כְּמַעֲשֵׂ֧ה אֶֽרֶץ־מִצְרַ֛יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר יְשַׁבְתֶּם־בָּ֖הּ לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֑וּ וּכְמַעֲשֵׂ֣ה אֶֽרֶץ־כְּנַ֡עַן אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲנִי֩ מֵבִ֨יא אֶתְכֶ֥ם שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּ וּבְחֻקֹּתֵיהֶ֖ם לֹ֥א תֵלֵֽכוּ׃

You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their laws.

Leviticus 18:3

Discussion Questions

1. Where could queer women be “hiding” in the passage?
2. How does accounting for queer women impact the meaning of the text?
3. What are the broader implications of this passage and its commentary?

Supplementary Material

And even according to the opinion of Rabbi Elazar, who said that an unmarried man who has intercourse with an unmarried woman not for the sake of marriage renders her a zona, a woman who has had sexual relations with a man forbidden to her by the Torah, this applies only to intercourse with a man, but lewd behavior with another woman is mere licentiousness that does not render her a zona, and therefore she is still permitted to marry into the priesthood.

Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 76a:9

מצרים וכמעשה ארץ כנען לא תעשו”, יכול לא יבנו בנינים ולא יטעו נטיעות כמותם? תלמוד לומר “ובחוקותיהם לא תלכו” – לא אמרתי אלא בחוקים החקוקים להם ולאבותיהם ולאבות אבותיהם. ומה היו עושים? האיש נושא לאיש והאשה לאשה. האיש נושא אשה ובתה, והאשה נישאת לשנים. לכך נאמר “ובחוקותיהם לא “תלכו

If “As the deed of the land of Egypt and as the deed of the land of Canaan, you shall not do,” I might think they should not build or plant as they do; it is, therefore, written (Ibid.) “and in their statutes you shall not walk.” I have proscribed for you only those statutes which were instituted for them and for their forefathers and for the fathers of their forefathers. What did they do? A man would wed a man, and a woman, a woman. A man would wed a woman and her daughter, and a woman would wed two — wherefore Scripture states “and in their statutes you shall not walk.”

Midrash, Sifra, Acharei Mot, Section 8:8

נשים המסוללות (פי’ המשחקות ומתחככות זו בזו) אסור ממעשה ארץ מצרים שהוזהרנו עליו וראוי להכותן מכת מרדות הואיל ועשו איסור ויש לאיש להקפיד על אשתו מדבר זה ומונע הנשים הידועות בכך מלהכנס לה ומלצאת היא אליהן

Women who rub up on each other is forbidden, from it being like that of the forbidden sexual actions of the Egyptians (cf. Lev. 18:3), upon which we were warned. And it is appropriate to strike them with disciplinary flogging since they have committed a prohibited action. And there is for a man to be careful about his wife’s activities in this regard and to hold back women who are known to be involved in this from coming into see his wife or for her to visit them.

Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 20:2

“The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.”

Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Sister Outsider

The fundamental source of Jewish law, the Torah, does not ban, punish, or even refer explicitly to lesbian behavior of any kind.

Elaine Chapnik, “‘Women Known for These Acts’ Through the Rabbinic Lens: A Study of Hilchot Lesbiut,” Keep Your Wives Away From Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires

Commentary

Rivka Session (Summer 2019)

Due to the prohibition of writing on Shabbat, this session was never recorded in written, audio, or video form.

Leah Session (Shavuot 2021)

Fire

This text both prohibits lesbian relations but also appears to want to dissmiss them as foreign and unimportant, there is a sense of wanting to minimise the threat

Doesn’t want to view it as a big deal

Calling this egyptian/cannanite suggests that jewish women would never do this of our own accord – which is insane because have you seen us

There is also a suggestion that all other nations do this except isrealite

The use of the term licentiousness highlights the male perspective on lesbian relationships and the penis-centric veiw on sexuality

The disparity between these texts highlights how lesbians strain the normal ways women are catigorised, they cannot condemn lesbians as “whores” without validating non male centric sexuality yet clearly lesbians do not fit in the “Maddona” catagory either

What do these guys even know about egypt

This is a lot like a middle school debate about if lesbains can only loose half of their virginity men will record their every passing thought to be recorded for mellenia

Spirit

People who think that penis in vagina sex is the be all end all deserve pity, not better sex
What a man does to a woman renders her zona, nothing that she does herself
Women are simultaneously innocent and threatening – straight women are objects with no agency, queer women are threatening and predatory
You don’t know how to contain powerful women, who are willing to be open about their sexuality and their desires
The part of womanhood that is scary and nobody understands – must not be spoken of
Giving the entire subject a wide berth
Queer womanhood as foreign and other – homophobic trope, that behavior belongs to our enemies, we don’t have that here in our culture
Where are the queer women in this text? the underlying thing is that women who are queer are not willing to be molded by expectations of womanhood are scary because they don’t know what to do with us
Attempts to control what is otherwise uncontrollable
How many mitzvot go right out the window when you have women with self-respect? (a lot of them)
So many traditions rely on misogyny – separate roles, separate spheres, for cis men and cis women, and the cis men have the more significant roles. misogyny is the substrate of tradition, a whole lot of our traditions would be totally different or gone entirely without it
Queer women may not hate that disciplinary flogging too much – male rabbis getting to decide punishment for women without considering the desires or fears of women (queer women especially)
Rules around sex being simultaneously limiting and liberating

Water

This passage demonstrates that dangerous and harmful rules can occur when the room where decisions are made are exclusionary. With the power of Det. 30:12-14, we declare ourselves sages in conversation with the other commentators on Let. 18.3.
What exactly are the practices we are saying should be prohibited (polytheism, slavery, idolatry, etc)? In fact, the problematic behaviors we are to abstain from are the inequality and conquest of Egyptian and Canaanite society.