Trembling Before G-D: An Interview with the Director, Part II
Steven I. Weiss
January 1, 2002
Last Issue, The Commentator's Steven I Weiss sat down to interview "Trembling Before G-D" Director Simcha Dubowski. The second half of that interview is printed here.
SIW: Have you noticed an effect outside the Jewish community, say in the Catholic community?
SSD: Before, [I'd like to talk about] what we're doing in the Charedi community. We started an outreach television project to bring monitors to ultra-orthodox homes and offices for private, closed-door screening [at which we had], like, 40 people, who were Chasidic, Ultra-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox, who were arguing until two-thirty in the morning, and out of that, we got two offers to do private screenings in Boro Park and one in Flatbush. We're bringing it to a lot of people who won't go to a movie theater and don't have a television.
So, you'd asked an Ultra-Orthodox/Modern Orthodox question [see Issue V], and we're organizing a few more things right now; and, in Israel right now, we just had a discussion with a few Orthodox rabbis who'd seen the film. We had, at this Orthodox dialogue [in New York], Rabbi Haskel Lookstein came, and he just stood up and invited us to screen it at KJ, and is going to speak to his sex-education sophomore class about the film.
So, now that you're asking about the non-Jewish community, I think, yeah, it's developed beyond what we'd imagined, in terms of what kind of impact had on the non-Jewish world, that we didn't realize. There was even a guy who came up to me at Sundance and said, 'I'm from Pakistan, I'm Muslim, and I'm straight. Give me a hug.' And he didn't want to let go, and he said, 'you know what? I'm straight, I'm from Pakistan, I'm Muslim; this movie is about my life.' And we had a woman in Florida stand up, she was an African-American, she was a preacher, and she said, 'I thought I was coming to see a film about other people. This film is about my Pentecostal upbringing.'
So there [are] a lot of people who grew up in non-Jewish communities that are completely connecting with this film, and where I thought we'd have more of a Jewish/gay dialogue at Sundance, we had people excommunicated by the Church driving in from all over the state. We had a Mormon mother who called 1,500 Mormon families with HIV positive children who'd died, and talked to them. We had a family come [to a discussion] with two babies and nobody understood why that family was there and the husband raised his hand and said 'y'know, I had a boyfriend before I got married. I though if I devoted myself to the Church, I thought this would go away, well, five years later, I have these two babies, and it's not going away. My wife and I don't know what to do.'
We brough a Jesuit gay priest to Berlin, had a Catholic/Jewish/gay dialogue in Germany. He'd just left the priesthood. But I think I'm proud is that we did the first ever Shabbat at Sundance. And we kashered a kitchen in the middle of Park City Utah. And we had, like, all these people, and Rabbi Steve Greenberg led it, and it was full of speaking, brachot, and divrei Torah, and there were people there who grew up Orthodox and went to yeshiva and really connected, and there were straight people, lesbian/gay people, and one woman came who grew up frum in England and brought her girlfriend who grew up a fundamentalist Christian in California. It was just wild, we had, y'know, celebrities, people who were Jewish that came from Salt Lake City, gay, straight, formerly Orthodox, it was amazing.
We did the same thing in Berlin, in East Berlin, we looked for a kosher restaurant, which, obviously, there isn't, so we kashered the kitchen, and we had all kinds, holocaust survivors breaking bread with German gay Christians. So, there's also kind of a kiruv element here. There is also just a lot of people who aren't Jewish, but just are inspired. And it makes me feel, like, wow, this [kiruv] experience is what I didn't expect, but I do it, and there are Jews who just haven't been able to have their chance as Jews. I think, ironically, Orthodox gay Jews are just aware of other kinds [of Jews], and it allows a lot of people to enter. More Shabbats!
SIW: In the film, there isn't much of a portrayal of the people who made the subjects feel ostracized, either the parents or the community leaders or whoever it was, was that by choice or necessity?
SSD: Well, first of all, there were no Orthodox parents, worldwide, who would be in the film. We tried for six years to find any Orthodox parents who would be interviewed. But I think through the phone call with Malka's father, with Israel's father, and through the tshuva ceremony, you entered into the guys on the street, the Chasidim in the beginning, you get a sense of what people are up against. So, unfortunately, I had to be in touch with these indirectly. And also, I think, among the rabbis, there is a search of like...I'm not out to make kind of, y'know, the demonic rabbis and the saintly gay people; it's really not like that. There are people who are all Jews, who are all struggling together to find answers to this, to find a way that we alleviate pain and suffering.
Of course there's people who've behaved horribly, but I wanted to show the range of responses, and I think in a way, Rabbi Langer, whom David goes to meet after twenty years is the epitome of really what's happening. People want to be compassionate, they see Jews suffering, and they want to help, but they don't know how, because they, the rabbis and orthodox Jews are faced with what they imagine is a very strict halachic prohibition, and they don't know how to get around it. So it's trying to balance the halacha with the human impact, that's what's so hard. And, in the end, Rabbi Langer does something that's not common, which is saying, "I don't know." It's assumed that everyone should always have the answer, and I think this is maybe gonna pose these questions, and allow the answers to emerge.
The film doesn't give answers, because it's not that simple. And I also didn't feel, like, film is not the proper medium for halacha, y'know, halachic questions need to be decided through a text, and gedolim and poskim, and it's not, like, film is a timepiece, a narrative medium. In the same kind of vein, the film doesn't grapple much, halachically.
SIW: What do you see as the impact of your film for the college-aged Jew?
SSD: Frum or non-frum?
SIW: I guess both.
SSD: Umm, it's very funny, because we have college-aged kids who are asking us 'how do you convert to Judaism?' So, for the Jews, we have people coming to events, and for them it's really moving, and exciting, and they want to get involved, because there's a real change happening in the community. And I think that, although this isn't necessarily the case, younger Orthodox Jews have much more contact with homosexuality, they grew up in an era where it was really in the media, and it was out there in public, and lots of them know people who are gay. So, I think it's going to allow the next generation of Jews to be more understanding and more welcoming and more open. And for people who are lesbian or gay, they won't feel like the only option is to get married or leave the community.
We're showing the film at probably every college campus, and we've gotten so many requests from Hillels and college campuses. So it'll be really interesting to see the dialogue between Jewish communities on the college campus. I saw a bit of that already at Harvard, at the Harvard Hillel, and it just inspired hours and hours of conversation among people.
SIW: Steve Greenberg came to speak at Yeshiva a couple of years ago, and his halachic interpretation was not met with a lot of enthusiasm. Do you personally see his halachic interpretation as something valid or something worth exploring?
SSD: I definitely think the halachic investigation is valid. I mean, that's what we do, as Jews, we turn over sources, we pose questions, creative questions. So the problem is, I don't think anyone knows what he's writing, because the book isn't published. Until the book is published, I don't think people have anything to argue with. Because nothing yet exists until it's really on paper, and people can sit down with a 270-page book. I think people are really reacting out of fear.
But, I mean, I...it's really hard for me to say, because I've only heard pieces, and I'm not a posek, I'm not a rabbi, I'm not necessarily trained halachically in the way that other people are, so I'm really curious that when the book does come out, that there can be some very serious grappling with the sources. Because there are some very valid questions, which are, for example, if every man has an obligation to fulfill pru u'rvu, and you, as a gay person who tried to change for years and can't, and failed, then what do you do? How do you then fulfill pru u'rvu, if the only way is to get married and have children? So if you can't get married and have children, then are there other ways to define pru u'rvu? What happens then to whole question of spilling seed? I feel like there are very legitimate question, like, 'if you get married, if you're supposed to get married, are you supposed to tell her or hide it from her?' That's something that would make a marriage invalid.
In fact, there's a straight, Charedi rabbi, who's about to publish a book on homosexuality, and I think it's going to argue around these questions. So Rabbi Steven Greenberg is not the only one who's going to halachically investigate this. He may be the more controversial one, who may offer a more radical type of interpretation, but I think it'll be interesting to ask these questions again in five years. So, why is male homosexuality prohibited in the torah? Or even, is there homosexuality in the Torah, [since] it's commonly referred to as penetration, mishkav zachar? So then the question for people in regards to homosexuality isn't the prohibition same-sex loving, but certain sexual acts. Because there is no prohibition against lesbianism, according to most rabbis, in the Torah; it's a rabbinic prohibition. So, if penetration between men is really the problem, then why? I there is room to investigate it. Once his words are on paper, and published, then they can learn much more about how to grapple with these issues. Or, if they don't agree with him, how to rebut it.
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