My first post on Morethodoxy, entitled “Openness and Passion,” outlined what I perceive to be an important process in living the Torah, being able to adopt the strengths one finds in each community and in the so many different approaches to mitzvoth and Torah, even if they are not our own primary practice. Custom is a powerful thing in Judaism, but sometimes stolidness can be spiritually detrimental.

I think that for many people, Jewish and not, prayer has become a recitation of words.   Several frum (observant) people who take davening (prayer) seriously have commented to me, “I like learning Torah and find it meaningful, but I just can’t relate, beyond the level of fulfilling an obligation, to tefilah (prayer).”

The Talmud (Berachot 32b) tells us that the Chasidim Harishonim, the Ancient Pious Ones, used to wait an hour before prayer (to prepare), pray for an hour, and take an hour after prayer (to recover?;  to return to this world?). They did it three times a day, and in fact the Talmud says we are obligated to do this also.

This prayer system does not sound like ours.  We rush in, pray to fulfill our obligation, perhaps concentrate a bit on its meaning and before whom we are praying, and finish.   It does not take us an hour to prepare or in fact any time to come down.  I am not, God forbid, criticizing the many Jews who are sincere about prayer and make great sacrifices to pray with a minyan at correct times or on their own.  I am no expert at or Tzadik in regard to prayer.  But I think that the Talmud’s ancient method of prayer may have been entirely unlike ours.

I imagine a prayer that takes an hour of preparation and an hour to come back is one that is highly meditative.  Kavvanah, the intent that is required in Jewish prayer, is sometimes understood as just understanding what the words mean or knowing that one is standing before the Almightily, but I think the Talmud here is offering us an important tool that reaches beyond the standard level of kavvanah in Jewish law.  Perhaps prayer is not supposed to be just saying words.  Perhaps prayer and the kavvanah that was seen in the time of the Talmud, as a prerequisite for prayer (one did not pray for three days after traveling according to the Talmud since we might lack concentration, Aruvin 65a), is something much more.

Judaism contains many spiritual tools that are often ignored if they are not part of our own personal or community’s customary practice.   There is a tradition of meditation in Judaism.  Clearly when it comes to prayer there was something deeper going in the Talmud that we have lost.  Even latter in Jewish history we have for instance Rav Nachman of Breslov’s instructions regarding prayer and meditation.  That one should go to the forest, preferably at night, and there speak to God in one’s own words (Torah 52).

I think we must reclaim some of Judaism’s spiritual tools.   In the Orthodox community we sometimes, in our punctiliousness, (and probably in reaction to Reform Judaism) allow the ma’aseh hamitzvah (the act of performing the mitzvah) to overshadow the inner kavvanah (intent), and the perhaps the telos of the mitzvah -connecting with God.

Let us be open to taking a closer look at the spiritual tools that exist within Judaism, even if they are not our own or those of our immediate community or custom; even if they feel foreign.  I would even suggest that sometimes there are Jewish spiritual tools that have become inaccessible or lost to us, such as meditation, and that it may take learning them in a non-Jewish context that has cultivated them well, in order to readapt them into Judaism.

I will explore this classic question of Taamey Hamitzvot (whether there are reasons for mitzvoth) and I then hope to link the answer to Rick’s comment on my post from last week regarding gay Jews.  His question was, once we see people in homosexual relationships with more love and less rejection don’t we run the risk of accepting other forbidden relationships such as incest?

Summary: This is a long post so let me summarize first.  Having a Kiddush to celebrate the commitment of two homosexuals to raising a family together (which is not forbidden)  would not lead us to having a Kiddush for a brother and sister raising a family together as partners because homosexuality is not immoral in our society and incest is.  The torah forbids both but that says nothing about morality, only about halacha.  Both sexual acts are forbidden, neither Kiddush is, but we should not celebrate an incestual union since it is morally depraved and will affect other’s moral compass, whereas a homosexual union, while forbidden, does not effect our moral compass and our ability to imitate God which is only based on mitzvoth which have as their reasons mercy, compassion and morality.

Post: Rick’s is a classic argument against tolerating homosexuality.  From a secular point of view people can make distinctions between one kind of relationship and another (many states permit homosexual weddings but not the other kinds Rick mentioned) but from a religious point of view it is more difficult.  If the Torah is our measure of what is moral and what is forbidden then aren’t all forbidden relationships equally immoral?  If we see in a less harsh light something the Torah forbids then why not permit everything the Torah forbids?   What will stop us from having a Kiddush for an incestual couple if we have one for a homosexual one?  It’s a good question that deserves a serious answer.

The Mishnah (Megilah 25a) states: “One who is leading the prayer service and prays, “Even unto a mother bird does your mercy extend”…we quiet him.””  The Talmud records two opinions as to why this is so (each is an opinion of a different Rabbi named Yosi); either, (1) because we will create jealousy among the creatures (since God is singling out the bird for special treatment), or (2) because this prayer leader is depicting the Torah’s commandments as motivated by mercy and they are nothing more than decrees of the King (with no moral motivation such as mercy behind them).  This Gemara is presenting both sides of the argument -the opinion that mitzvot have no reasons (even those miztvot which seem to reflect moral intentions) and the opinion which holds that the purpose of all Mitzvot are to teach us to be just, merciful and moral.

With regard to this question of the meaning or lack thereof behind the mitzvoth, Maimonides in his book of Jewish law (Mishnah Torah), seems to contradict his opinion in his book of Philosophy (Guide for the Perplexed).  In the Mishna Torah he writes (Laws of Prayer 9:7) that the mitzvoth in general and the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird before takimg her eggs in particular, are decrees and not motivated by mercy, yet in the Guide (III:48)  he writes that this mitzvah and all mitzvoth have rational reasons.  Indeed Maimonides writes that the reasons for all mitzvoth are either to cultivate greater character in us or to correct our ways of thinking.

On this Shabbat, the Shabbat of chukim (laws that do not have reasons) how are we to reconcile this contradiction in Maimonides and indeed this divergence of thought throughout Jewish history?  Do we perform Mitzvot because they are moral and will cultivate greater character and rachamim, mercy, or because they are, plan and simple, just the decree of the King and nothing more?

It is important to note that according to the Talmud we are commanded to imitate certain characteristics and certain acts of the Divine.  The Gemara takes the verse in Deuteronomy which commands us to “walk in God’s ways,” as a commandment to imitate God’s characteristics of mercy and graciousness, “mah hu rachum, af ata rachum.”  This is done, the Talmud says in another place, by imitating four things that God does in the torah: clothing the naked (Adam and Eve), visiting the sick (Abraham), comforting the mourner (Isaac) and burying the dead (Moses).

The Talmud does not pick other things God does for us to imitate and thus be like God.  For instance, making war or wearing tifilin (the midrash).  Why not?   Why don’t all mitzvoth help us to follow God’s midot (characteristics), namely mercy and graciousness?  Why only these 4 mitzvot?

I think the answer to the above contradiction in the Rambam (Maimonides) and to understanding this age old argument as to whether mitzvoth are an expression of morality or not lies in the 6^th chapter of Maimonides’s introduction to Pirkey Avot (the Shmoneh Pirakim, The Eight Chapters).  There the Rambam is bothered by a conflict between the secular (Greek) philosophers and the Talmud.  According to the Talmud if one passes by a restaurant and smells milk and meat cooking together one should not say, “I hate milk and meat cooked together,” but rather should say, “I would like to eat it , yet what can I do my Father in heaven has forbidden it from me.”  This seems opposed to what  Aristotle writes that one should cultivate their moral sensitivities to reach a level where one is repulsed by evil and drawn to the good; it seems the Talmud would be in disagreement with Aristotle feeling one should desire that which is forbidden and then resist it.  (I guess the Rambam was Morethodox since he takes secular philosophy so seriously, but that is for another post).

The Rambam’s answer is a profound one, and I think important for understanding mitzvoth in general and especially those mitzvoth which conflict with our moral sensibilities.  The Rambam says that the Talmud and Aristotle are actually in agreement.   If one finds killing and stealing repugnant, as well as other mitzvoth that come from our moral sense, then both Aristotle and the Talmud would agree that person has cultivated a more refined moral self.  In this realm it is better to say “I do not want to,” than to say “I want but God has forbidden it.”  When it comes to not eating non-kosher food however there is no such moral sensibility to be cultivated.  Eating kosher as well as all other ritual mitzvot have nothing to do with morality.  They are, in the words of the Talmud, only a decree of the king, nothing more, certainly not a violation of a moral principal or for purposes of cultivating character sensibilities.   It is meaningless to say one has reached a level of greater moral refinement, or for that matter according to the Rambam greater spiritual sensitivity, when one is repulsed by meat and milk cooked together.  There is no greater meaning in mitzvoth than being solely the decree of the King unless those mitzvoth are clearly in the realm of morality, rationally understood mitzvoth which have mercy or compassion as their basis.   Hence the Gemara’s statement is not in conflict with Aristotle.

In answer to Rick’s question on my post from last week about welcoming gay Jews, I would argue that many of the Torah’s sexual commandments are in the Rambam’s category of milk and meat, having nothing to do with morality, but rather the “decree of the King.”   Therefore just because the Torah forbids both homosexual sexual acts and incestual sexual acts does not mean that they are morally equivalent   (though the acts may be halachically equivalent). The Torah forbids intercourse with one’s aunt and permits it with one’s uncle.  We must conduct ourselves in accordance with this because it is commanded by our holy torah, but this does not mean that one is moral and one immoral.  We do not need to conclude that one who marries their uncle is a moral person and one who marries their aunt an immoral person.  We can only say that one act is sinful, and the other not.  The same is true of homosexuality.  We can say it is forbidden but I don’t think we can say it is in same moral realm as incest.  When presented with a person who commits crimes that are morally based, such as killing, stealing or oppressing others, we can conclude that they are lacking moral refinement and we should beware of the effect they may have upon others.

We need not worry that welcoming homosexual Jews into our community means we have no moral compass and tomorrow we will welcome adults who commit sexual acts with children (which is not actually one of the sexual sins in the torah) or brothers and sisters who want to marry.  Those are morally repugnant to us if we are morally refined people.  The torah wants us to have a moral compass, this is the function of being merciful and gracious, the two midot we are supposed to imitate about god.   Is it moral to welcome people into shul who are gay?  That is a moral question, outside the purview of halacha.   Should we welcome people who are mean?   Who steal?  Who cheat on their taxes?  Who would like to murder?  No.  Those are people with less refined moral sensitivities and we should be wary of it rubbing off on us.   People who don’t keep kosher?   People who eat milk and meat together?  They are not immoral; sinful yes, but not immoral.

So Rick fear not, there is no danger that in welcoming gays into our shuls, which is not halachically forbidden, (and I think is an act of rachum and chanun and therefore indeed a moral act) that we should fear a Kiddush on behalf of an incestual couple (which would not be moral).  Is gay male sex an issur diorite (forbidden by the torah?), yes.  Is it immoral in our society?  Not today.   Is sex between a 30 year old man and a 10 year old girl asur (forbidden)?  No.  Is it immoral?  Of course.   I’m not saying who we should give aliot to, I am just saying that homosexuality (and marying your aunt for that matter)  is not morally equivalent to other forbidden relationships.

Last week I wrote of welcoming intermarried families and this week I would like to address how we see another population of Jews that often feels unwelcomed -Jewish people who are not physically attracted to people of the opposite gender, but only to the same gender, and how we as communities observant of halacha can welcome them and to what extent.

Various studies estimate that anywhere from 4%-20% of the American population is homosexual.  It would be dangerous for us to believe that Orthodox Jews are an exception.  That the torah forbids men from having sexual relations with each other is testament that in the Torah’s preview such a desire does exist.

My community encompasses several gay members, some are open about it and some are not, some have partners or are married and others are not, some live a celibate life alone (or have tried to) and others do not.   Just as there isn’t one type of heterosexual person so too there is not homogeneity among homosexuals.  Ultimately people are individuals (an entire universe of their own, as the Mishna in Sanhedrin says), and must be attended to as such.

What should an orthodox Rabbi do when a congregant comes out to him?  What should an Orthodox community’s attitude be toward their gay brethren?   Should we reject them?  Accept them?  Tell them they can never live a life with a family and have children?  Find them a proper partner?

I would argue that while Orthodox rabbis and communities can’t celebrate same gender weddings, at the same time we do not have to concern ourselves with what happens in everyone’s bedrooms.  For instance, some upstanding Orthodox rabbis perform weddings for people they know are not going to go to the mikvah regularly (though we hope they will one day).  Halachikally in fact, it may be worse for a man to have intercourse with a woman who has not gone to the mikvah after menstruating, than it is for a lesbian couple to be intimate and possibly even for a gay male couple to be intimate (in some ways).

Perhaps we should take at face value that people are living together and raising Jewish families together. Though I am not suggesting celebrating or performing same gender weddings, perhaps we can celebrate the fact that two people commit to living with each other forever, raising Jewish observant children together, keeping Shabbos as a family, keeping kosher, singing nigunim and learning Torah.

I am not suggesting we change the Torah or Jewish law, rather I am pointing out ways we can view things in order to better welcome the entire Jewish people into communities that study and observe the Torah.

We may fear that by being welcoming to gay Jews and families with same gender parents we are implicitly offering legitimacy to things the torah forbids.  But aren’t we just as scared of condemning people to a lonely life that they cannot lead?  I am not saying no one can be celibate; certainly there are people who can do it.  There are people who will commit their lives to serving the community, to a relationship only with God and with friends with no intimacy and no eizer kinegdo (helpmate).  But this is not everyone and I’m not sure it’s the best path for most.  How many joyous mitzvot that are most fully observed as a family must we sacrifice for this one issur (forbidden thing), which may be in many instances a rabbinic one?

I’m not saying we should be cavalier. I am not saying all of a sudden we should have  engagement parties for gay couples, but what if we had a cake at kiddush one Shabbat (albeit a big cake or one with small writing) that said “Mazal Tov on your commitment to each other forever to raise a Jewish family!”?

I remember I was once at a meeting of rabbis where one Rabbi argued that we should protest the Jewish newspapers for including ads announcing gay marriages.  He said if we did not our children would think it was ok to become gay.  I have no doubt this Rabbi had never know a gay Orthodox Jew well.  If he had he would know that often gay Orthodox Jews want nothing more than to be straight, it is not a choice most make.

I will finish with the wise words an observant gay Jew once said to me:  We must be clear that there is a difference between halacha (Jewish law) and homophobia.  When our personal fears and prejudices hide under the banner of halacha, when we use the Torah as a spade to dig with in service of our own predilections, egos and anxieties, we not only do a disservice to the Jewish people but to the Torah itself.

For instance, if an intermarried family wanted to be part of our shul would we let them?   Where would we draw the line?  Could they have a family membership?  An aliyah?  Could the non-Jewish spouse if it was a man have peticha (opening the ark) or gelilah (rolling up the torah), honors  that do not technically require one to be Jewish but might, for many Jews, feel like giving tacit approval to someone, all of whose actions the torah may not approve of?   What about fears of legitimating what others are doing and unwittingly putting our approbation on things we do not think are in consonance with Torah, such as driving on Shabbat, gay Jews and their partners, Jews who do not keep kosher or pay their taxes?  Should we welcome all of them?

Often we can not have both.  I believe we must err, in an extreme way, on the side of welcoming.  I learned this from one of my long time mentors and teachers, the saintly Rabbi Abraham Magence.  Rabbi Magence was the rabbi of my shul for 35 years before he asked me to take his place.  I was his congregant for 8 years while I worked at the Hillel at nearby Washington University and davened at Bais Abraham.

No matter who walked into our shul, Bais Abraham, Rabbi Magence hugged them, and truly loved them.  A non-Jewish homeless person, an intermarried person, or a Jew convicted of crimes.  I will never forget that our first week in St. Louis 13 years ago Rabbi Magence invited myself and my wife over for dinner with one of the pillars of the shul and his wife.  This pillar was a humble man who spent many hours fixing parts of our (at the time) crumbling shul building with his hands.  I saw the man in shul after that every Shabbat, he always received aliyot, and was treated like any other member of the shul.

It was only years latter when this man’s wife passed away and I asked if he needed me to do anything for the funeral when he answered that he did not since his wife’s priest and her church would be taking care of it.  I was amazed and pleasantly surprised.  I think  Rabbi Magence, and probably Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Bardichev, would have composed the following blessing.  “Master of the Universe, how wonderful are your people Israel, even though this man’s wife was not a Jew, in fact a committed Christian, this does not stop him from coming to shul, loving G-d and serving the Jewish people.”

As one of Rabbi Magence’s children told me so correctly, “People think he was lenient with halacha.  Just the opposite was true.  He was machmir (strict), but more so in the realm of laws between us and others than between us and G-d.”   Indeed when the two realms are in conflict, laws between us and others and between us and G-d, I have no doubt we must be machmir (strict) on the bain adam lichavero (those between us and other people) and lenient on the one between us and G-d.  Abraham our ancestor did this when G-d was talking to him and he saw three people, nomads in the distance, and he left God to welcome them.  As Rabbi Magence used to say, “Those three people Avraham saw were not Jews, there were of course no Jews or monotheists other than Abraham, those three men Abraham left God’s presence for were idol worshipers.”

Rav Moshe Feinstein uses this logic at times in his response also when commandments between us and God are in conflict with those between us and other people.  In a tishuvah I was recently learning in which Rav Moshe was asked is a convert can be a certain type of communal leader he makes the point that in halacha the power we are allowed to give converts over the community is limited.  Rav Moshe then writes that we must consciously be lenient on the Torah’s commandment of “mikerev achecha” (which limits power given to a convert) since the Torah also commands “lo tonu et ha’ger,” “do not pain the convert.”

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I will examine what I think our (Morethodox) attitudes should be with regard to non-Jews, intermarried Jews, gay Jews, Jews who do not keep kosher, and Jews who cheat on their taxes.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hyim

Five Pillars of Orthodox Judaism distilled by Rabbi Asher Lopatin
1) Torah Mi Sinai – Torah from Sinai – Both the Oral and Written Tradition come from God and were revealed to the Jewish people at Sinai. In contrast to the great Conservative halachist, Rabbi Joel Roth, who says, “the halackic tradition is the given, and theology is required to fall into place behind it,” I believe our halachik tradition needs to be driven by theology in order to keep Judaism alive and infinite, rather than ossified and limited. We need to start with this awe of the Torah and Talmud coming from God and being infinite and deserving infinite reverence, placing ourselves humbly below it, and only then establishing ownership of it, and making it our “plaything” as King David says in Psalms. Only when a couple accepts Kiddushin (betrothal) can they become intimate with each other, and our rabbis compare Matan Torah (Receiving the Torah ) to Kiddushin. Only if you feel the Torah is your God-given partner can you then become intimate with it; then you can really feel you are so connected to it that you can make a conjecture as to what it is thinking; then you can trust your instincts in interpreting it and its 3500 year tradition. This theology and intimacy leads to the second pillar:
2) 2) Chidush MiSinai – Innovation from Sinai –New understandings and innovative interpretations come if you really believe the Torah is Divine and infinite and, thus, can be interpreted into an infinite amount of ways. If you are truly “chared” – fearful, awestruck – of the “d’var Hashem” – the word of God – then you can never have the audacity, the chutzpa, to believe that you or any human being can truly know what it means. You can never say something is “clear from the Torah”. How can the Divine word of God, communicated to mere mortals, ever be “clear” or easy to understand, or “obvious”? However, any new interpretation must be processed and examined through the traditions of p’sak (rulings) of the last 2000 years, and that interpretation must follow the Talmud. So we may re-read the Talmud in a totally different way without changing the eternal Torah of God that the Talmud represents. Our rereading will be debated, will be resisted and challenged, but, ultimately, if it is a real interpretation of the Talmud – as far as can be humanly established – and it fits into the understanding of Rishonim (Medieval authorities) and the subsequent authorities, it will become part of “halacha l’Moshe Misinai” – the Halacha that was understood to have been given to Moshe at Sinai, even if Moshe never understood it the way someone in the 21st century correctly understands the word of God. Innovation comes from the dialectic of ideas and thoughts from the world around us and our allegiance to Torah, the eternal, infinite word of God. Within this dialectic, chidushim, innovative ways of understanding our Torah and tradition, arise in every generation.

RAL