Sunday, September 16, 2007
HOMOSEXUALITY IN JUDAISM
Since homosexuality has become such an important issue in Catholicism as a result of the scandal, and since I have found some instances where the teachings of Judaism have crept into Catholic thinking, I decided to find out what Judaism believes about homosexuality. What I found was fairly typical of what I've found in Judaism before--no single belief but rather a variance in positions depending upon the branch of Judaism one adheres to.
From Wikipedia:
REFORM JUDAISM
The Reform Judaism movement, the largest branch of Judaism in North America, has rejected the traditional view of Jewish Law on this issue. As such, they do not prohibit ordination of gays and lesbians as rabbis and cantors. They view Levitical laws as sometimes seen to be referring to prostitution, making it a stand against Jews adopting the idolatrous fertility cults and practices of the neighbouring Canaanite nations rather than a blanket condemnation of same-sex intercourse or homosexuality. Reform authorities consider that, in light of what is seen as current scientific evidence about the nature of homosexuality as a biological sexual orientation, a new interpretation of the law is required.
RECONSTRUCTIONIST JUDAISM
The Reconstructionist movement sees homosexuality as a normative expression of sexuality and welcomes gays and lesbians into Reconstructionist communities to participate fully in every aspect of community life. Since 1985 the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has admitted gay and lesbian candidates for their rabbinical and cantorial programs. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) encourages its members to officiate at homosexual marriages/commitment ceremonies, though the RRA does not require its members to officiate at them.
CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM
In Conservative Judaism, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Rabbinical Assembly makes the movement's decisions concerning Jewish law. On December 6, 2006, The CJLS adopted, by 13 of 25 votes, a responsum authored by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, and Avram Reisner, lifting most restrictions on homosexual conduct and opening the way to the ordination of openly gay and lesbian rabbis and acceptance of homosexual unions, but stopping short of religiously recognizing gay marriage. The responsum maintained the Biblical prohibition on male-male anal sex, which remains a yehareg ve'al ya'avor (die rather than transgress offense.
ORTHODOX JUDAISM
While a variety of views regarding homosexuality as an inclination or status exist within the Orthodox Jewish community, Orthodox Judaism generally prohibits homosexual conduct. While there is disagreement about which acts come under core prohibitions, all of Orthodox Judaism puts certain core homosexual acts, including male-male anal sex in the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor, "die rather than transgress", the small category of Biblically-prohibited acts (also including murder, idolatry, adultery, and incest) which an Orthodox Jew is obligated under the laws of Self-sacrifice under Jewish Law to die rather than do.
According to Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, former president of Yeshiva University, halakha prohibits homosexuality to non-Jews as well as to Jews. ...
In recent years some within Modern Orthodox Judaism have begun re-evaluating homosexuality as a phenomenon, and the Orthodox community's response to homosexual Jews. Traditionally, homosexuals have been considered to have chosen to engage in homosexual actions in order to spite God (le-hach'is), to be perverse, or due to mental illness. Beginning in the 1970s and influenced by new perspectives in the sociological and biological sciences, some Orthodox rabbis began to adopt less unsympathetic positions. Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits, in his entry Homosexuality in the Encyclopedia Judaica (Keter Publishing), describes the traditional opinion in this way:
Jewish law [...] rejects the view that homosexuality is to be regarded merely as a disease or as morally neutral.... Jewish law holds that no hedonistic ethic, even if called "love", can justify the morality of homosexuality any more than it can legitimize adultery or incest, however genuinely such acts may be performed out of love and by mutual consent.
HASIDIC JUDAISM
views homosexuality as a grave sin. Accepting Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, as normative, it believes that heterosexual intercourse is a holy act, because it has the potential to lead to new life, and because heterosexual sex mimics the mechanism through which God created the universe. When a male and a female perform this act, they evoke creative spiritual energies, similar to ones that were used to create the Universe. This creation mechanism involved two opposite partners (male and female aspects of Divinity known as Zeir Anpin and Nukvah), a source of life-force and a recipient of it. The sexual act which evokes the male creative energy on the male side must, therefore, also involve evocation of female creative energies, even if the specific act will not lead to birth in the physical reality. If it is done properly, it results in one of the holiest activities in a Jew's life (incidentally, that is the reason why Jewish males mark their union with the Creator as circumcision).
Therefore, a homosexual act is wrong not because it does not result in a birth (in Judaism, a sexual act that does not result in a birth is not forbidden, such as when the wife is pregnant, barren, or using contraceptives), but because it invokes holy spiritual forces which are then used in an unnatural way (from the Creation's point of view), between two partners that are of the same sex. Therefore, only male homosexuality (which involves the intercourse) is Biblically forbidden; female homosexuality is forbidden for different reasons and in general is much less serious sin. (As a matter of fact, the exact same explanation can be used to explain Kabbalistic view of masturbation and why it is forbidden).
