Rabbinical law and the test of liberalism

First the arrow was shot, and afterwards they drew the circles around it on the target. Both Rabbi Joel Roth, one of the staunchest opponents to the revolution that is shaking up the Conservative movement, and Rabbi N. Elliott Dorff, one of the three rabbis who formulated the position at the eye of the storm, agree that this is the case. The Conservative movement made history last week. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, 25 rabbis who constitute the movement's supreme institution of halakha (religious law) approved a tshuva (responsum) that enables the recognition of gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors, and sanctification ceremonies for same-sex couples. A debate that raged for more than a decade and a half ended in a crescendo: rejoicing in the "liberal" camp and bleak lamentation in the "conservative" camp.

Roth has already announced that he will resign from the committee in the wake of the decision, which is "indefensible," as he told Haaretz. "They knew in advance what the decision had to be," he said of the members who supported Dorff's position paper and Dorff himself does not really deny this. "Rabbis often go looking for a certain tshuva," says Dorff.

The disagreement in which the two are involved boils down to a very pedantic discussion, into which not many will go deeply. Does the "lying with a male" that is proscribed for males in the Torah refer only to the technical act of penetration, or is it a comprehensive prohibition on sexual contact between males (and, by implication, between women too)? The outcome of this dispute is the decision upon which Dorff and his colleagues agreed: Homosexuality is permitted, on condition that it does not include anal sex.

In the past, the movement had already made and dealt with the consequences of controversial decisions, such as the one that permitted women to be equal participants in synagogue rituals. However, the decision this time appears to be of far more dramatic gravity. It is easier to justify the decisions concerning women as meeting clear public needs - the movement would have had a hard time going on its way without finding appropriate solutions for a group that makes up half of its membership - but with respect to decisions concerning homosexuals, the impetus was not their numbers or their power. The key is in the values that their acceptance into the community represents. It is not liberalism that has to stand the "test of halakha," but rather it is the halakha that is being put to the test vis-a-vis the dominant values in the liberal American discourse.

In this context, it is necessary to read the explicit condemnation of the Conservative decision that was issued by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which found it to have failed "to adhere to any reasonable definition of halakha." This is a condemnation that came along with a clarification to the effect that the Orthodox feel "compassion and concern for those with homosexual tendencies." Here is the question: Will the condemnation be able to overcome the compassion over time?

In recent years, many Orthodox congregations, whether or not they will admit it, have changed their attitude toward the roles of women in the community, in part because of the groundswell that was created by decisions made by the Conservative and Reform movements. This week's decision could also create such a groundswell, even if not to the same extent or with the same rapidity.

Roth described this process well when he spoke about what will happen, in his opinion, at the movement's rabbinical seminaries. Ostensibly, he said, the movement had confirmed the validity of two responsa - one that permits the full participation of homosexuals, and one that negates that participation. Very rapidly, however, he expects that the conservative, negating view will lose its validity. Those who hold this view, he said, will be perceived as "immoral." This is what happened to Conservatives who continued to hold the conservative position with respect to women's participation. Their number has dwindled and their status has been eroded.

For the vast majority of American Jewry, liberal values are an inalienable element of their religious identity. The formulation of the paper that Dorff and his colleagues wrote testifies well to this. "The light of the Messiah, when it blazes in the heart, teaches one to dignify all people," states its opening. Extensive space in the document is devoted to the halakhic element that touches upon intimate relations, but no less emphasis is placed on the discussion of "human dignity."

Be that as it may, in the case of the current clash between liberal values and the laws of the halakha in contemporary American Judaism, one of two answers will be provided: abandonment of the halakha, in the spirit of Reform Judaism, or maneuvers in extreme flexibility, in the spirit of the decision that the Conservatives have now taken. If the rabbis who convened had decided differently, they would be having a problem today not with the handful of Conservatives who are homosexuals, but rather with the majority of Conservatives who are liberals.

More on Conservatives and gays on Rosner's Domain:

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Some readers have asked where they can find the Tshuva on homosexuality. The website of the Rabbinical Assembly has both the ruling of the law committee, and the two answers to which I refer in the article. One is a Tshuva against any change, by Rabbi Roth. The other one is the revolutionary Tshuva by rabbis Dorff, Vevins and Reisner.