A Jewish view on Homosexuality

It’s strange what you find when your not looking, isn’t it?

The argument over Homosexuality in Religion has been a thorny one. While looking for something completely different that may well become the subject of it’s very own post at some point later, I found this article from a site called “jewishanswers”. This site is a place where you can ask Rabbi’s (Jewish Spritual Leaders, rather like the Christian Vicar) questions about Juedism. The question asked here was about Homosexuality, and why, as the question rightly pointed out, items from the Torah are no longer followed, but the ban against Homosexuality is.

Before I go on, I’d like to draw the readers attention to the main thrust of the page. It advocates tolarance, and understand towards Gay people. This, at least, I can’t knock.

However, hidden inside this message of tolerance is a few sets of rather worrying statements. Of course, this is just one Rabbi’s view, but presumably it’s held by a few out there.

We cannot keep any law today that requires us to have a Sanhedrin or rabbinical court for punishment cases. (Other than monetary cases) The example that you gave about stoning is not applicable today only because we cannot carry it out. It has nothing to do with choice. We never decided that any one law in the Torah was immoral and therefore would no longer obey it. Rather once we no longer had the Sanhedrin, i.e. the Temple was destroyed and we were sent into exile, those cases could no longer be heard by an earthly court.

This is response to the questioner asking “Why we don’t stone people”. The Rabbi points out, however, that the any court that gave the death sentance once in 70 years was to be considered a murderous court. However, the point is that they have not decided to go against these rather archaic commandments, but have rather decided that as there is not a court blessed by God, they can not be heard, and as such these extreeme punishments cannot be metered out.

It’s an interesting question as to wether or not the Rabbi would want these punishments, and these old, untraible, laws re-instated if there was a blessed court to hear them. It might be one of those conveiniant accidents of faith that means that one does not have to compromise one’s faith and beleif in the Torah, for actions that one personally finds distasteful.

Further down the article, it talks of the reason that Man and Woman belong together (and thus, why Homosexuality is wrong).

The answer, from the Jewish perspective, is that two people complete each other spiritually. So, can not two men complete each other spiritually as well? No. The reason is that even though a person’s nature might come out in certain character traits in the physical world, i.e. a man may be more afiminate and sincere, spiritually he still needs the male spiritual tools (Torah obligations) to raise himself up spiritually. In other words, regardless of how a person presents himself or herself in this world their soul is still male or female. The physical may
be portrayed a certain way in order for a person to have to go through a specific struggle. Struggles exist in order to reach spiritual perfection.

That is, a man still has a Male soul, and as such, requires the balancing force that is a female soul. The article then goes on to talk about how Homosexuality is a challenge, and those that take therapy, or practice absenance are stepping up to that challenge.

I would first like to dispach something before we move on. Homosexuals do not need theraby for their choice of sexuality. Nor do they need to abstain from their choice of life-partner. From a religious point of view, God made them Homosexual, who the heck am I to argue with his decision?

That asside, there are several interesting points that I want to go over here. The first is the idea of the sprit of Homosexuals. Something my mother once told me about the Eternal Soul, what if a Spirit always had a nominal idea of Sex? That is, what if the Spirit was always Male, or perhaps, always Female? what if, then, that soul was placed in the wrong “sex” body? Of course, this then, is either a Mistake, which then makes a problem with the idea that God could make a mistake, or perhaps, it is Intended. If it is in tended, why would God want us to fight his decision?

The tone of the page hints that there is some sort of hidden secret in there somewhere. That there is some sort of Spritual power that can be gained by living properly. This is the kind of secret that people allude to in the complicated Kabbalah, it’s the kind of thing that people turn to other religions in search of.

There is a deep spirituality in Judeism, and it’s child religion, Christianity. It’s a shame that both religions are so used to it being a big “occult” secret (that is, hidden secret), that many people have forgotten it was even there to begin with.

Homosexuality has obviously been with us a long time, indeed, the Greek thought that there was no finer love than the love between two men(wether or not they were talking metaphorically, or actually is a debate for another time). Why the major religions would actually say that this was against God is beyond me. It happens in nature, so the term “unnatural” cannot be applied. I have long held that the original rules were designed for a tribe of people in exile, to keep what appear to be rather stupid people from wiping themselfs out. (If you object to the term stupid, you need to wonder why a group of people, saved by God would think a Golden Calf was the way forward when Moses was off up a mountain. This not only meant that their gold was in a really unusable form, and it also pissed off the God that had saved them). Homosexuality as a sexual acts in the middle of the desert, where fresh running water and other forms of personal hygean were very difficult to get ahold of would be a very bad idea.That’s why, if you take a look at the other rules that you have hidden in there, they are all about ways of keeping people alive, and ensuring, for the most part, that they wash, and keep their clothes clean.

I can see the idea that there needs to be balance in relationships, and that on the face of it, same-sex relationships seem, to the outside, to be missing that. However, before you judge (something that we shouldn’t do anyway), take a look at some of the succesful marriages around you, or the succesfull pairings that you can see. Are there bits of the relationship, or indeed, was all their relationship, a little different to how you would do it? or how you would want to live your life? Do you simply shake your head and think “what every floats your boat”? Why, then, Is Homosexuality so different?

Black Xanthus