Isaiah: The Torah of Prophesy

Questions to consider as you read the following three texts.

How do you understand prophesy?
What is the relationship between blasphemy and religiosity?
Do you notice any trans theology in these texts? Do you notice any queer theology? Is there somewhere here that you want to apply trans or queer theology? (Brief definition of terms at the bottom of the page)
How do these themes resonate in your own life?

(יא) לָמָּה־לִּ֤י רֹב־זִבְחֵיכֶם֙ יֹאמַ֣ר יהוה שָׂבַ֛עְתִּי עֹל֥וֹת אֵילִ֖ים וְחֵ֣לֶב מְרִיאִ֑ים וְדַ֨ם פָּרִ֧ים וּכְבָשִׂ֛ים וְעַתּוּדִ֖ים לֹ֥א חָפָֽצְתִּי׃(יב) כִּ֣י תָבֹ֔אוּ לֵֽרָא֖וֹת פָּנָ֑י מִֽי־בִקֵּ֥שׁ זֹ֛את מִיֶּדְכֶ֖ם רְמֹ֥ס חֲצֵרָֽי׃(יג) לֹ֣א תוֹסִ֗יפוּ הָבִיא֙ מִנְחַת־שָׁ֔וְא קְטֹ֧רֶת תּוֹעֵבָ֛ה הִ֖יא לִ֑י חֹ֤דֶשׁ וְשַׁבָּת֙ קְרֹ֣א מִקְרָ֔א לֹא־אוּכַ֥ל אָ֖וֶן וַֽעֲצָרָֽה׃(יד) חׇדְשֵׁיכֶ֤ם וּמֽוֹעֲדֵיכֶם֙ שָֽׂנְאָ֣ה נַפְשִׁ֔י הָי֥וּ עָלַ֖י לָטֹ֑רַח נִלְאֵ֖יתִי נְשֹֽׂא׃(טו) וּבְפָרִשְׂכֶ֣ם כַּפֵּיכֶ֗ם אַעְלִ֤ים עֵינַי֙ מִכֶּ֔ם גַּ֛ם כִּֽי־תַרְבּ֥וּ תְפִלָּ֖ה אֵינֶ֣נִּי שֹׁמֵ֑עַ יְדֵיכֶ֖ם דָּמִ֥ים מָלֵֽאוּ׃(טז) רַֽחֲצוּ֙ הִזַּכּ֔וּ הָסִ֛ירוּ רֹ֥עַ מַעַלְלֵיכֶ֖ם מִנֶּ֣גֶד עֵינָ֑י חִדְל֖וּ הָרֵֽעַ׃(יז) לִמְד֥וּ הֵיטֵ֛ב דִּרְשׁ֥וּ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט אַשְּׁר֣וּ חָמ֑וֹץ שִׁפְט֣וּ יָת֔וֹם רִ֖יבוּ אַלְמָנָֽה׃ {ס}(יח) לְכוּ־נָ֛א וְנִוָּכְחָ֖ה יֹאמַ֣ר יהוה אִם־יִהְי֨וּ חֲטָאֵיכֶ֤ם כַּשָּׁנִים֙ כַּשֶּׁ֣לֶג יַלְבִּ֔ינוּ אִם־יַאְדִּ֥ימוּ כַתּוֹלָ֖ע כַּצֶּ֥מֶר יִֽהְיֽוּ׃

Isaiah 1:11-18

(11) “What need have I of all your sacrifices?”
Says the LORD.
“I am sated with burnt offerings of rams,
And suet of fatlings,
And blood of bulls;
And I have no delight
In lambs and he-goats.(12) That you come to appear before Me—
Who asked that of you?
Trample My courts(13) no more;
Bringing oblations is futile,^-c
Incense is offensive to Me.
New moon and sabbath,
Proclaiming of solemnities,
Assemblies with iniquity,^-d
I cannot abide.(14) Your new moons and fixed seasons
Fill Me with loathing;
They are become a burden to Me,
I cannot endure them.(15) And when you lift up your hands,
I will turn My eyes away from you;
Though you pray at length,
I will not listen.
Your hands are stained with crime—(16) Wash yourselves clean;
Put your evil doings
Away from My sight.
Cease to do evil;(17) Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.^-e
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow.
(18) “Come, let us reach an understanding,^-e
—says the LORD.
Be your sins like crimson,
They can turn snow-white;
Be they red as dyed wool,
They can become like fleece.”

“Loneliness and History”
Excerpts of a talk by Leonard Cohen at the Jewish Library in Montreal, a few days after Christmas, 1964
Reconstructed by Liel Leibovitz from Cohen's notes and audience recollections
Delivered at a pivotal moment in Cohen's early career as he transitioned from poetry to song

Read the whole thing in full here: https://newrepublic.com/article/117177/leonard-cohens-previously-undiscovered-montreal-library-speech

The priest kept the community intact. And the community was “like an old lady whose canary has escaped in a storm, but who continues to furnish the cage with food and water and trapezes in the convinced hope that the canary will come back. The priest tries to persuade her that this optimism is religion.”

The priest, [The poet A.M. Klein, Cohen's teacher], failed. The community needed something else. It needed a prophet.

Realizing that history is just the narrative describing the path of “an idea’s journey from generation to generation,” Cohen marched on. The prophet continues to chase the idea as it fluctuates, mutates, changes forms, “trying never to mistake the cast off shell with the swift changing thing that shed it.” The prophet follows the idea wherever it goes, and ideas, by their very nature, like to travel to dangerous places. The chase, then, is a lonely sport, and the community, observing the prophet, becomes suspicious. Most people would rather visit lifeless and antiquated things in air-conditioned museums than seek thrills in steaming swamps, running the risk of getting bitten by something wild.

“I believe we have eliminated all but the most blasphemous ideas of God,” he said as he ended his speech. “I believe that the God worshipped in our synagogues is a hideous distortion of a supreme idea—and deserves to be attacked and destroyed. I consider it one of my duties to expose [the] platitude which we have created.”

That was a job for the prophet…. Leonard Cohen declared….He would also have to stay stoic as his fellow Jews labeled him a traitor for daring to think up other possibilities for spiritual life—possibilities, like love and sex and drugs and song, for which there was little room in the synagogue. He was ready.

“Human,” Sivan Har Shefi, Zarqa
Translated by Levi Morrow

Breaking barriers like
A sonic boom
In the heavens, like objects in a full belly
Great prophecies eventually
Say: Human

For the bottom line—
The great gospel—
Is to be a mentsch

Prophecy, a language of one phrase:
Where are you?
And attention to the human hiding in the human

Prophecy, the mother tongue of humanity
Became a foreign tongue, forgotten.

Sometimes I flee from my assignment.
Slipping from the image to the isolated shade.
I show my back.
Stepping away fro
Mu mumbling
Slowly slowly the main thing
Becomes the main thing.
A language hard, wondrous—and human.

**********************

DEFINING TERMS

Trans Theology:

Joy Ladin, In the Image of God, God Created Them: Toward Trans Theology

That question—what aspects of humanity reflect our kinship with our bodiless Creator?—is at the heart of what I now recognize as my personal version of trans theology, not because it is a question specific to transgender people, but because being trans forced me to search for aspects of my own humanity that weren’t dependent on my body or the meanings others gave it. Whether or not we are transgender, we engage in trans theology whenever we try to look past sex and gender, bodies and binaries, to understand what in humanity reflects the image of God.
Trans theology holds that if our goal is to recognize our kinship with God, we need to look to the aspects of our humanity that, like God, exceed, confound, or defy gender and other human categories.

Queer Theology:

Patrick S. Change, An Introduction to Queer Theology