sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2003-07-14 11:14 am
sophiaserpentia) wrote2003-07-14 11:14 am
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A couple of times, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has written on Beliefnet about homosexuality in the Bible -- declaring that it is a religious sin, and not a moral or ethical sin -- making it just as sinful as, say, eating shellfish.
Basically what this means is that it is not inherently wrong, it is just something that Jews, as they observe the rules and laws of their religious teachings, are supposed to avoid.
This has some interesting ramifications. For example, it may have the effect of making Reform Judaism more tolerant of gays and lesbians in general, but LESS tolerant of gays and lesbians who are practicing Jews.
Secondly, one is tempted to ask what benefit one has from adhering to codes or laws that one knows are "religious" vs. ethical -- IOW if they serve mainly to identify the Jewish community, isn't this an arbitrary and stylized distinction that has little inherent meaning?
Basically what this means is that it is not inherently wrong, it is just something that Jews, as they observe the rules and laws of their religious teachings, are supposed to avoid.
This has some interesting ramifications. For example, it may have the effect of making Reform Judaism more tolerant of gays and lesbians in general, but LESS tolerant of gays and lesbians who are practicing Jews.
Secondly, one is tempted to ask what benefit one has from adhering to codes or laws that one knows are "religious" vs. ethical -- IOW if they serve mainly to identify the Jewish community, isn't this an arbitrary and stylized distinction that has little inherent meaning?
Jewish concept of Law
not suppose this, nor of course should you, as my
own thought on these questions... But perhaps it
is worth to say that an Orthodox Jewish idea
(I say "an" because people may differ but I think
it is a fairly deeply thought sense of that idea)
is that the Law is not always for an apparant reason
but because these are tracks of the movement of things
above as reflected here and are to be followed in
effect not because they are the "right way or the wrong
way but the army way"...this adherance to the paths
of the supernal is for the Jew and not for all...
there are places where this thought strains and to my
sense breaks down, nor do I know that Orthodox(as
distinct from Reform Jews) would addopt a distinction
of morality and law, it sounds like a fellow attempting
to be pc and faithful to his thought at the same time which
can lead to breakdowns of order...
but this just to point up a perhaps Kabbalistically sound
(again saying as in another context I did what the
likutei amrim tanya observes that even the tree of life
is but an image and a dream) distinction of the paths
above reflected here and the merely rationally moral.
and again this is to express as I understand it a Jewish
thought rather than my own,
+Seraphim.
Re: Jewish concept of Law
the Law is not always for an apparant reason
but because these are tracks of the movement of things
above as reflected here and are to be followed in
effect not because they are the "right way or the wrong
way but the army way"...this adherance to the paths
of the supernal is for the Jew and not for all...
Yes, this point is not lost on me -- especially since I understand that this is often the way a spiritual or mystical point has to be taught to someone who hasn't learned yet to view things with a certain kind of, how to put it, perspective.
The approach hinted at with a distinction between "religious" vs. "ethical" law makes Judaism, for all intents and purposes, a form of esoterica. I am not opposed to this -- how could I be? Except to note that esotericism is distinct from religion and cannot successfully present itself as such...
an unresolved disjunction behind it maybe
or as you say be in a sense that but it
is also a certain belief about law, that it
is not the same for one as for another
(in a sense a little like the dispensationalist
idea of various covenants historically only
applied in the same period of time isnt it?)
law for men and for women differs ,for
Israel and the Nations...
I think the source of the awkwardness as it
seems to me is in the unresolved tension
between saying that all have an equal access
to God only in different ways so one does not
invite really people to Judaism and perhaps even
thinks if anyone shows up that it is because in a
previous life they were on Mount Sinai, and a sense
of being the crown of things(chassidus the crown
of orthodoxy the crown of judaism the crown of
human religion in one perspective)
I think likely it may be, may it not?, because
at the moment Judaism was transitioning into
being a world religion--or rather facing the question
of how and whether to do that by making a new
vision of law to encompass the "god fearers", that
new way appeared from within Judaism but was
accepted by only that part of the faith's family,
and the remaining part kind of left at the station
as the train pulled out...and finding itself commited
to a complex historical task complementary to
but not inclusive of the task of the departed train.
or in another mode to ask why there is not
Jewish monasticism after all the historical spade
work for it in the essenes and thereputae*spelling
wrong surely but heck with it, is to point again to
a breakdown of things and a reordering not
at all seamless...and not to the discredit of the
Jewish faith but also not as yet fully resolved
within or without.
This line of thought would be accepted in close
to these terms I think by some Jewish faithful
but in any case it is as it seems to me...
too wordy but in sum that it is less esotericism than
an unresolved historical disruption.
+Seraphim
well that is to
Re: an unresolved disjunction behind it maybe