Avraham is the embodiment of Chesed – expansive loving-kindness – because he is tumtum, because there is a trans-ness to him.
To be tumtum is to be sex indeterminate in the Talmud. The same Talmud tells us Avraham, the first Jew, was tumtum. In kabbalistic terms, Avraham is the embodiment of the divine attribute of Chesed – wide-open loving-kindness.
Avraham is the embodiment /because/ of this trans-ness, because finding his sex/gender involved revealing the hidden and opening the closed of his own self.
I’ll be teaching about Torah Trans Ancestors and Their Kabbalistic Overtones tomorrow night for friends. If you, fair reader of this blog, wish to participate – please contact me at eishzarah @ gmail . com (though without the spaces). The next offering is the last Saturday of this month – July 30th – tentatively at 6 pm Pacific.
eish zarah 