Morethodoxy: Exploring the Breadth, Depth and Passion of Orthodox Judaism

Friends have correctly pointed out to me over the last few days that my post of last Thursday was too strident in tone, and too light in halachik discussion and sourcing. I am again reminded why our Sages advised us to acquire friends, and why God blesses us with them.

For the stridency of the tone, I sincerely apologize. I can and should do better.

With regard to the substance, I share two points. The first concerns the proper halachik execution for the omission of the blessing “for You have not made me a woman”.  Rabbi Lopatin articulated it well, and I will here summarize his argument for it is indispensible to this change in practice.

(1)  We are familiar from our siddur with the blessing “For You have not made me a non-Jew”.  In our printed versions of the Talmud however, (see Menachot  43b) the blessing appears not in the negative formulation, rather in the positive language “for You have made me an Israelite” (שעשאני ישראל). While the majority of Talmudic commentaries and Codes nonetheless maintained that the correct version is the one we have in our siddur, two prominent Sages demurred. Both Rosh (Brachot 9:24) and the Vilna Gaon prescribe the recitation of “for You have made me an Israelite” , in accordance with our version of the Talmud.

(2) Bach (O.C 46) , while aligning himself with the majority position, rules that if in error you said “for You have made me an Israelite”, then you should OMIT THE TWO BLESSING THAT FOLLOW, including “for You have not made me a woman”. (Mishnah Brurah 46:15 cites this position as well.) This is because the expression of gratitude for being a (male) Jew already includes the sentiments of the subsequent blessings within it.

(3) The argument now proceeds with the assertion that we ought to DELIBERATELY recite “for you have made me an Israelite” (for women, the feminine version שעשאני ישראלית) IN ORDER TO CREATE THE GROUNDS FOR OMITTING  “for You have not made me a woman”.

This is an unusual halachik maneuver to be sure, one which requires justification. And this brings me to my second point. We don’t re-explore our halachik options with an eye toward change, absent a compelling reason to do so. By the same token though, to resist re-examination when such is needed, is to abdicate our responsibility to ensure that we’re always practicing halacha at its very best.

As I wrote in my original post, I believe fervently that Orthodoxy has yet to grapple fully or satisfactorily with the dignity of womankind. We know and understand, like no generation before us has known and understood, that women are men’s intellectual and spiritual equals. Our society has accordingly decided to treat both genders with equal dignity, and has opened all professional, political and communal endeavors to both genders equally. I believe that our community however, falls short of this goal in many ways. We are, of course, committed to operating within the framework and rules of halacha. But it is not hard to construct a halachik universe in which women’s physical space in shul and intellectual space in day schools and Study Halls are not lesser, but equal. It is not hard to imagine a halachik universe in which virtually all positions of leadership are available to all. And we must create a halachik universe in which the extortion of women by their ex-husbands as the Bet Din stands helplessly by, is simply unfathomable.  It’s not halacha’s fault that we are lagging. It’s our fault.

I know of course, that “You have not made me a woman” can be understood in many different ways. But by its plain meaning, and by the simple smell test, it has the effect today of justifying our lack of progress, and of affirming for us that women do not possess the spiritual dignity than men do. In OUR specific time, given OUR specific challenges, the blessing hurts us. We thus find ourselves today in an halachik  “sha’at hadchak”, an “urgent circumstance”. The sort of circumstance that justifies utilizing an ingenious halachik stratagem to effectively drop this blessing from our liturgy.

 I know there are many who will disagree with me on one or all of the points I’ve made. I am hopeful that stripped of their stridency, they will be easier to consider on their merits. May our disagreements be for the sake of Heaven.

A few times over the last couple of weeks. I’ve asked myself, “What’s the lesson to be derived from the sordid tales of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger et.al?” I mean aside from the lessons we already know: that one should avoid doing stupid things, things that are hurtful and destructive to the people you love, things that are exploitative of people who may be in a position of relative weakness. Is there something else, something larger, that can only be seen by taking one step back, and considering these sorry stories within the larger framework of Jewish thought?

 The conclusion I came to is that this is a great time to look again at that sometimes-maligned Jewish value called tzniut, physical modesty. It’s a sometimes-maligned value because people tend to think that it’s fundamentally  about the superficial matter of how people dress, and further  that it’s specifically about how women dress, or even further that it’s about placing the responsibility upon women to save men from their own out-of-control libidos or utter lack of moral compass. But this is all wrong. Tzniut surely has implications for dress – for both genders alike! – but it’s fundamentally about a core ethical belief, the very core ethical belief that you can bet was nowhere to be found when these sexual scandals originated.

 What core ethical belief does physical modesty express and uphold? The answer is simple. The belief in human dignity. The idea that every person possesses an attribute that endows him with ultimate value, and which demands that she be the recipient of honor, respect and equal treatment. And that this attribute  is in no way connected to anything physical or visible. In fact it exists even when the physical is compromised or degraded. It’s the meta-physical attribute we call human dignity. And it’s ultimately the only trait that we believe ought to define a person’s worth, and ought to determine the way in which we relate to and interact with another person. And dignity’s advocate and guardian is the value we call tzniut.

 Properly lived, tzniut is the way we express our commitment to the ideal of building a society, in which no one of us thinks about or defines themselves or anyone else in terms his / her physical attributes. It’s lived out through carrying ourselves, and teaching our children to carry themselves, entertaining ourselves, and teaching our children to entertain themselves, and indeed dressing ourselves, and teaching our children to dress themselves, in a way that insists that dignity – and dignity alone – be understood as the core of human identity. It’s a way of looking at the world that renders it unthinkable to abuse or exploit, to cheapen or demean another human being – to see them merely as an object of entertainment or sexual gratification. The rope with which we try to pull the world out of the muck of its worst and most ancient habits and attitudes, is the notion of human dignity.  And the muscle with which we pull it, is the steady, continuous commitment to the value we call tzniut.

 We of course acknowledge that we are physical, sexual beings.  But when, through the practice of tzniut,  we see others as defined not by their bodies but by their human spirit, we come to understand that our sexuality is a Divine gift to be cherished, not a primal urge to be satisfied. This is the crazy Jewish idea, first expressed in chapter of two of the Torah, and then embedded in all of the  laws concerning on what occasions and with what frequency a husband and wife are to engage in intimacy, that human sexuality is an instrument God gave to us through which to fully know our life partner, to find ecstatic joy in the marital relationship, to continuously renew an everlasting covenant. What an unthinkable betrayal of God’s generosity it would be, to reduce this gift to a tool of mere physical gratification. Our Sages regarded the sin of adultery to be rooted in a kind of insanity. This is a perspective anchored in our beliefs about human dignity, supported by our practice of tzniut, and our reservation of ourselves as sexual beings to our spouses alone.

 The big lesson here, is that our tradition and practice of physical modesty is not a medieval relic, but a guardian of our most cherished modern ethical beliefs.

Last Shabbat afternoon, our shul hosted a unique panel of three Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian. All three have partners and children. All three continue to live Orthodox lives. The purpose of our panel was not to advocate for a reassessment of Halacha, or to question God’s justice.  There was none of that at all. The purpose was simply to pull our heads out of the sand. To acknowledge that there are Orthodox gays and lesbians in our extended families and that they are part of our shul communities. And to realize that they need our understanding in order to live the lives of Torah and Mitzvot that their souls desire. We came together last Shabbat in order to begin seeing this not as a political issue, but as a human issue.

 All three panelists simply shared their own experiences of struggling with their identities, finally coming out, and then struggling again, to find a place for themselves in the religious community they love. It was a powerful afternoon in front of a standing-room-only crowd. If you’d like to do a similar panel discussion in your shul, please feel free to contact me, or to be in touch with the organization Eshel, at info@eshelonline.com

 Below is an excerpt from one of the personal stories:

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 Excerpts from “My Community”

byAviva Buck-Yael

  ….I once went to an ultra-orthodox shule and once loved being a part of that community.   I loved knowing that I was a valued member of my community and that I had a place where I belonged.  But I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was a lesbian and that if my community ever knew this about me, there would be no place for me.  I struggled with my identity.  I spent a very long time trying desperately to be who I wasn’t.  I tried to do that which I knew my community would wish me to do had they known they had a lesbian in their midst.  I ignored, denied, and suppressed this piece of myself.   I married a man, created a home, and established myself in the community.  But I always felt like a fraud.  I felt like a fraud to myself, to my community, and to the man I married. 

 Sure I told him when I married him that I was a lesbian, but I always felt that I was not capable of bringing the best of myself to the relationship no matter how hard I tried.  And G-d knows I tried.  I tried to be a thoughtful and giving partner.  I tried to be a responsible and capable home maker.  I did all the things that wives are expected to do.  I would cook and clean and have Shabbos guests by the dozens. But what kind of wife was I when I could never desire him as he needed to be desired, when I always wished deep down he could be something that he was not.

 You see, what I discovered was that it wasn’t possible to suppress individual parts of my emotional self.  To shut down this piece of myself meant to shut down the rest of my emotions as well.  When I suppressed this part of myself, I suppressed my ability to love, to feel and to connect with those around me.  This suppressing and disconnecting left me… in the end… feeling like a miserable example of a human being.  Eventually, after 11 years of marriage, I came to a point in my life where I couldn’t continue as I was.

 I have been divorced now for 5 years.  A lot of people have asked me why I finally left.  Others ask me why I stayed so long. In the end, the only thing I do know for sure was that it wasn’t until I had my children that I allowed myself to take a good long look at myself.  I looked deep inside and I saw nothing but a shell of a person.  I remembered once having been a fully fleshed out person filled with light and love and joy.  I remembered liking who I was.  Now I looked at myself and saw nothing inside. When my son was born I felt like I was given the most precious gift that life could bestow.  I didn’t want him learning from the hollow example of my marriage, what it meant to love someone.  I wanted him to be someone who lived life to the fullest.  I wanted him to see his world and connect with it and all the people in it.   How could I do that with the example I was giving him?

 But, I felt that if I was no longer a married woman in my community there would be no place for me in the Orthodox world.  I felt that if I was honest about who I was I’d have no community.  Surely I’d be tossed out, shunned, no longer a trusted and beloved member of the community.  I saw others like me that when faced with this dilemma simply left Judaism entirely.   I tried to imagine what it would be like to leave Judaism to allow myself room to be true to my emotional self. Forget all that religious baggage.  But how could I go through life giving up on spirituality and connection to G-d?  How can a Jew survive without Torah and community and not be left feeling empty?  And what I wanted more than anything to finally be whole.

 As I prepared to leave the community I had been connected with for so long, I found that HaKadosh Baruch Hu was watching out for me. I found out there was a little known community in on the other side of town that I hadn’t even heard of previously… and there I found a community that was deeply committed to loving Hashem, learning Torah, practicing halacha in accordance with Orthodox principals AND making the morality that comes from all these things a part of their everyday lives. For them it meant truly embracing the notion of love your neighbor as yourself. It meant embracing the notion that we are all B’tzelem Elokim and as such we all need to be treated as holy beings. It meant taking responsibility for everyone’s Jewish journey and making certain that there was room enough for every Jew who wished to be shomer mitzvot to have a place in their community. For me, it meant finding a community capable of welcoming me and fully embracing me, a queer Jew, into their community. It meant that I was able to find a Rav for myself that I could talk to, to bring my self – my whole self and my religious struggles that come with being my whole self – to, and ask for guidance. It meant that I had a community to share Shabbos and simchos with. It meant that I had a place where I could be treated with love and respect for exactly who I was. As we all ought to be.

Encountering God in an airport terminal

Last Saturday night, I had to catch a red-eye to the east coast, to attend a conference that was beginning on Sunday.  I had the pleasure of driving Ruthie to the airport as well, who was heading for the same flight and the same conference. We parked, took the shuttle van to the terminal, and started walking toward the gate. As we were approaching the security check, Ruthie suddenly realized that she was without her jacket, which meant that she was also without her phone and her wallet. “Oh no! I left my jacket in your car!” This was bad.

 But bad soon became worse. As we were debating whether or not we had enough time to get back to the parking lot and still catch the flight, I realized that her jacket was not in my car. I had a distinct mental image of Ruthie placing her jacket on the luggage rack in the shuttle van. Now what?

I pulled out my own phone and frantically began to search for a phone number for the parking lot, wondering how, even if I reached someone there, we’d ever get this jacket back before the flight – or at all. As I was dialing, we saw a figure running toward us through the terminal, holding a jacket aloft in his outstretched hand. Wow. We barely had time to thank him, before he had to run back to his now unattended van.

Moments later, as we waited on the security line, Ruthie and I had a chance to reflect on the strange phenomenon that we often encounter God when we least expect Him. So often, when we are actively searching for Him, we come up empty. And then, out of nowhere, there He is. In one human being’s concern for another, in an act of selfless kindness for a stranger.  An act of generosity, inspired by an awareness and appreciation of the One whose kindness extends to all.   

And then, a moment later, God slips back out of view. Leaving behind His hope that we are newly reminded that He is in fact, always here.

(This essay appeared in the Journal Jurnal of Greater Los Angeles on Friday)

The Orthodox community is rapidly approaching a moment of truth. The many issues that the Orthodoxy community is debating internally are rapidly collapsing into one overarching issue, one macro-question, with which it must grapple head-on. And this is, whether or not the ethical norms of western society should figure into the process of determining Halacha (Jewish Law).

 Consider the issues that have most roiled Orthodoxy just over the past year or so. There is the controversy over the statement of principles concerning the place of homosexuals within the Orthodox community, a document that while upholding the Biblical prohibition on homosexual behavior, mandates that people who are homosexual be afforded full dignity and respect, and that they be included in their Orthodox communities. Signed by 150 Orthodox rabbis and educators, it was flatly rejected by at least as many. There is also the ongoing debate over whether women may serve as synagogue presidents, as well as the sure-to-return debate over women being ordained as rabbis. More recently, we have seen renewed controversy over  whether or not Halacha permits us to donate our organs following our brain-stem death, even as it is clear that we are permitted to receive organs from non-Jews who are brain-stem dead. And most recently, we have witnessed the controversy in Israel as to whether Halacha prohibits the sale or lease of apartments to non-Jews in the land of Israel. Each of these issues is complex in its own way, and none can be facilely decided in the absence of rigorous Halachik analysis. But over and over again, the wedge issue turns out to be whether or not consideration of western ethical norms is relevant to the analysis.

 This emerged clearly last week, as the Rabbinical Council of America registered its objection to the ban on renting to non-Jews in Israel, saying that the Halachik analysis of this issue demands “special sensitivity to societal realities, widely-held ethical principles, and historical injustices”.  Which is to say, that when we examine our universe of viable Halachik alternatives, our choice of alternative can and should be influenced by wider ethical considerations. Yet this is, of course, precisely the point of contention.

 The story is the same with regard to the organ donation issue. Here too, viable and scholarly halachik positions have existed on both side of this issue for many decades. Last month though, a Rabbinical Council of America report (ironically), which preferred the position that effectively prohibits  Jews from donating organs, elicited the following response from Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler, a prominent scholar and bio-ethicist (and a longtime proponent of the brain-stem definition of death, which results in the permissibility of organ donation) “Their final conclusion is that a Jew who is in need of a heart transplant can receive a heart from a brain-dead patient but he can’t donate his heart if he is brain dead. Such a ruling defames Judaism and exposes every Jew to the hatred of non-Jews. It is saying that a Jew can take a vital organ from a non-Jew even though Jews consider him still alive — that his life doesn’t count. How could you justify such a ruling?”

 The wedge issue is the same when it comes to the place of homosexuals in the Orthodox community. The opening words of the above-referenced Statement of Principles are: “All human beings are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.” While it is of course true that the idea that all people are created in the image is Biblical, its specific application to homosexuals is a distinctly modern historical development. It is our way of clothing in our religious language the modern, western ethical assertion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. The relevance of such ideas to our halachik calculus is again what stands at the center of the controversy. Similarly, when rabbinic scholars in pre-State Palestine debated whether or not women ought to have the right to vote in Yishuv elections, the old/new “image of God” idea was one of the main pivots of the discussion.  And it continues to play out in today’s controversies over the position of women in the Orthodox community.

 Are the ethical norms of modern western society essential to halachik discussion, or are they irrelevant? Are they to be integrated, or to be shunned? This is, in the final analysis, the central issue that the Orthodox community is grappling with. And the answer will determine Orthodoxy’s long term viability as positive force in the wider Jewish community, and the wider world.

Though the OU recently made it quite clear it will not tolerate Partnership Minyanim within its member synagogues, the “amcha” of the Orthodox community should support this newest expression of Orthodox spirituality. For the grassroots movement to create a highly egalitarian form of Orthodox davening will likely prove to be enormously beneficial and healthy for the future of Orthodoxy. 

The halachik debate on the matter has already been fought to a draw, and I won’t rehash the details of that debate here. (You can review it by seeing the articles written by Rabbis Henkin, Sperber, and M. Shapiro at www.edah.org, and that of Rabbi Gidon Rothstein in Tradition 39:2, Summer 2005) Thinking simply in terms of what’s strategically best for the Orthodox community as we move deeper into the 21^st century, it’s clear to me that we need to have Partnership Minyanim as part of our mix. They provide an option that is vital for us to have. 

The Orthodox establishment’s read of Partnership Minyanim is predictably upside-down. It assumes that the minyanim are the brainchild of feminist instigators, whose ultimate allegiance is not to Halacha, but to egalitarianism, and who are attempting to lure upstanding but unsuspecting Modern Orthodox Jews into the abyss whose bottom is Conservative Judaism. From everything I have seen both in New York and here in Los Angeles (I have not been to Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem), the movement is led by people who are personally and ideologically committed to halacha, institutionally and financially bound up with the Orthodox community, and who are creating Partnership Minyanim in order so that Orthodox Jews of an egalitarian bent don’t need to consider leaving the Orthodox community, rather can remain within it. It’s not “feminists” who are pioneering this, rather Orthodox men and women who simply believe that we are religiously obligated to create maximal halachik opportunities for all Jews, regardless of gender, to participate in our deepest moments of communal holiness. They’re not looking to leave. They’re looking to stay. 

Most Orthodox Jews will never embrace their approach to davening. This is fine. Partnership minyanim are definitely not intended for the majority of Orthodox Jews.  But we are, and always have been, a community of many voices. And there’s no question that one of today’s vital, sacred voices, is the voice of the Partnership minyanim. It’s a voice that keeps our tent healthy and big. 

And it’s the Orthodox “amcha” who need to give this movement the recognition and space that we all need for it to have. Orthodox institutions will not be able to do so for the time being. It’s part of life that institutions need to balance a great variety of interests and pressures. I know. I head one myself. And I’ve been very open with my congregants as to why we don’t offer a Partnership Minyan. But we are in an age of independent and outside-the-box religious expressions, in which institutional support is no longer necessary (and in fact often hurts). And collectively we will be doing the Jewish people and the Orthodox community the largest of favors by recognizing Partnership Minyanim, and welcoming their emergence onto the Orthodox landscape.

A couple of Sundays ago, our 9 year old was watching a football game on TV. Seemed like a reasonable activity in between several things that had been scheduled for the day. I sat down next to him, and within minutes was confronting a “parenting moment”. The first beer commercial after the time-out went straight to the edge of the legal limit, in targeting the libido in order to sell its product. It was all at the family-friendly hour of 11 in the morning (Pacific Time) on network TV, as a father and son were bonding over a ballgame. Shoot.

 It’s not like I don’t live in the world.  Or that I believe that my kids never see billboards, or magazine covers in the checkout line. But those are “out there” in the world that our kids already know is a mixed moral bag. But the commercial was “in here”, in the sanctuary of our Jewish home, the place where we still insist on the difference between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” words and images.  

Of course you and I can complain from today till tomorrow, but nobody at the NFL, Budweiser, or Fox is interested in hearing it. We know it’s our own job to talk with our kids about this. And you’d think that it actually shouldn’t be too hard for us. After all, we go all the back to Leviticus in abhorring promiscuity, and our traditional Jewish literature extols the virtue of modesty all over the place. In theory, we have all the right language and religious/moral categories to carry on the conversation. Yet in practice, we struggle, procrastinate, and sometimes just can’t figure out how to have the conversation at all. After all, it’s not as if we believe that sex is dirty, or that beauty isn’t part of God’s creation (with apologies to the closing verses of Eshet Chayil). The conversation is nuanced, which is to say, difficult.

And unfortunately, we’ve compounded our problem by absolutely murdering the one value-word that we always do seem to have at the ready. “Tzniut” (modesty) is the word we instinctively want to say, but we’ve tragically succeeded in emptying the term of any value content at all. It’s become an adjective – strange all by itself, since it’s actually a noun – with which to describe the length of a sleeve or the height of a neckline (and confined only to discussion of women’s apparel, never men’s). The term is equal in actual moral content to the word “k’zayit” (the “olive-size” minimum amount of matza that one must eat at the Seder). To battle the NFL et. al. we need to be deploy a different religious vocabulary, reviving the use of solid, traditional terms like human dignity (“kavod habriyot”) and image of God (“tzelem Elokim”). With these, we can initiate and frame a discussion that truly captures our religious ethic, one that truly addresses what’s wrong with that beer commercial and the value system it’s built upon. And as an added bonus, if we leave “tzniut” alone for a while, the next generation will be able to reclaim it for the powerful religious word that it is.

There’s no shortage of reasons that Simchat Torah might be one of your least favorite days in shul. It’s another long morning in a season of long mornings. Dancing might not be your thing. The kids running around with joyous abandon might get on your nerves. I have known similar feelings over the years. Yet, there is something about Simchat Torah that tugs at my heart, and sends my soul flying. I find that it’s worth every second of the hangin’ around shul all day.

Even though I know it’s coming, and I’ve experienced it so many times before, I find the moment when we start B’raishit to be just thrilling. Chills-running-down-my-spine thrilling. The words – so familiar, so simple, so austere – are unexpectedly moving when I hear them in the context of this craziest of days in shul. The reading, along with the pomp, ceremony and song that accompany it, feels like an affirmation of something primal and deep.

I think, when it comes down to it, that B’raishit is actually our raucous, primal re-affirmation of our belief in the continuity of the Jewish people. We know that every Braishit will end in a V’zot Habracha, as we know that all who were once young will become old. Every cycle that begins is a cycle that will end. We know it. We live it. But instinctively, responding to our deepest intuition, we always start up all over again. With all of the joy with which we started last time, and the time before that. All of us start again, together. The little ones beneath the canopy of tallitot, the elders sharing the too-many sweets, parents, children, generations, all starting B’raishit together. All the people of Israel.  All over the globe.

We read B’raishit – again, anew – as the holy days of Tishrai reach their end, placing the coda on the year now past. Tomorrow we begin. With hope. With faith. With a niggun. Every cycle will end. But every end will be followed by a beginning.

Yogi Berra was notorious for swinging at pitches well outside the strike zone, sometimes even hitting them. On one less fortunate occasion, he swung wildly at such a pitch and struck out badly. As he entered the dugout, his manager asked, “Yogi, don’t you ever think when you’re up there?” To which Yogi famously replied, “Think?! How can you think and hit at the same time?!” 

Like Yogi’s manager, we tend to assume that thinking is helpful whenever we’re determined to accomplish something important. In reality though, thinking can sometimes get in the way. 

There are elements of the process of Teshuva that do require thought. Confession, for example, is only as valuable as the intellectual attentiveness that accompanies it. The same can be said for the resolving to do not repeat a prior transgression. If performed thoughtlessly, the resolution is virtually valueless. The opposite is true however, when it comes to the opening step in the Teshuva process, that of regret. As is the case with hitting, you can’t think and regret at the same time.   

Regret over having hurt a loved one or anyone, or regret over having fallen short of what we know we’re capable of, is something that has to spontaneously wash over us, catch us by surprise. Trying to think ourselves into regret is like trying to think ourselves into being in love. It won’t work. Regret is a visceral, primal psychological scream. It’s what happens when the mind, the great rationalizer, had let down its guard, and the heart suddenly runs free. The more we think about regretting, the less successful we’ll be at it. 

But if Teshuva is premised upon regret, and regret must be outside the realm of conscious decision-making, what’s an Elul Jew to do? Well, we begin by deciding to do less thinking. This is the time of year for looking into the eyes of family members, neighbors, and friends, and instead of thinking, just seeing. We will see in their eyes, the favors we’ve done, the love we’ve shown, and also the disappointment we’ve engendered, and the hurt we’ve caused. Just feel, don’t think. This is also the time of year that we when we daven, we should talk less and listen more. These are the days when God speaks to our hearts, the place where regret can take root before the mind has had the chance to realize what has happened. 

Not to fear though. Our minds will soon recognize that the heart is up to something. And that’s when the conscious work of Teshuva can begin.

The recently released Statement of Principles concerning homosexuals within the Orthodox community has gotten a great deal of notice, both here and in Israel. (If you haven’t yet seen the text, it is here: http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/ ) The document was authored primarily by my dear friend Rabbi Nathanial Helfgot, and I am honored to be one of the dozens and dozens of signatories.

The document is significant – historic really – for a variety of reasons. Some are obvious;  others less so. Here are two of the latter:

(1)   The document repeatedly acknowledges the very real possibility that homosexual orientation is genetically based and is not subject to change. While this is not really news to most of us, its explicit articulation in a document authored by Orthodox rabbis is paradigm-shifting. The true deep cause of Orthodoxy’s decades-long unintelligible stammering about homosexuality is the conundrum presented by the possibility that God is responsible both for homosexual orientation and for prohibiting homosexual behavior. The inadmissibility of either of the possible solutions to the conundrum (that the Torah is not Divine, or that God is terribly unjust) left our community inchoate at best, or championing “change therapy” at worst.  The current Statement of Principles offers no solution to the conundrum either. In Talmudic parlance, the question is left as a “teyku”. But the authors of the statement courageously decided that homosexuals should not have to daily pay the social price for our inability to solve the theological puzzle. This is a huge paradigm shift. 

(2)   The fact that so many Orthodox rabbi and educators, men and women, signed their names to the document, signifies loudly and decisively that Modern Orthodoxy’s dalliance with haredi-ism is winding down. The much-bemoaned “drift to the right” that changed the character of so many of Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship academic, rabbinic  and synagogue organizations now has an upright, unafraid, and ideologically passionate counter-force that is determined to reclaim Modern Orthodoxy, and to restore it to its raison d’etre of engaging, rather than running away from, life’s toughest issues. There’s still a long road to travel. There are many complex factors that contributed to the rightward drift, all of which need to be addressed. But the will, the passion, and the conviction to tackle the challenge are all in bold evidence in the long list of signatories to the Statement of Principles. 

We need to appreciate the significance of this moment. It is in no way an overstatement to characterize it as a turning point.