Monday Movie Review: Trembling Before G-d

Trembling Before G-d (2001) 10/10
An exploration of the lives of gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. (Documentary)

Trembling Before G-d
presents us with people who, on the face of it, are suffering massive cognitive dissonance. The Ultra-Orthodox and Hasidim featured here believe in the Torah as God’s word, and in obedience to Jewish law. As an Orthodox rabbi explains, no matter how much compassion he may have for gay Jews, he cannot tell them it’s okay to do something for which the Torah prescribes the death penalty.

The breadth of the interviews is remarkable, as we encounter people who have taken virtually every possible position in regards to their conflict. We meet a lesbian couple, together for ten years, who together keep a kosher and frum (Orthodox) home, but whose parents reject them for their sin. We meet a gay man who has utterly rejected observant Judaism because of its position on homosexuality, but confesses to missing it. We meet another gay man who went from Hasidism to secularism when he came out, but found life meaningless without Torah. He has returned to Hasidism and is still figuring out how to make it work. We meet deeply closeted people struggling in the heterosexual marriages their faith and their community have thrust upon them, and a man who tried a variety of aversion therapies and prayer “cures” and has finally decided to accept his homosexuality. He prays at the Western Wall for God’s help in this acceptance. We meet rabbis and therapists, all in a process of discovery. Are the answers we offer any good? They wonder.

The first ‘out’ Orthodox rabbi says that the essential problem of humanity is “Adam’s problem”; loneliness. To demand celibacy of gays is to offer none of the connectedness that a religious community is supposed to offer.

It would be so easy to make fun of these people. Those who stay within Orthodoxy are so easily dismissed as crazy. If they’d just walk away, they could be happy. Except that they couldn’t; for whatever reason, Orthodoxy is essential to their happiness. So they struggle.

(I should point out that the Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, and Hasidic forms of Judaism are minority of Jews (a tiny minority in the U.S.). Reformed, Reconstructionist, and Secular Judaism fully accept homosexuality; Conservative Judaism has an in-between position; supporting civil liberties for gays but rejecting gay marriage and gay ordination.)

It has perhaps never been so obvious to me as when watching this movie how inevitable, unbeatable, and universally human it is to be gay. I have never seen people more serious and sober in their desire to obey God’s law. These are pious people. They pray. They observe strict dietary laws. They dress modestly. And they travel the world seeking spiritual guidance and solutions. Yet, despite the propaganda being delivered to teens and adults, they cannot be changed. They are who they are.

Some “succeed.” A therapist recounts the story of a married couple with twelve (!) children. The husband has known all his life that he is homosexual. His wife also knows. He has never experienced gay sex. Neither can he fully love his wife. She admires him because of his constant struggle, but she suffers from depression. He leaves his job as a teacher because of his persistent unrequited crushes on his students. This, for many in the movie, is a proper Jewish homosexual success story.

I was amazed at how successful the filmmakers were in capturing the soul of these people’s stories, especially considering most were unwilling to have their faces appear. That certainly makes for awkward filming, but it worked.

7 comments

  1. sly civilian says:

    when i saw this, i appriciated the “couldn’t walk away” angle…and how respectful the filmmakers were to that pain. a lot of people switch denominations, and what have you…but as someone trying to make things work as a Baptist…i had a lot of sympathy for queer Hasids.

  2. Ken says:

    Sounds fascinating….. just added it to my Netflix queue. Thanks!

    “This, for many in the movie, is a proper Jewish homosexual success story.” Constant struggle and crushing guilt – what more could a mensch ask for? If I were a rich man, yabba dibba dibba……..

  3. deblipp says:

    What I left out, but touched on by the movie, is that these people aren’t much accepted by the gay community either. The gay community in Israel is often virtulently anti-Orthodox (not surprisingly). The advise from the gay side is to just leave. So the religious gays belong in neither world. They are truly alone, except in finding one another.

  4. Dan says:

    What confuses me about this kind of homophobia is that these people realy believe that they are defending family values but how can it be good for families when they are formed by people who are sexualy incompatible.Personaly I think it would be a living hell to have as an exclusive sexual partner someone who is there out of duty rather than passion.

  5. deblipp says:

    “Family values” is not something you’re going to hear from Jews; the concern is strictly with obedience to God’s will, as spelled out in the Torah and codified in the Talmud.

    Most of the rabbis in the movie had great compassion for the fact that a life of unfulfilled desire is a life of suffering, and that obedience to God will cause gays dailly suffering. But the Jews are comfortable with suffering as our lot in life. 😉

    There were interesting nuances. There was a conversation in the film about kosher sex. One rabbi assumed that since anal sex is always non-kosher (no matter the gender of the partners) that gay men were always participating in forbidden sex. This rabbi had no familiarity with the concept of oral sex! So it was very interesting.

  6. Freeman says:

    Is oral sex even considered kosher? I mean, if a woman can give a blowjob but be damned for eating a ham sandwich… I just… wow.

    That said, it sounds like an excellent movie. It’s now on my “Must View” list. Thank you.

  7. deblipp says:

    Ham sandwich, ho ho ho.

    As far as I can tell, it’s kosher, because Jewish law doesn’t mention it at all. But I’m not an expert.