Something amazing happened last week. It was an event that might ordinarily be ignored by the Orthodox community but instead was rather extensively reacted to. Both Agudah through their brilliant writer Rabbi Avi Shafran and by the Rabbinical Council of America through an official statement. It was even the focus of the Rabbi’s Shabbos Drasha in the Agudah Shul in St. Louis where I Davened this week. What I am talking about is that the Conservative movement’s Halachic arm has decided by majority vote to ordain homosexual men and women into their rabbinate. They also voted to permit, at the discretion of the officiating rabbi, the union of same sex couples.
Why, one may ask is there so much discussion in Orthodox ranks about this issue? After all what do we care? Why is it our business that a movement which was years ago declared heretical has now taken yet another step away from normative Halacha?
I’m not exactly sure. But let’s take a closer look at it.
Let us first examine what exactly is so terrible about ordaining homosexual rabbis. The truth happens to be that there are probably some homosexual rabbis already practicing in the Orthodox rabbinate. And they may very well be rabbis in good standing… even amongst Charedim. How …you may ask… is that possible? The answer is that Judaism does not deal with inclinations. It deals with acts. The Torah realizes that people may have Taavos… desires for immoral acts. But desires not acted upon are not sinful. Desiring illicit sex is not the sin. It is acting upon the desire that is. So, if a rabbi has a pre-disposition for male sex it is his job to fight off those inclinations just as it is a heterosexual’s job to fight off an in an inclination for illicit heterosexual acts.
What the Conservative movement has done is they have given their blessing to it. They are making a statement. “Declare your homosexuality and we will give you Smicha, no less than if you declare your heterosexuality”. This cannot possibly be in accordance with the Torahs’s strong and clear admonition against homosexual practice. One has no need to declare publicly his homosexuality if he does not plan on acting upon it.
The Conservative movement can no longer simply say, “Hate the sin, not the sinner”. They are saying, “Embrace the sinner and his sin.” Why else declare your sexuality before getting ordained?! No rabbinical candidate has ever been required to declare his sexuality. This is nothing less than turning the Torah on its head.
Granting rabbis the right to perform “homosexual unions” is the same thing. They can say they are not sanctioning marriage, just “civil unions” all they want. But if a rabbi does it, this gives the ceremony an aura of a religious sanction. Two men living together as husband and “wife”…blessed by a rabbi! Does anyone take seriously that such a union will be a “sexless” marriage? I think not.
No. The Conservative movement has completely lost any claim to being a Halachic movement. If anything they have become an anti-Halachic movement. Their rabbinic leadership is merely play acting at keeping Halacha now. I urge them to listen to one of their own leaders, Rabbi Neil Gillman who realized this fact quite some time ago and had the integrity to call a spade, a spade! The should drop the pretense of following Halacha once and for all.
So once again, why do we care? The answer is in an old Yiddish expression. “Azoi vie S’Krisiltzech, Yiddlezich”. Loosely interpreted this means that the Torah world is not immune to what goes on in the non-Jewish world. The Conservative movement long held out not succumbing to the current fad of granting homosexual behavior its imprimatur. There was a big internal dispute about it. But the “good guys” lost. And to their credit, they resigned. But just as this kind of thinking has permeated the Conservative movement, it has permeated the Orthodox world as well. While it is true that the RCA clearly denounced the Conservative movements new turn, the very fact that they felt the need to do so shows a concern that some of this kind of thinking will bleed into the more left wing fringes of Orthodoxy.
Not long ago the movie, “Trembling Before God” was released. It was, according to all reports, a well made movie featuring an Orthodox homosexual rabbi who “outed” himself. As I understand it, the movie also featured an interview with Ner Israel Rosh HaYeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Feldman in that movie. Rabbi Feldman showed great sympathy towards Frum homosexuals, as we all should. But then some time after the movie’s release this homosexual rabbi wrote a “Teshuva” of sorts trying to justify his behavior.
We need to really be careful about this matter. It is one thing if someone is a homosexual and knows it’s wrong. Even if he has succumbed to temptation, he will will feel bad and want to do Teshuva. But when a sincere Orthodox homosexual rabbi tries to use the Torah as a source for permitting the behavior itself, can it be that we are not that far away from a Left Wing Orthodox Yeshiva ordaining practicing homosexual rabbis and condoning ceremonies of homosexual unions?
