Who are the old-fashioned ones?
Many years ago, I believed that crossing borders was progressive and would lead us to a bright future. Now, I understand that trans-gressing /transgressing are leading us back in time. Crossing borders is a feature of paganism.
A friend told me that his child's teacher commended his daughter on crossing borders--his daughter had imagined a cat having sexual relations with a monkey in a creative writing assignment. How progressive! How transgressive! How old-fashioned. My friend commented that his daughter's teacher is a Lesbian.
Leviticus 18:22-23 juxtaposes sexual relations between two men and between humans and animals. A person of liberal inclinations with an aversion to biblical morality might say, "Oh, when religious conservatives say that homosexuality is connected to relations with animals--who would ever imagine relations with animals!" In fact, the Greeks and Romans were fascinated by human-animal bonding, as their myths and iconography attest.
Sexual relations by definition involve a border crossing, and the Torah teaches us to navigate that crossing with care, commitment, and purity.
Impurity and being trans-gressive aren't hip; they're hopelessly old-fashioned. Disciplining our passions--now that's a novel idea.
-- H. A. Massig
