We live in a world of binaries, and Jewish teachings and practices have not escaped the binary straitjacket: Creator/Creation; male/female; sacred/profane; Israel/the nations; Jew/non-Jew. In my new book, I approach the task of moving beyond binaries by identifying threes and ‘betweens’ through the medium of readings from the Torah, rabbinic literature, and secondary writings.
I grew up as a middle child, between an older brother and the younger sister, so my life from the outset has been framed by my awareness of ‘threes’, and of being ‘between’. I also grew up as a girl who wanted to be a boy, who embraced radical politics as a teenager, got married at nineteen, came out as a lesbian in my early twenties, and was propelled by engagement in the Women’s Liberation Movement to come out as a Jew, and include myself as a Jewish lesbian in the Jewish community. It was that specific quest that propelled me to apply to Leo Baeck College in 1984 to become a rabbi.
My rabbinate has been dedicated to inclusion and equality, and with increasing numbers of women and LGBTQ+ people becoming rabbis in the past forty years, much has been achieved in this arena within Progressive Judaism. What I had not anticipated when I began my rabbinic journey was the impact of participating in Jewish-Christian-Muslim encounter, which from the time I was a rabbinic student has provided powerful experiences of the complexity of engagement in threes.
This prompted me to explore those Jewish teachings and practices that are not binary, and especially those that are expressed in ‘threes’. In 1995, when I was working as Director of Programmes for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain (which later became the Movement for Reform Judaism), as I crafted a vision of synagogues as centres of Jewish engagement, I took inspiration from a threefold teaching at the beginning of Pirkei Avot, the collection of the wise aphorisms of the early rabbis that is appended to the Mishnah (1.2):
The world stands on three things: on the Torah, and on Avodah (Divine Service), and on G’milut Chasadim (Deeds of Lovingkindness).
In 2003, I began to consider these three key pillars of Jewish life in conjunction with a companion teaching, set out in Pirkei Avot a few paragraphs further on that focuses on concepts with a more universal application (1.18):
The world stands on Din (Justice), and on Emet (Truth), and on Shalom (Peace).
As I did so, I started to devise a framework for Progressive Jewish life, in the form of three ‘compelling commitments’, each with a particularist and a universalist dimension (see, for example, my 2007 booklet, Compelling Commitments: A New Approach to Living as a Liberal Jew, published by Liberal Judaism).
When I returned to writing in December 2021 following my retirement, it became clear to me that I wanted to focus on developing Judaism beyond binaries. I was born and brought up as a Jew, but it is only when I began to learn about Judaism that I became confronted with the extent to which Jewish teaching from the creation narratives in Torah through rabbinic texts is rooted in binary assumptions that not only determine the framework of Jewish life, but render it restrictive. Breaking Binaries is my response to the experience of living as a gender queer lesbian feminist progressive Jew and rabbi in a society dominated by binary impositions and oppositions.
I begin in the book by identifying threes in the Torah and rabbinic texts, and exploring the ways in which mediation by threes is a key feature of Jewish life and practice, including of those festivals that have their origins in the Bible. I extend my treatment of threes to three verbs that, I argue, define Jewish life: doing/making; keeping/guarding; remembering/re-membering. I also explore the Divine, inviting the reader to engage with different biblical portrayals of the Eternal One, and to consider the implications of the assertion of Divine Oneness for our understanding of the Divine and humanity.
I go on to apply a binary-challenging lens to contemporary issues and arenas of practical engagement, starting with those Jewish practices, like havdalah, in which the liminal is a key feature. I then address: gender; Jewish status beyond the Jew/non-Jew binary; the need to breach the ‘Israel versus Palestine’ mindset; the challenge of interfaith engagement; and, finally, the call for human beings to become earthlings for the sake of the planet.
My purpose in Breaking Binaries is to make Jewish sources and practices speak to contemporary issues. My approach invites the reader to wrestle with Jewish texts, and wrest out of them radical new interpretations and practices. The Jewish textual sources, like the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, are repositories of seeds of Torah, which when planted in the soil of contemporary issues and priorities, and nurtured with the nutrients of our interpretations and perspectives generate new trees and fruits of thought and practice. My hope is that readers will discover that engaging with threes, and paying attention to the intimations of the liminal, offers a more versatile and dynamic framework for Jewish life, and for engagement in and with the wider world.
If you are intrigued by this introduction to Breaking Binaries, please contact Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue (email: info@bhps-online.org), and come along to the book launch at the shul on Sunday 22 March at 3pm. After a Q&A with Rabbi Dr Judith Rosen-Berry, and during a celebratory tea, I will be signing copies (for sale at the discount rate of £10).
- Breaking Binaries. A progressive rabbi engages with contemporary issues by Elli Tikvah Sarah. Unusual Publications, 2026, 402 pp. After 22 March, the book can be ordered from www.unusualpublications.com (£15 + £5 p+p).