainstream thinking.

This chapter discusses lesbian sex in the readings of Parashat Emor of Leviticus. The text state that a priest “shall not marry a woman defiled by harlotry, nor shall they marry one divorced from her husband for they are holy to God.” In the Talmud, there is a connection drawn between the word “harlotry” (liznot or zonah) and the term mesolelot, which in contemporary translations is also rendered as “sexual lewdness.” In a 12th-century commentary, mesolelot was defined as women rubbing their vaginas together. This lesbian sexuality is seen as a “minor infraction,” since such sexual act was foreign or inconsequential to the Biblical authors and that historically Jewish sexuality is a heterosexual man's world.

This chapter critiques the homosexual discrimination as noted in the readings of Parashat Acharei Mot of Leviticus: “You shall not lie with a man as a man lies with a woman; it is an abomination.” Science has demonstrated that discrimination against gays and lesbians culminate to higher rates of suicide, smoking, and depression, together with many other threats to the physical and psychological well-being of queer individuals. In addition, given that the Talmud declares that “it is not good for a person to live alone,” and commands one to honor others, it is clearly a dishonor to gays and lesbians to prohibit them to be with their desired partners, and to label their sexual acts as an abomination.

This chapter presents the Parashat Re'eh of Deuteronomy, which forbids Israelites to “add nor take away” any of the precepts of God. Rabbis have been violating this command by applying unfounded prohibitions to same-sex relationships. For instance, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 have been interpreted expansively to ban any kind of sex, sexual relations, or expressions of intimate desire between people of the same sex. However, scholarly interpretations of the text state that it only forbids a particular type of male-male sex. Moreover, although lesbians are not referenced directly in the Torah, most contemporary Orthodox rabbis prohibits women to love other women.