• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Conservatives approve gay rulings

dantech

Well-Known Member
I think that's her point.

Chazal looked at lo ta'aseh chol melachah ("do no kind of work," which one might think is more than clear enough on its own) and said, nope, this pasuk cries "darsheni," and they came up with an incredibly complex interpretation that resulted in the 39 av melachot and the potentiality for the thousands of toledot that arise from them. They themselves admitted, when it came to hilchot shabbat, hakol talui b'chut ha-se'ar (the whole thing hangs by a single hair). But they felt that it was necessary.

Yet these same rabbis look at zachar lo tishkav mishkevei ishah, and they do nothing? These brilliant sages who drashed all our wonderful Shabbos out of the hidden nuances of melachah, and they've got nothing for this other pasuk that has peculiar construction and interesting hermeneutical intertexts and whatnot?

It's strange. And I think Rakhel is indicating-- as many of us in Liberal Judaism movements have done-- that Rabbanan dropped the ball on this. The pesukim are crying "darsheni," and they didn't drash. Maybe they had reasons for this that made sense to them at the time. I don't know.

But it's a problem, now, and needs addressing. When it comes to something puzzling, like, say, why is this animal kosher and that animal treyf, it might be perfectly reasonable to shrug, consign the topic to endless debate in the beit midrash, and never actually move to practically address it: because no one is hurt by keeping kosher. But when we consign the question of the apparent willingness of Chazal to let the pshat ride on these two pesukim to idle debate, gay Jews suffer for it.

If Rabbanan dropped this ball, then it has to be up to us to pick it up. But the option to let the matter lie and allow people to suffer just because of how they were created is no option at all.

Wouldn't the fact that they didn't comment on the subject show that they thought it was so straightforward it didn't need interpretation?

I don't think the primary focus of these brilliant men was to make sure that back then, an extreme minority(at least publicly) of people, who even socially were probably considered immoral, don't suffer...
Their primary focus was to translate to the simple guys, and the future generation, the will of God as they saw it. And to them, that meant exactly what is written.
 

Levite

Higher and Higher
Wouldn't the fact that they didn't comment on the subject show that they thought it was so straightforward it didn't need interpretation?

I don't think the primary focus of these brilliant men was to make sure that back then, an extreme minority(at least publicly) of people, who even socially were probably considered immoral, don't suffer...
Their primary focus was to translate to the simple guys, and the future generation, the will of God as they saw it. And to them, that meant exactly what is written.

I'm sure that they didn't understand it.

Rambam tells us that when it comes to matters of science ("natural philosophy"), we don't have to assume that Chazal knew everything we do, or that what they knew was correct, but that they were doing the best with what they did know.

My guess is that if they knew from homosexuality, they knew about it as something Greeks did, or as something done in the context of pagan sex rituals. They surely had no idea it was something that was biologically innate to some people.

From our modern point of view, we can say it's unfortunate that they didn't try to expand their understanding a little. But it's understandable. Everyone is bound by the limitations of their time and place.

However, just because it's understandable that they wouldn't comprehend what they were dealing with and drash accordingly doesn't mean there is no problem. This is precisely why there are mechanisms for change-- even for radical change-- in halachah: because not only will there be things we don't know how to solve or deal with in our time, there will be problems that we don't even realize are problems in our time. But our descendants will need to be able to deal with them.

The Meiri says, in discussing ha-shofet asher yihiyeh ba-yamim ha-hem (Deut. 17:9), that every judge has all the authority he needs to make judgements based on majority precedents, on minority opinions, on solitary opinions, or even based on his own opinion alone, because he is the judge in his time, and previous times may not know or understand the case before him.

Even if Chazal didn't find it within themselves and their cultural context to come up with a drash that helps us, they left us tools that let us remedy what they could not provide. We just have to be willing to use them.
 

CMike

Well-Known Member
The rabbis wrote about things that were unclear.

The probhibition against homosexual behavior is not unclear. It's pretty straight.

What do you, Levite, think is murky about it?

Also there isn't any conclusive evidence that someone is born homosexual.
 

dantech

Well-Known Member
The rabbis wrote about things that were unclear.

The probhibition against homosexual behavior is not unclear. It's pretty straight.

What do you, Levite, think is murky about it?

Also there isn't any conclusive evidence that someone is born homosexual.

What he finds "murky" is that the Rabbis of the Talmud did not really discuss on this subject matter, which can make people who are born that way, assuming they are indeed born that way, completely miserable for their whole lives, which in turn, would make God cruel.

I disagree because first of all, we don't even know for sure that homosexuality is indeed something you're born with. We also don't know for sure that it isn't "curable". Now even if it indeed is something you are born with, and it isn't something that you can change, then to me it still doesn't matter because I believe that there are people that do need to suffer by God's justice. Levite disagrees.

*Please don't be offended by the word curable as if homosexuality is a disease. It was not my intent, I just couldn't find a substitute for the word.
 

Avi1001

reform Jew humanist liberal feminist entrepreneur
I disagree because first of all, we don't even know for sure that homosexuality is indeed something you're born with. We also don't know for sure that it isn't "curable". Now even if it indeed is something you are born with, and it isn't something that you can change, then to me it still doesn't matter because I believe that there are people that do need to suffer by God's justice. Levite disagrees.

*Please don't be offended by the word curable as if homosexuality is a disease. It was not my intent, I just couldn't find a substitute for the word.

Dantech, what are your thoughts about this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/n...bill-banning-gay-conversion-therapy.html?_r=0
 

CMike

Well-Known Member
I am not him, but it's rediculous.

Parents should be the ones who have the power to raise their children, not the liberal dictatorship.
 

dantech

Well-Known Member
Dantech, what are your thoughts about this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/nyregion/christie-signs-bill-banning-gay-conversion-therapy.html?_r=0[/url]

I believe people should have the right to go to any kind of therapy the like, as much as I believe gays should be able to marry. I also think in Israel, Jews should be allowed to gay marriage. I just mind my business and let people do whatever they like. I do believe that religiously, they are forbidden to do so, but they should still have the right to choose.

I'm not allowed to eat pork, but can still do it if I wish to. They should have that same right.
 
Top