(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

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?

Comments

an unresolved disjunction behind it maybe

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I suppose it can be called esotericism
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

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of wisdom in these observations... I have nothing to add, except thank you for giving me a thought to meditate on.