The Conservative Movement and the Homosexuality Question
During the week of March 8th, leaders from the Conservative movement from around the country met to discuss the future of the movement. During this summit, the Committee for Laws and Standards was put to the test with a platform raised by Rabbi Bradley Artson, the dean for the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism, and Elliot Dorff, vice-chair of the Committee of Laws and Standards. This platform, if passed, would allow openly gay individuals to enroll to Rabbinic Seminaries, essentially giving them the opportunity to be ordained as rabbis within the Conservative movement. Many voices were heard on this topic. Here is the voice of a student leader within the Conservative movement... Me.
First off, here are my credentials:
1. Chapter board, Regional board, and International general board of United Synagogue Youth (USY), the Conservative movement high school youth program.
2. Teacher at Ramah camps - Conservative camping system
3. Two parents as rabbis. My father is a figurehead within the movement, senior rabbi of the largest congregation west of the Mississippi. My mother is the SECOND woman rabbi ordained by the Conservative Movement at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York.
4. One of two KOACH Bay Area student chairs - Conservative Movement college outreach program
Ok--now that my background is clear--this is what I think, probably not in any logical order, nor fluid argument, just ideas :)
The Torah prohibits a man from lying with a man like he does a woman, but does it prohibit a man from loving a man like he does a woman? The Hebrew language has two words to express intense loving emotion: AHAVAH and ACHAVAH. Ahavah is more about love between intimate people, while Achavah is brotherly (no gender bias, just word choice) love, like between soldiers in a platoon. So why do we encourage AHAVAT Chinam, Free Love, Selfless Love, Ever Enduring Love? Why not ACHAVAT Chinam? Maybe it's because intimate love should have no barriers?
As we learn in the Talmudic story of TANUR SHEL AKNAI, the right to legislate law is "LO BASHAMAYIM HI", it does not dwell in heaven. In this story, Hashem gives the right to make law to the Sanhedrin, the Rabbis. In another place in the Talmud, it says that the rabbis of the day set the law (if you remember the phrase, which i can't at this late hour between studying, insert here ______). The rabbis of the day have the right to make legislation. Which means, if you are not a Conservative Jew, you have no need to fear, this ruling will not affect you.
In every generation, we have to make changes so that the law we use reflects the situations of the present. When I was 2 years old, I attended my mother's ordination as a rabbi. She fought to tear down the gender barriers within the Conservative movement, and as a result, has paved the way for many women to add their spark to the world of Conservative pulpit leadership. When the board of directors of JTS put the right for womens' ordination to a vote, a strong few chanted "Testicals Don't Give You Gushbanka" "Testicals dont give you divine right". Why is it that we bar committed and passionate people from Jewish pulpit leadership solely on the basis of who they LOVE? Shouldn't we bar people on why they have HATE and BIAS?? Does who you love really affect the way you lead a community? The world (and also, sadly, the rabbinate) has been touched by people who have struggled with alcoholism, divorce, gambling addiction, drug addiction, and many other things we consider problems within our society. Why should LOVE be considered another problem?
Can converts be rabbis?
Can women be rabbis?
Can ex-convicts be rabbis?
Can communitsts be rabbis?
Why not homosexuals?
First off, here are my credentials:
1. Chapter board, Regional board, and International general board of United Synagogue Youth (USY), the Conservative movement high school youth program.
2. Teacher at Ramah camps - Conservative camping system
3. Two parents as rabbis. My father is a figurehead within the movement, senior rabbi of the largest congregation west of the Mississippi. My mother is the SECOND woman rabbi ordained by the Conservative Movement at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York.
4. One of two KOACH Bay Area student chairs - Conservative Movement college outreach program
Ok--now that my background is clear--this is what I think, probably not in any logical order, nor fluid argument, just ideas :)
The Torah prohibits a man from lying with a man like he does a woman, but does it prohibit a man from loving a man like he does a woman? The Hebrew language has two words to express intense loving emotion: AHAVAH and ACHAVAH. Ahavah is more about love between intimate people, while Achavah is brotherly (no gender bias, just word choice) love, like between soldiers in a platoon. So why do we encourage AHAVAT Chinam, Free Love, Selfless Love, Ever Enduring Love? Why not ACHAVAT Chinam? Maybe it's because intimate love should have no barriers?
As we learn in the Talmudic story of TANUR SHEL AKNAI, the right to legislate law is "LO BASHAMAYIM HI", it does not dwell in heaven. In this story, Hashem gives the right to make law to the Sanhedrin, the Rabbis. In another place in the Talmud, it says that the rabbis of the day set the law (if you remember the phrase, which i can't at this late hour between studying, insert here ______). The rabbis of the day have the right to make legislation. Which means, if you are not a Conservative Jew, you have no need to fear, this ruling will not affect you.
In every generation, we have to make changes so that the law we use reflects the situations of the present. When I was 2 years old, I attended my mother's ordination as a rabbi. She fought to tear down the gender barriers within the Conservative movement, and as a result, has paved the way for many women to add their spark to the world of Conservative pulpit leadership. When the board of directors of JTS put the right for womens' ordination to a vote, a strong few chanted "Testicals Don't Give You Gushbanka" "Testicals dont give you divine right". Why is it that we bar committed and passionate people from Jewish pulpit leadership solely on the basis of who they LOVE? Shouldn't we bar people on why they have HATE and BIAS?? Does who you love really affect the way you lead a community? The world (and also, sadly, the rabbinate) has been touched by people who have struggled with alcoholism, divorce, gambling addiction, drug addiction, and many other things we consider problems within our society. Why should LOVE be considered another problem?
Can converts be rabbis?
Can women be rabbis?
Can ex-convicts be rabbis?
Can communitsts be rabbis?
Why not homosexuals?
posted by netmessiah at 12:28 AM
19 Comments:
I think perhaps all of this begs the question: What does it mean to be a rabbi?
So if true smicha is really unattainable, and the certificates we grant are only signs of deep learning and symbolic of leadership, can we permit homosexuals to get these accademic titles?
Love.
Isn’t it a beautiful word!
How unfortunate that this word (and concept) is so often misrepresented and even abused.
You are right: Love in the Torah has no gender boundaries!
That is because Love (at least in the Torah) has nothing to do with sex. It is true that certain people in specific loving relationship express the strongest aspect of their intimacy through sex. But that doesn’t mean that Love per se is expressed through sex, or that it has anything to do with sex.
Proof: Many guys love their mothers. Get my drift…
The Torah talks about love – using the word Ahava – in relation to father and son, man to man, and man to G-d. Only a truly deranged mind will associate the Ahava in any of those cases to be even remotely sexually oriented.
As a matter of fact the Torah uses the (root) word Ahava when commanding to “Love your fellow as yourself” – does this mean we are commanded by G-d to have sexual feelings towards our fellow? Does this mean we are to have sexual feelings towards ourselves?
Like I say, only a very deranged mind…
In our perverted and confused society we have confused sex and love. In the world of Torah there is no perversion or confusion. Love is love. Sex is sex.
The Torah states clearly that a man should “love” his fellow man. The Torah also states clearly that a man should not have “sex” with his fellow man.
So this is all very interesting. There is halacha (the way of the Torah) and there is everything else.
Are the people who are promoting the vote on the homosexual issue in the Conservative movement actually saying that it is halachikally permissible to be openly gay, or are they making an exception?
Netmessiah, maybe you know more about that.
Also, most importantly in the post at hand, is that the Committee for Laws and Standards specifically didn't vote on the topic. They pushed it off not until their next meeting, but until two meetings in the future which is months from now, and they passed a resolution to make it especially hard to pass if it even does get voted on (I believe it now will require 80% votes to pass, which is basically impossible anyway).
This is a very interesting subject. There are lots of things that we, as Jews, are told to do, and don't end up doing because of our affiliations with a particular movement or other reasons.
What's great about Judaism is that we're supposed to keep things open to interpretation. I would argue that one would have to be "deranged," as anonymous put it, to not see the hypocrisy in certain aspects of our religion if not left open to interpretation. If someone isn't Shomer Negiya, are they not allowed to be a Rabbi? That certainly sounds ridiculous, and I don't want to ask the many more that support what I'm saying.
Love thy fellow man...but don't let them have full rights as individuals. That doesn't sound very Jewish to me.
-Jacob from Hillel
Yeah, so the interesting thing is (from my perspective) that it's being implied in all of this how progressive or whatever the Conservative movement is, but if you look at the facts on the ground about this vote, it comes out looking like the Conservative movement really doesn't want to vote on it, and if they must vote, they're making it very difficult (or impossible) to pass.
There are many issues involved. I personally would like to hear what other students who currently identify with or previously identified with the Conservative movement have to say.
Let me talk to some people on the Committe for Laws and Standards that I know and see what I can find out.
and here's an update, if anyone is interested.
Ok, so since this conversation is being extended well beyond the context of the Conservative movement, I think hopefully I can clarify a couple things.
Jacob, I think you're coming from a Humanistic approach, which is the way of viewing the world that I myself grew up with. In this approach, the individual and the individual's rights and personal desires come before anything else.
On the other hand, anonymous and Fedora are coming from a Torah perspective. In this perspective, not only does G-d exist, but G-d's existence supersedes and transcends all other existence. And we, as individuals, owe our entire existence to G-d.
Now if we look into the Torah that G-d gave us, there are a lot of things that at first glance might sound barbaric. Some people simply reject those parts of Torah, while others, who know that the essence of the entire Torah is love, look deeply into the tradition to find out how G-d could ask such things of us.
It has become pretty popular to quote that whole parable about Hillel and the guy who would convert if he could be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot. And everyone knows Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor." Ah, it's all about love, right? Well, people usually forget that's not all Hillel said.
The whole quote is, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah while the rest is commentary; go and learn it." Go and learn it. I think it's impossible to understand the type of love that Hillel referred to without being immersed in Torah.
I'm a pretty observant Jew, I guess. And I'll be the first to admit that I've had (and still have) a number of close friends over the last eight years who identified as gay or bisexual. I never looked down on them for it. We each have our own struggle to live in the path that G-d has laid out for us. G-d gave some of us bigger challenges than others.
I have my own challenges as well, and thank G-d I don't have to make them public. But the point is, if a rabbi is supposed to set the example of a life dedicated to Torah, how can a person who openly defies the Torah be a rabbi? Unless we redefine "rabbi" as something else. If we want to call it strictly a community leader. If we want to look at it as just another career choice. But really, it's not.
These days it has come to look like being a rabbi is anyone's right; it's, like, just another job that little kids want to have when they grow up. That's the perspective I myself grew up with. But really, it's not a right. It's very much a privelage.
We must remind ourselves that this comes out of the framework of the Conservative Movement, a movement that has granted women smicha, a movement that advocates driving on Shabbat if it is only to Shul.
It is a movement that strives to remain traditional, while being considerate of modern circumstances.
This is why we have She'elot U'Tshuvot. This is why our rabbis, our teachers are living.
As Heschel discussed in a dissertation on shabbat, there are some instances where we cant do activities that would be acceptible on shabbat according to Torah, because in the light of modernity they take away from the spirit of shabbat. in the same way, the committee of laws and standards of the conservative movement has ruled that there are times when breaking halachah sometimes allows people to increase the spirit of shabbat, like driving to shul.
in addition, the sages say that you shall nit chastise a person who eats unkosher food and then davens by telling him/her "how dare an unclean person who eats creepy and crawling things utter the sacred name of the Lord" are we to chastise a person who does not follow all the mitzvoth for trying to follow others?
What about Busha? Embarassment? Are we to turn away a person who is homosexual who commits themselves to all the mitzvoth they can handle just because of an attraction to the same gender? Or do we pry into their personal lives and expose thei sex practices. THe sages say that we should not take a husband and wifes bedroom experience into the public. though gay marriage is not the issue, what right do we have to make someones sexual tendencies public?
And do we truly follow all the mitzvoth? Do the people we consider rabbis follow all the mitzvoth? If so, wouldnt we all be living in eretz yisroel with moshiach by now?
So what if there is a gay person who doesnt engage in gay sex. Halakhicly, can they be a rabbi?
Anonymous apologizes for causing the great mystery of who anonymous is.
Anonymous didn’t think anyone would care.
Anonymous is now using his blogger name: Blue Dove.
Anonymous also never said or implied that gay people are deranged. G-d forbid. Read what anonymous said and you will see that gay people weren’t even being discussed. Love was. And the implication in that comment was that it would take a truly deranged mind (regardless of sexual orientation) to suggest that those references of Love in the Torah are sexually oriented.
The point is, as G-d Squad so brilliantly put it, that it depends on perspective. When looking at the issue from a humanistic point of view you give people the right to act as they feel (as long as it is not harming anyone else). When you are looking at it from a Torah perspective, G-d mandates how we act, regardless of how we feel.
Naturally a person has a choice which path to follow – his feelings, or G-d’s commandments. Whatever you choose, you should be aware and honest about your choice.
The confusion begins when we try to justify our own feelings by twisting and contorting Torah to fit our own personal agendas.
Just a lil update from inside sources:
The decision to require a 80% affirmative vote was overturned. The new decision is that it will take 13 votes to pass the Takanah.
By the way, im considering writing an article for the Leviathan about this topic. Is anyone uncomfortable with me copying segments from comments (maintaining anonymity unless instructed otherwise) to quote in such an article? Any ideas or suggestions?
The issue of contorting Torah to fit our own views has nothing to do with level of religious observance; it is an issue to be weary of in all segments of the Jewish community. It is one thing to objectively look into Torah and come up with various, even differing, lessons and insights. It is quite another to form an opinion or feeling and then comb through Torah and redefine its accepted understandings just to prove your theory.
Homosexuality has been around for a long time. The Torah has been around for a long time. The understanding that man to man sex is forbidden according to the Torah has been around for a long time.
We must therefore ask ourselves an honest question: is the current attempt to redefine the understanding of Torah caused by a yearning to truly understand Torah, or is it caused by a yearning to make Torah fit in with our times and understandings.
The former is Torah. The latter is contorting Torah to fit our own agendas.
This issue is not limited to the question of homosexuality, and neither is it restricted to one denomination of religious affiliation. This is a question each and every one of us must ask ourselves before anything we do:
Is what I am about to do really good, or do I really want to do it and therefore I will find an excuse that says it is good.
Does G-d command me what to do, or do I command G-d what to command.
Blue Dove, consider the Talmudic case of Ben Sorer Umoreh. The talmudic rabbis saw a law in the Torah which didnt sit right with them. It wasnt acceptable in their time, and it wasnt acceptabe in their hearts. So instead of abandoning Torah, they legislated around it to fit their own agendas. The created interpretation and law to prevent a father from stoning his son. Are we not allowed to find law in Torah that doesnt sit well with us, in our time, in our hearts. Are we not able to replicate the legislative strategy of the rabbis of the Talmud and make Torah law fit to our time, our morals?
rakdannit, I think you're down the street right now. I'm too lazy to get off my couch and come over there.
Well, the main thing I wanted to say, is you're getting sharper, but to argue for using Torah interpretation to your advantage, you have to learn more classic Torah interpretation. No, a cheeseburger from McDonalds would in no way be kosher, because not only is the mixing of the meat and dairy not kosher (d'rabbanan), but the meat has to have been slaughtered in a kosher manner (and it has to have been a kosher animal to begin with) d'oraisa.
That's just the plain meaning of what's written in the Torah. Now, we're a little off track.
We were talking about who can be a rabbi, not what someone can or can't think or be attracted to.
And I think we've established that by the Torah's standards (in any Torah perspective you want to take), only certain people can be rabbis.
But as far as being stam a community leader, that's up to the community. As far as being stam knowledgeable about Torah, that's up to the individual. But we're talking about being a rabbi.
Shabbat shalom if I don't see you.
So that's the question, what is the role of rabbi today? Are you saying that it doesn't mean anything anymore, so we should just let anyone who wants to be a rabbi, be a rabbi?
And if it's so pointless today to be a rabbi, why do people care so much who gets to be a rabbi?
I think fedora made an excellent point that I missed until now: some of the greatest sages ever didn't necessarily even have the title "rabbi." And some of the greatest Jewish teachers I've had aren't rabbis and don't plan on ever becoming rabbis.
And, rakdannit, once again if we actually look into the Torah (as in THE WRITTEN TORAH, and even more so the ORAL TORAH), not all our ancestors danced around the golden calf. First of all, not even all the tribes were involved. And among the tribes that were involved, not all the people even participated. And the ones involved in the calf certainly were not rabbis. So, there goes that theory.
At the time, Moshe played the role of rabbi, as Fedora mentioned. Now, was Moshe holier than you or me or those involved in the golden calf incident? I should hope so. And Joshua, who Moshe gave smicha to, also was very holy.
So if we're still talking in terms of what it means to be a rabbi, Moshe, who was the only rabbi around at that time, lived his life so connected to G-d's Torah that holy light actually radiated off of Moshe's face. People at that time looked to Moshe completely to find out how to live their lives in alignment with G-d's will.
They looked to Moshe as the quintessential Jew, and even more so, the quintessential rabbi. So fine, the Jews as a people have a long tradition of arguing with G-d. That's true.
But if we're talking about rabbis, it's a whole 'nother ball game.
I get the feeling though that people don't value the role of the rabbi today as they did a thousand years ago or two thousand years ago. And if that's the case, so who cares really? Why do you even have to be Jewish to be a rabbi? And I'm being totally serious. If that's the case, why should you even have to be Jewish to be a rabbi?
Rak, you said:
"Why pretend that our ancestors were so much holier than what we could ever be? Did they not dance around a golden calf after their deliverance from bondage?"
So, this entire discussion was about who can be a rabbi, and the point was made that rabbis are supposed to be role models who follow Torah. And you brought the example of the golden calf to show how unholy our ancestors were. I don't see the relevance.
All I was saying is, if we're talking rabbis, none of the golden calf worshippers were even close to being rabbis.
As far as miracles: I'm sure you'll agree the Yidden who witnessed the miracles of yetziat mitzraiim still had a free will. That's the nature of this world and of living a Torah lifestyle in general; we have to have a free will for it to matter at all.
Now imagine if you witnessed the miracles of yetziat mitzraiim. Would you really still have free choice to choose idolotry if you wanted? Not really, because it's so painfully obvious who the master of the universe is. So to balance the scales, those Yidden's capacity for disbelief was also strengthened. Otherwise there is no free will. (Big miracles)+(enforced will for dibelief)=(the capacity to sin and continued free will)
Today what are our miracles? Well, the Bochner's witnessed the miracle of childbirth recently. I woke up this morning, once again, which was pretty miraculous in the scheme of things. We still have an ozone layer and ice-caps, which is a miracle. It's a miracle that there are billions of people on Earth and the Earth hasn't failed us yet.
A person doesn't have to see miracles if they don't want to. Today, our capacity for disbelief matches the types of miracles we witness, to the point where it's pretty easy to say, "There are no miracles today. There is no G-d. The only thing I can really be sure of is that I exist."
Happy goyisha birthday tomorrow, btw.
SO....
There are so may points being made, and Im a little lost. But I'll do my best to seem moderatle relevant to my own topic :)
1. In the case of Ben Sorer Umoreh, the Rabbis didnt out and declare that the Law D'oraita is wrong, but rather it is moderately understood that the for some reason they are developing gates and gates around the law as to prevent anyone from actually falling victom toits consequences. Im no expert, nor am I claiming ultimate understanding, but I did a senior thesis on this in high school (which included the memorization of the entire section with comentators), so i believe i have a firm grasp, though review is always necessary.
2. The conservative movement, though seemengly organized, is going through a rough revision. While the Comittee on Laws and Standards serves and the presiding body of legislation for the Conservative movement, and most Conservative rabbis belong to the Rabbinical Assembly, what appears to be unity is really a cover for momentary confusion. The Jewish Theological Seminary, one of two rabbinical schools is looking for a new chancellor (they might have found someone since i last checked on that), there is no continuity between the Schechter day schools, the Ramah Camps, the United Synagogue Youth Movement, the Mens Clubs and Womens Leagues, and every other Conservative organization. while they all have share board members, and common goals, none of them are unified with the others.
3. The issue is Gay Rabbis. In fact, Gay Conservatie Rabbis. If you would like some good reading on the conservative movement, check out Emet V'Emunah, its a short book on the standards of the Conservative Movement. Rabbi Brad Artson who is one of the publishers for the legalization of gay conservative rabbis has a listerve, where he talks about the parashah. But a reminder, the topic is Gay Conservative Rabbis. Does anyone have some sort of a stance on this issue??
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