The Body of a Man with the Soul of a Woman: What Judaism Can Teach Us About Being Transgender

Dec 1, 2021 | Sexuality & Gender

Written by Shuli Elisheva

We begin each week on Saturday night by marveling at God’s ability to distinguish binaries: “Hamavdil bein kodesh lechol, bein or lechoshech, bein yisrael la’amim, bein yom hashevi’i lesheshet yemei hama’aseh” (“the one who distinguishes between holy and secular, between light and dark, between Jews and non-Jews, between the Seventh Day and the Six Days of Work”). As I prepare to undergo gender affirmation surgery – a process that transforms one kind of genitals into another – I ponder this blessing. How can we, humans, speak with certainty of “male” vs. “female”, when only God can understand binaries?

Judaism, one might argue, is all about binaries. Binaries infuse our language, our laws, and our very conceptions of nature. Orthodox vs. Non-Orthodox. Kosher vs. Non-Kosher. Day vs. Night. But just as we speak of binaries, we also speak of the uncertainty of binaries. Can we drive on Shabbat to get to a hospital and still call ourselves Orthodox? (It’s complicated.) Is a chicken soup still kosher if you accidentally spill milk in it? (That’s complicated, too.) We begin Shabbat at the start of sunset but conclude Shabbat at the end of sundown, because honestly? We have no idea how to distinguish between day and night. We speak of these opposites – day and night – yet we have no idea when one gives way to the other. And so, to be safe, we err on the side of caution, beginning Shabbat just before the earliest possible interpretation of night and concluding Shabbat just after the latest possible interpretation of day.

What about male and female?

“Zachar unekevah bara otam” – “Male and female, God created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Male and female – these are opposites. This is a binary. And yet, despite God’s ability to distinguish this binary, we humans are limited in our ability to do so.

In his mystical diary, Rabbi Joseph Karo – the author of the Shulchan Aruch – discusses the case of an infertile woman. He concludes that her body is that of a woman, but her soul is that of a man: “This woman, in the past, was a proper male scholar. […] But his soul was reincarnated into a female.” Therefore, Karo explains, she cannot mate with her husband, “because a male and another male cannot produce offspring.” Yes, Rabbi Joseph Karo – the author of the Shulchan Aruch – teaches that a woman with the soul of a man is, in fact, male.

He continues. “If you shall point out that she has 

 

children from her first husband, this is because the first husband has the spark of a female soul within him.” Here, from the pen of one of the greatest, most influential rabbis in all of Jewish history, do we learn that a transgender man (who is born with the body of a woman but the soul of a man) is, in fact, male; and a transgender woman (who is born with the body of a man but the soul of a woman) is, in fact, female.

Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zloczow, a student of the Baal Shem Tov, went a step farther, teaching that sex, being determined by one’s soul rather than chromosomes, can change. He does this by explaining that Isaac was one such person whose sex was changed in the middle of his life from female to male. “It is known,” he writes, “that when Isaac was born, he was born with the soul of a female, as it is written in Or Hachaim, and through the akeidah (Binding of Isaac), he got a male soul.” Sex, as we learn from centuries-old Jewish texts, can change.

“Zachar unekevah bara otam” – “Male and female, God created them.”

Male and female – these are opposites. This is a binary. And yet, despite God’s ability to distinguish this binary, our Jewish tradition wrestles with its ambiguity.

One may argue: but kabbalah (mysticism) is not mainstream Judaism. We do not pasken (determine laws) from mystical teachings. And furthermore, one may argue, these sources deal only with that which we cannot see: souls. They do not discuss that which we can see: bodies.

The Mishna discusses bodies. It struggles with the complexities of sex that arise when bodies do not match the binary of male and female: “The androgynos is in some ways like men and in other ways like women, and in others like neither men nor women.” The concept of an androgynos is well-known to modern science, under the medical term “intersex.” Human bodies 

 

themselves, as we learn from both the Mishna and modern science, do not always fit within the binary of male and female.

And just as modern science has distinguished numerous classes of bodies that do not clearly fit in the male-female binary, so, too, does the Mishna. In addition to zachar (male), nekevah (female), and androgynos (intersex), the Mishna discusses the categories of tumtum (someone whose sex organs are unclear), ay’lonit (someone who is born with female sex organs but develops male characteristics during puberty), and saris (someone who is born with male sex organs but develops female characteristics during puberty).

We end Shabbat by acknowledging God’s ability to distinguish binaries. As I prepare to undergo gender affirmation surgery – a process that transforms one kind of genitals into another – I ponder this blessing. How can we, humans, speak with certainty of “male” and “female” bodies, when our own Talmudic tradition affirms that we can’t always tell the difference? How can we, humans, speak of immutable sex, when even our own rabbinic ancestors concluded that sex can change?

I am a woman… a transgender woman. How do I define this? I don’t know. But I can tell you what I have learned from Jewish sources: that sex is not a binary and that it exists and changes on both physical and spiritual levels. I can tell you what I have learned from modern science, as perhaps I will do at more length in a future article: that XY chromosomes (“male chromosomes”) can lead to the development of female sex organs, XX chromosomes (“female chromosomes”) can lead to the development of male sex organs, and transgender phenomena are rooted in genetics, biology, and neurology. I do not fully understand the complexities of my womanhood, nor (yet) do Judaism and science. But as Hillel reminds us in Pirkei Avot, just because we do not understand something now, does not mean it isn’t true. “For ultimately,” Hillel teaches, “it will be understood.”

Male and female – these are opposites. This is a binary. And yet, despite God’s ability to distinguish this binary, our Jewish tradition wrestles with its ambiguity.

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