I had an interesting and surprisingly pleasant experience on Court Street some time ago. I was coming out of the bank and about to make a phone call when I heard a voice next to me ask “What are you, a Reform rabbi?” I turned and middle-aged man who certainly looked Jewish but showed no outward signs of affiliation was smiling at me as though he’d just made the greatest joke ever. I was wearing my green hat/kippah, and it was this that elicited the question. “No,” I told him, “I am not a Reform rabbi, but I do hope to be a Conservative rabbi soon. “Oh… oh, really…” he said. “Tell me something… the Conservative Movement, that committee, they just came out with that decision on gays, that thing that didn’t make any sense…” I sighed inwardly. This was going to be one of those conversations.

“Well,” I began, “it was actually three different position papers that were adopted…”

“And they said completely different things, right? Does that make any sense?”

“Here’s what happened,” I said firmly. “Three position papers were passed out of five that were submitted. The three papers basically said two different things: one position, Joel Roth’s position, states that the prohibitions against homosexuality still stand as they always have, that homosexual unions cannot be sanctioned, and that gay people cannot be rabbis. The other position, the one by Dorff, Nevins and Reisner, says that the only thing that is prohibited is the one specific sex act between males, and that homosexuality and homosexual relationships are not prohibited, that gays can have unions, not halachically tantamount to marriage but recognized by the community and presided over by Conservative rabbis, and that gays can and should be allowed to be rabbis.

“What this means,” I continued, somewhat surprised that I still had this man’s attention, “is that both are considered by The Movement to be halachically viable positions, so it now falls to individual communities, congregations and institutions to decide which position they are going to adopt.”

“Well, isn’t that a very divisive outcome?”

“One can look at it that way,” I conceded. “Or, you can view it as an affirmation of our movement’s commitment to pluralism.” This was, of course, a very simplistic statement on my part, and one which I would not be satisfied with were it given to me as plain as that, but this man was genuinely… I guess impressed is the only word. “Wow. That’s really interesting.” He looked up, pondering. “Yes… very interesting.” It was clear that he’d never thought this deeply about the issue. I was able to give a new perspective to a stranger on the street. I told the man that he should go to the Rabbinical Assembly’s website and read the teshuvot for himself. He thanked me and we walked on in different directions.

As I walked toward the subway I thought to myself “This is really what it’s all about.” And I felt good.

I just finished moderating my comments. 704 spam. One inquiry as to when my next post would be up, and a shabbat greeting from a month and a half ago. From someone I don’t know.

I guess it rarely occurs to me that I might have actual readers. I’m so rarely ever pleased with the quality of my writing.

Well, here’s what’s going on at the moment:

The domain beyondthenear.net has been renewed for another year.

I have moved out of my apartment.

At the end of June I will leave for Israel, where I will be living for a year, studying at The Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
I have just completed a book on XHTML and CSS, and am now beginning to study Ruby all as part of a bizarre self-improvement regimen that I am putting myself through with the help of Jason (and by help I mean, of course, frequent lashings and water torture).

I will make a sincere attempt (again) to keep this space in use. I’m hoping that being in Israel will help with this. Meanwhile, you can go bug Jason to update DSA.

I’ve been noticing lately that I simply can’t seem to get myself as worked up about halachic details as I seemed ready to not too long ago. I can’t whip myself into an anxious frenzy over the Conservative movement and especially the lay population and its current inconsistencies.

I think that part of the reason for this is that I have been observing others going through similar crises and, from the outside, it is much easier to see them for what they are: unpragmatic and impractical.

Halacha is important. Halachic consistency is even important. But the bottom line is that I do not believe that the whole of halacha was given at Sinai from the mouth of God. Neither do most of the leaders of The Conservative Movement. As such, I’ve stopped expecting halacha to be either perfect or consistent because those expectations run counter to my theology. The fact is that halacha is not a science, though it may clothe itself at times in vaguely scientific language. Halachic reasoning is an art, based in logic, but also in forensics. Rhetoric. It is an art of persuasion.

It has been troubling me lately that some of the people with whom I’ve been having discussions about Conservative halacha seem too ready to be unpersuaded. They seem too much to want perfect scientific consistency, and it seems at times, to even greater an extent than some of the Talmudic sages might have. There has always been an extent to which those making the laws have done basically what suited them and their community, what made the most practical sense, balanced with the stuff that doesn’t make sense on the surface of it, which is of course not a reason in itself to get rid of something. It would be nice if the rabbis who make up the law body of The Conservative Movement were more persuasive, but there has to be a point at which the reader is willing to be persuaded. The fact is that anyone can decide at anytime to be persuaded or unpersuaded by anything, depending on their disposition. I’m not suggesting that one should suspend their senses of logic and reason and give the rabbis a pass. Rather I am suggesting that the absolutely rigorous application of strict logic may be misplaced in this instance. Halachic logic simply is not strict logic. It is a body of religious law. It is a part of a larger mythological structure upon which we choose to try to base our lives… but ultimately, it is the other way around. The structure is, in fact, based upon our lives. It is a system, a very elaborate and mostly well thought out system set in place to uphold certain values. There does come a time however when we need to step back and look fundamentally at the values which we are trying to uphold, and make sure that everything matches up to reality as we understand it in historical context.