GEN453 In the work that I do, I am often dismayed by the fact that many young people do not believe the religion has important things to say about sexuality.  Frequently, they identify religious doctrine as “sex-negative” – as teaching only that sex is essentially bad unless it occurs, or is redeemed, under very specific circumstances.  Interesting, I find it is often students from a fundamentalist or evangelical tradition who speak most favorably, and certainly most clearly and authoritatively, about the religious guidance they have received about sex.  My Jewish students typically know that sex is considered a mitzvah, but often cannot quite put that together with all of the various sexual prohibitions they know exist in Torah (that is, unless sexuality has been addressed very specifically in their religious education).  Even in secular settings, I like to share my understanding of Jewish teaching about sexuality.  I start with the biblical verb for sex—“to know”—as a means to introduce the idea of sex as a form of human intimacy and to make the point that just as emotional intimacy involves deep knowledge of another person, so does sexual intimacy.  I often simply ask my students what they think the verb “to know” might mean in relation to sex, and it is amazing how quickly they can begin to think about sex in a deeper, more philosophical context.  Indeed, my older students can easily grasp a profound understanding of sex, and other forms of human intimacy, as a means of diminishing the existential aloneness that we all experience as part of human life.  I also like to share how intriguing I find the Creation myth in in the Book of Genesis.  Once Adam and Eve disobey God and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, an immediate consequence is the sudden realization of their own nakedness.  I think of their covering up as an acknowledgment of the boundaries that exist between us and other people in an imperfect world.  In such a world, it becomes safe, as well as a safe haven, to share all of ourselves only within the confines of an intimate, trusting relationship.  DORSEX 56