Metaphors in the Torah: “Homosexuality”

Throughout this series of articles, we have repeatedly discussed the connection between: first fruits of the field, first born sons and the word of God in relation to the Holy day of Shavout.

One of the things few people pay attention to is that the Torah says the 7 peoples living in Canaan at the time of the Exodus were being expelled from the land because of sexual perversions. These perversions are listed in: Leviticus 17.

What the Torah specifically states is that these actions: “defile” the land or “make it impure”.

In a previous article we mentioned that the New Testament misquotes the Torah and refers to “un clean” foods, whereas, in fact, the Torah speaks of “impure” foods.

Another point previously discussed was that, in my personal opinion: “a blessing” refers to: “people who are able to hear the words of the Lord” and: “a curse” refers to people who are un-able to hear the words of the Lord”.

Okay, so then what all this seems to imply is that: “a man who has sexual relations with a man cannot hear the words of the Lord”. Interestingly, a woman who has sexual relations with a woman is not mentioned; nor is she cursed.

Regardless: we have to ask: Why are homosexual relations cursed?

Let us just clarify that when we say: “to hear the words of God” we are speaking of some form of internal communication; not  literal oratory coming out of the sky. Perhaps it might be better to say: “to hear the voice of God”. So, in the Old Testament, we have as examples the conversations between God and Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Elijah and a few others…(In fact: Plato claimed that Socrates heard this "inner voice").

One of the keys to this “mystery” is in the word the Torah uses for “sex” which is actually the word for: “to know”.

Another important aspect to consider is that Sarah, despite being 76 years old in the story of Pharaoh and 89 years old in the story of Abimelech, is both times described as being “beautiful” and "sexually attractive". Really ?

Obviously, something else is being alluded to and we are not speaking about literal sex.

Finally, we have the commandments about the priesthood being required to marry virgins and the insistence of the Christian churches that Mary: the mother of Jesus was a virgin.

Along these same lines, the Israelites are told that it is okay to marry a Medianite if she is a virgin, but if she is not a virgin then she must be put to death. So, as an aside, we must ask: How can Judaism pass thru the mother if the Israelites were permitted to marry 16,000 Medianite virgins?

The answer to all these questions, I believe, can be found in the story of Jacob and Rachel. Rachel is un-able to get pregnant and Jacob angrily shouts out to her: “Am I in place of God and preventing fruit from entering your womb?” Thus we can see from this example that the commandment: "to be fruitful and multiply" has nothing to do with increasing the population, but is, in fact, speaking about increasing one's knowledge about God.

In the opening lines of this article we mentioned the connection between: a first born son, first fruits of the field and the word of God.

Sarah, Leah, Rachel and all of the women in the Torah should be considered: “spiritual mediums”, hence God tells Abraham: “to heed the voice of Sarah”.

Sex is a metaphor for asking God questions or making requests for knowledge. Accordingly, in modern times people still pray at their beds and in ancient times there were either temple prostitutes or temple virgins.

Originally, Adam was alone. Then God said that it was not “good” for Adam to be alone and created a woman for him as a helper.

The key to this story is that the woman is made from the rib bone of Adam and the Hebrew word for “bone” shares the same root as the word for “advisor” and “tree” (In many other articles we have pointed out that “a tree” is a metaphor for either: “a teacher” or: “a prophet”).

We have also noted that there is a connection between “being blessed” and “receiving communications from God”. Finally, traditionally, God is always associated with the concept of “goodness” (i.e. God is good).

If it is not “good” for Adam to be alone and the function of the “woman” is to help him, then what this implies is that the woman helps Adam to gain greater understanding about God thru sex.

The second aspect to consider here is that after eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we are told that the first change in Adam and Eve was that they realized they were naked. The second change was that they covered themselves with the leaves of a fig tree.

In other words: God is good and, in the beginning, Adam was inspired only by God and looked only to God as his sole source of knowledge. So, Adam already had the “good” part of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating the fruit, he then acquired the knowledge of evil (i.e. he became aware of himself).

In the story of Gideon’s sons, a parable is given about trees and it is said that “the fig” is a “good fruit”. Since we have established in many articles in this series that: “fruit” is a metaphor for: “knowledge” and we have just demonstrated the connection between “God” and “goodness”, this would then suggest that “a fig” represents: “knowledge about God”.

Thus, by selecting the leaves of a fig tree to cover their nakedness, Adam and Eve are attempting to make themselves appear to be sources of knowledge about God; whereas in reality they are deceptive sources of knowledge about God because the Hebrew word for: “naked” also means: “deceptive” or “cunning”. To reinforce this point it should be remembered that God replaced these fig leaves with the skins of animals (i.e. dead meat). We have shown in other articles that "meat" in Hebrew also means: "religious preachings" and, of course, anything dead has no understanding. Thus, by dressing Adam and Eve with these new "garments" God, in effect, is saying: "These two people are not sources of knowledge about God; they are sources of knowledge about nothing". 

In conclusion then, a man is supposed to seek knowledge about God thru his wife and the sexual act. The woman is a spiritual medium created by God to help man “know” more about God’s ways. Sarah is described as both: “beautiful” and “sexually attractive”, not because this 89 year old woman won the “Miss Mesopotamia Beauty Pageant”, but because “beauty” and “sexual attractiveness” are metaphors to describe how much spiritual power a medium possesses.

A sheep is always connected to the word of God and the name of the beautiful "Rachel" means: “a female sheep” (i.e. an ewe). Later, the beautiful Bathsheba will be compared to a lamb in a parable given by the Prophet Nathan and, Bathsheba, of course, goes on to become the mother of the wisest Jew who ever lived.

Hence: metaphorically speaking, “a man using another man as a woman” means “men seeking knowledge about God from men”.

The land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a place where men were supposed to learn God’s ways and to become closer to God. Homosexuality, is then described as a perversion and given as the reason men were expelled from the land. The implication is clear: The people of Canaan stopped seeking answers from God and, as Adam and Eve did, began to look only to themselves as sources of knowledge. Both groups were expelled from their respective lands