(RNS) — “The kid is a feigele!”

I can still hear my relative saying the derogatory phrase, used to refer to a gay man or boy, aiming his ugly remark at a young man at a bar mitzvah celebration.

In Yiddish, “feigele” literally means a little bird, but became a popular, if distasteful, euphemism for a male who did not quite cut it in the masculinity department. It might be used to refer to the boy who was insufficiently athletic, too artsy or good at theater.

I’m reminded of the phrase during Pride Month, for which I want to recognize the amazing work of Eshel, a group that advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusive Orthodox Jewish communities.

An eshel was the tree under which Abraham sat when he welcomed the strangers. It fits.

Eshel builds these inclusive Orthodox communities for LGBTQ+ Jews and their families through education, advocacy and programming — including holding annual retreats for both LGBTQ+ individuals and Orthodox parents, support groups, Shabbatons and Pride Month events. It has engaged more than 300 Orthodox synagogues nationwide and has chapters across North America, from Atlanta and Toronto to Los Angeles and Brooklyn.

Miryam Kabakov and Rabbi Steven Greenberg co-founded Eshel in 2010. Greenberg is among a small number of out gay Orthodox rabbis and the author of the 2005 book “Wrestling With God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition.”

Greenberg is also an old friend whom I interviewed for this Pride Month. 

In 1999, you became the first Orthodox rabbi to come out as gay. What led you there?

Greenberg: I was raised in the Conservative Movement in Columbus, Ohio. I met a Haredi rabbi in town and was introduced to intense Torah study, which pulled me into Orthodoxy. Later, while studying in a yeshiva in Israel, I found myself attracted to another student. 

I looked for guidance in Jerusalem and found Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. I said to him, “I’m attracted to both men and women. What should I do?” His answer: “You have twice the power of love. Use it carefully.” 

I attempted to date women for 15 years, trusting that a strong enough physical attraction would appear, but it never did. At the age of 35, I finally said to myself: I am gay.

In 1993,  I “came out” under the cover of a pseudonym, Rabbi Yaakov Levado, (Jacob Alone) in an article in Tikkun magazine. Finally in 1999, I actually came out publicly in The Forward.  

Halakha, traditional Jewish law, hasn’t moved very far on LGBTQ+ issues. What’s it like to live with that tension?

Greenberg: Halakha is both something we receive and a way to respond to new realities — that’s how Orthodoxy applies Torah across different temporal and social realities. Remarkably, Orthodoxy is at once the most conservative of the denominations and the most diverse. I appreciate Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits’ teaching: If tradition fails to meet the scientific, emotional and psychological realities of the moment, it becomes irrelevant. So, there has to be a balance between loyalty to tradition and engagement with new realities.

The recent LGBTQ+ Jewish Engagement Report found that queer Jews surged toward community after Oct. 7, 2023, faster than the general population — but they also retreat faster. Pride Shabbat gets people in the door, but it doesn’t keep them. People need small-group, year-round relationships, not single-month programming. Does that match Orthodox spaces?

Greenberg: At the Mayerson JCC on the Upper West Side, we’ve doubled our gatherings this year. People are hungry for queer spaces that are Jewishly rich, not superficial — they want a home. We run two annual retreats for LGBTQ+ Jews, and another for their Orthodox parents, and we are adding a regional one, but, as important, we work for inclusion in Orthodox shuls (synagogues) where our people attend every week.

We’re now connected to more than 320 pulpit rabbis — the majority of whom are doing a good job of inclusion. Even with the recent social backlash, few rabbis believe, as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein once did, that being gay is rebellion against God. Increasingly, rabbis realize that homosexuality is an unchangeable part of the self. 

Finally, the 2015 Supreme Court decision legitimatizing gay marriage made a huge difference. It was counter-intuitive: A liberal community that was fighting for individual freedom was demanding equal access to a very conservative institution. This, too, is part of why America has changed. You can’t witness a gay wedding and not feel that gay love is love.

However, there is a challenge here, and this is rather controversial. Abraham and Sarah are promised to parent a great nation. That means that making babies fulfills the covenant. Jewish life is deeply child-centered. Yes, love is love is love, but gay sex isn’t straight sex. Sex that can produce a child has existential consequences, which gay sex cannot do. 

The real question of covenant is whether you are ready to commit to a future world that you will never live to see. Parenthood does that; it carries you beyond yourself — to care about the world that your children’s children will inherit. Gay people need to find their own way into these covenantal, future-facing values. It might be through teaching, which the sages considered a form of “being fruitful and multiplying.” 

We’re living through an aggressive rollback of LGBTQ+ rights in this country. Are politically conservative Orthodox communities becoming more or less welcoming?

Greenberg: Some Orthodox communities see welcome as a moral duty. Others are entrenching further. Some shuls in liberal areas are more open than five years ago, even as others have closed further.

Here’s a piece of good news: 10 years ago, I was the first Orthodox rabbi to perform same-sex weddings — using halakhic tools that work without the straight frame of traditional kiddushin. Now, at least six Orthodox rabbis do them.

Let me tell you how human encounters can shift thinking. I once asked a prominent Orthodox rabbi how he would counsel a gay teenager. His response: He would calmly advise lifelong celibacy.

I asked him: “Would you tell him that he’ll never dance with someone he’s infatuated with; that when he’s sad there will be no one to hold him; that he’ll never make love with another human being in his entire life because something’s terribly wrong with him?”

He said, “I would never say it like that.” I said: “My friend, you just did!” 

By the end of the conversation, the rabbi was moved to tears. This is how change happens.