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Transgender Day of Remembrance

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  Nov. 20.   For the last 18 years this day has been dedicated to the memory of all those transgender men and women who have been murdered because they were hated.  Many transgender people have experienced violence and hatred directly.  Many are victims of society’s misunderstanding of their lives.

I learned long ago that God loves everyone.

In Jewish tradition the Mishnah in Sanhedrin teaches us:

“…to declare the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be God, for one stamps out many coins with one die, and they are all alike, but the King, the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be God, stamped each person with the seal of Adam, and not one of them is like his or her fellow.”

Though we are all human beings each person is unique created from the original human being ADAM–not a man’s name in the Torah but a word that means human.  For the very first human creature was created both male and female. (See Genesis 1:27)

So God created mankind in his own image,
 in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Our Rabbis taught that the first human being was Both Male and Female and it was only in the second creation story in Genesis chapter 2 that humanity became two separate beings.

On this Transgender day of Remembrance we mourn for the lives destroyed by hatred and violence.  And we remember we each came from the first human being –both male and female.