Steven M. Fink served as rabbi of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines from 1983 to 1999. He chose to return to Des Moines after retiring from the pulpit rabbinate. He chose Des Moines because of its rich culture and active civic engagement.
When Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill to roll back civil rights protections for transgender people, all Christians, Muslims, and Jews should have been appalled. All three of the Abrahamic religions espouse the belief that a spark of the Divine exists in every human being.
How then could a majority in the Republican-dominated legislature, many of whom claim to be religious people who base their votes on what God wants, vote to repeal civil rights legislation for a protected group? As the Des Moines Register noted, signing the bill “makes Iowa the first state in the country to take away civil rights from a group it has previously protected in law.”
How can these representatives of the proud state of Iowa, descendants of those leaders who desegregated schools long before the U.S. Supreme Court required it, admitted women into the legal profession, and acknowledged the right of same-sex couples to marry take a huge backwards step by eliminating civil rights protections for a group of human beings?
Do they not believe that a spark of God resides in every person? Do they believe that God makes mistakes and they should rectify those wrongs by denying human status to transgender people?
How is it possible for God to make a mistake? Do we not believe that God is perfect? Yet it is impossible to deny the yearnings of so many who desire to change their gender—believing, in the very core of their souls, that God mistakenly put the soul of a different gender within their bodies.
Yet how did souls of women end up in male bodies and souls of men end up in women’s bodies? It seems that God, preoccupied with affairs of the universe, delegated the placement of souls in bodies to the ministering angels. Angels, while created by God, are simply instruments of God’s will, messengers who try to perform God’s instructions.
As we know from the game of Telephone, messages often get misinterpreted in transmission. It is quite likely that the message transmitted by God was altered along the way. Samantha’s soul was placed in Sam’s body and Sam’s soul was placed in Samantha’s body. Mistakes happen. Angels, it seems, are not perfect. It is up to us to rectify the mistakes of the angels.
God did not create a perfect universe. The laws of physics allow for accidents to happen and earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods to wreak havoc across the Earth. Cancer, disease, and contagion afflict us. There are still pockets of chaos in the universe that need to be ordered.
That is why God created us. We are partners with God in Tikkun Olam, the repair of the universe. God gave us the intelligence and ability to eliminate accidents, heal the sick, design vaccines, and to even cure some kinds of cancer. Our task as human beings is to bring order to disorder by being co-creators with God in the ongoing perfection of our world. We can bring light into darkness and freedom to those in chains. We can bring comfort to the bereaved and friendship to the lonely. We can feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We are partners with God in the ongoing task of creation.
It is still not easy to rectify the angels’ mistakes. Surgeries to make a unified body and soul are neither easy nor inexpensive. We should be thankful to live in a time when medical science has the knowledge to heal the angels’ mistakes. We should be supportive of transgender people and acknowledge the spark of Divinity in their souls. Everyone in Iowa, especially those who claim to be religious, should support civil rights for transgender people. That is what God wants. Even God cannot prevent the angels from making the occasional mistake.