An email, sent off-list to someone on a Conservative Jewish mailing list regarding the legitimization of homosexuality and homosexual relations in Conservative Judaism. Person in question expresses dismay at the position I seem to be taking on-list, of arguing from a position of “no-choice” with regards to sexual orientation/attraction.
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I agree with you 100%. But I do not know how to argue the position that I hold in my heart and mind… trying to do so always gets me in trouble debate-wise. As an aside, I myself am bisexual, and am not too enthusiastic about the day that may come when I fall in love with a woman and want to spend the rest of my life with her, but run into difficulty because of being out as bisexual and unwilling to dishonestly declare myself as having come out as a “lesbian” in order to plead “lack of choice.” As I have stated previously, I am not a halachic scholar and feel more than a little underqualified to argue halacha with folks here, most of whom are quite a bit older than I am and more studied. I’m not entirely convinced that there is a strictly halachic way to legitimize same-sex relations the way I would like to see them legitimized, without a radical reinterpretation of the root text (which I am willing to do, but can understand the reluctance of many Conservative Jews, and certainly of the Law Committee, to do so).

Another big part of the problem is the defining of the homosexual/non-heterosexual experience. Many gay folks of the strictly homosexual persuasion are perfectly content to argue, and to argue loudly, for lack of choice, even arguing from genetics (for which there is no scientific evidence as yet) and as such this has become largely the accepted premise in pro-gay circles. As someone who feels attraction for people on an individual and personal basis largely regardless of gender, I cannot accept this premise. I am willing to take a person at their word that they are incapable of feeling attraction for a certain sex, but obviously none of us knows what truly goes on in the hearts and minds of others. What I do feel to be a truth, though, is that a person’s orientation is more than just a simple choice. This is what I find to be so insulting about the kashrut analogy… I have a deep appreciation for the practice of kashrut and keep kosher myself… but I have known my whole life that it was a fairly simple matter to choose kashrut. The choosing may have deep ramifications for a person’s personality and identity and how they relate to themselves and the world around them… personally I believe that this is the primary reason for keeping kashrut, but we can discuss this later… but it is a simple choice.

Relationships are not as simple, and who one finds themselves attracted to or in love with is a much deeper and more complex matter. It used to be that relationships were sanctioned primarily as business deals, and that the sexual proclivities or love interests of the people involved were not of as great consequence in the initiation of the transaction as we now consider them to be (interestingly enough, I don’t hear anyone arguing that we should go back to match-making to solve these problems of love and attraction wreaking havoc with our halachic system). In our earliest history, where men had the choice to take multiple partners whereas only the woman was under significant sexual sanction, it was not, I imagine, considered problematic since the person of primary importance in the scenario had options for sexual satisfaction beyond the confines of a single life-partner, the need for true love and compatibility between married partners was less paramount than it must be in our largely monogamous paradigm.

Now that we largely accept a world view in which love and attraction and compatibility are considered primary in the choosing of a life-partner, matters of who one can enter into such a relationship with bear reexamination. The reexamination itself is not without precedent, since we have in our history the rabbinic banning of polygamy (something else that no one seems to be advocating the reinitiation of, interestingly enough… might solve some problems) but of course we all know that it is rabbinically easier to go from less restrictive to more restrictive… though the opposite is also not without precedent. The biggest problem is, I suppose, that darned slippery slope argument in which I have refused to engage. As I think I have stated before, each of the other sexual prohibitions which we uphold in Judaism have multiple halachic and extra-halachic reasons for maintaining them, and I see no way in which this will change anytime in the foreseeable future… but the fact that I cannot foresee the future does not mean much for a halachic argument… it is true that the same has been, and still could be said for homosexual relations.

The plain and painful truth is that I simply do not know how to argue it.

And honestly, this is part of why I want to go to rabbinical school… because I want to learn enough to frame my positions legitimately within the Jewish context.

In response to my thoughts on God and Buddha, my friend Getzel saw fit to remind me that while in Judaism we tend to think in terms of 1 (unity of God and of things in general), “Buddhism” tends to frame things in terms of 0, of nothingness. This reminded me of a thought I had several years ago, probably after reading The Mystery Of The Aleph by Amir Aczel followed immediately by Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. The thought that I had was that, metaphysically, the concepts of 1, 0 and ∞ are closely related, and may even mean the same thing.

I had set the thought aside years ago (this was, I think, sometime toward the end of high school, or the beginning of college), in order to think about other matters that may have seemed more practical at the time. When Getzel brought it back to the surface, I set it aside again, but knew that I couldn’t just leave it alone. When I had some silence I was going to think about it, there was no getting around it.

Well, what is Shabbat for except thinking? (Also, you know, praising God and naming babies and eating lox and drinking rye… but you know what I mean.) So, over Shabbat I did some thinking about this. Here is an approximate reconstruction of the thought process.

I started with honey. Why honey? Because nothing can live in honey. This is why it is an excellent preservative, and why it never goes bad. I was thinking of unity. What is unified? What is truly One? Something, and the absence of anything else. So honey just came to mind. Okay, so postulate a completely unified universe, a universe of honey. That is One.

Except, Honey is not really unified. See, honey has a molecular structure. Honey can be broken down. Anything, anything, at least anything of which we have knowledge, can be broken down. I should note that A photon cannot, to our knowledge be broken down, but a photon can also not be proven to have an independent existence of its own, thank you quantum mechanics. The current standard model holds quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons to be elementary particles, but the standard model is of course in flux, as science always must be.

So what is unified? What is truly One? The answer is Nothing. Nothing. Zero.

0 is the only true 1.

Okay, so we’ve got 0 and 1. Where does ∞ fit? Lets come back to the concept of unity. Unity, the absence of anything else. The state of being without separation. True unity, cosmic unity, therefore, must be infinite. Why? Because if it stops, it is separated. If it ends, the ending is a separation from… something. Anything. Or nothing. But it is a boundary which necessarily implies the existence of an outside of the boundary. And we’re no longer talking true unity.

Ein. Ein Sof. Ein Sof Ohr.

Does this actually mean anything? I don’t know. Is there any practical application to this line of thought? I don’t know. Does it fascinate me? Oh dear God yes. What do you do with this sort of thinking? What do you do when this is the sort of thing that you think about at night, then when you come to a point where something makes sense in a way you hadn’t thought of before, you smile to yourself and can finally fall asleep? And when you feel like you’ve gotten somewhere with a line of thought like this, what do you do with it? Who do you talk to about it?

This is why I majored in philosophy alongside Jewish studies. And this is why I ultimately dropped my philosophy major. All the philosophy students wanted to do was find a philosopher from the past to blow their mind and with whom they could decide they agreed and go around declaring “I Am A Kantian!” No one wanted to have their own thoughts, or find out who had had similar thoughts to theirs in the past for the sake of furthering or refining their ideas. I went into philosophy because I felt alone and I left because I felt alone.

shrug C’est La Vie, I suppose. Someday I hope to somehow put all this stuff in my brain together in a way that… creates something useful.

At JTS a couple of weeks ago I met this really great guy A. with whom I have a feeling I’ll be spending a lot of time in the not-too-distant future, and with whom I think I might end up working on a lot of future projects. I was wearing an orange scarf that day that my friend Kathleen bought for me a few years ago from a Tibetan shop in New Hampshire. It has Sanskrit writing along the edges and a Buddha in the middle. A. saw it and got excited. “Oh, don’t tell me, don’t tell me I’m not the only one!” I let him down a little bit by telling him that the scarf was a gift from a friend and that I didn’t actually know what the Sanskrit said, but promised that there was to be a lot of talking about Buddha and Buddhism in our future.

Last night before going to sleep I picked up a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that I’d picked up this past spring after Sakura Matsuri for $2 from some guys selling used books from a table just off St. Marks. It’s a book that people have been telling me to read for over a decade. I’m only up to chapter 5, but something struck me very early on in the narrative, and that was the use of Buddha as interchangeable with “God” and in association with “The Godhead”

I’ve encountered several different understandings of Buddha. Many of them include a worship of something divine, something, something called Buddha which is another word for what is also called, say, Jesus, or Jehovah, or Krishna, or Allah. Often this conception of Buddha is accompanied by statues and/or pictures of “Buddha” in the form of a man, and sacrifices placed before said image, bowing before said image, etc.

Someone once tried to tell me that idolatry was not actually idolatry because the statue was not the God itself but just a tangible image of the actual god, merely a representative of a deity and not the deity itself. I tried to explain to this person that that was exactly what idolatry is.

I once heard an old man argue vociferously that Buddhism could not possibly be compatible with Judaism because he’s seen Buddhists and they bow down to statues and you cannot be Jewish and bow down to statues. It is true that you cannot be a Jewish Jew who practices Judaism if you bow down to statues. But it is incorrect that this is what Buddhism is.

Buddha is not a person. Buddha is not a god. Buddha is not a noun. It is an adjective. It is a state of being. Buddha means awake. The only understanding of Buddhism that I can accept as in any way “real” is that which says “If you meet the Buddha on the road, you must kill it” and “If you say that you are a Buddhist, you are not.” Buddha is not a name for God.

And yet… it is.

See, here’s how it works… God, our God, the Jewish God, is a verb. Buddha is an adjective. And you are the noun. Simple. Yod Hey Vav Hey. You. I. I am. I God Buddha. I am Awake.

So what else is there?

This understanding of Buddhism has no place for statues and images and incense and sacrifices. Not that I have anything against incense… incense is very nice for things like calming rattled nerves and setting moods and the like… not the point. Striving to become Buddha is the point of what is called “Buddhism.” In that sense, my Judaism is Buddhism. In that sense, I am a “Buddhist.” And I am as far from an idolater as you can get.

I’m glad I found this guy David. I hope one day to meet him in real life. He always gives me good food for thought.

He posted today something about judging people inwardly. It was a personal thought about a personal trait, how he reacts to it in his life and how he feels about it.

Monday night in Talmud class, the teacher referenced the famous Talmudic phrase “Make for yourself a teacher; aquire for yourself a friend; and judge everyone favorably.”

The truth is, when I first learned this saying from the Talmud, only the first two parts stuck in my mind. I think I may not have even learned the third part with the first two. Honestly, I think that I first learned the phrase when I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok when I was a kid, and I’m fairly certain that only the making of a teacher and acquisition (or choosing, in Mr. Potok’s preferred translation) of a friend were referenced.

The past couple of mornings, walking down the street, I have found myself muttering this third principle to myself on the way to work. I walk on 42nd street toward 5th avenue from the subway station exit and I look around. I look at the trees in Bryant Park bending inward toward the lawn away from the shadows of the buildings, and I look at the people sitting under those trees. I look at the folks walking with me down the street on their way to work like me. I look at the Greenpeace kids in their green jackets, asking everyone if they have a minute. I look at the AM New York and Metro distributers saying good morning to everyone who comes out of the station, offering them a free paper.

I look around at everyone and I say to myself, over and over “Judge everyone favorably. Judge everyone favorably.”

This. Is not easy.

It sounds nice to say “judge everyone favorably.” It sounds like a very nice principle. It sounds like the kind of thing that no one could object to.

But, lets put up a couple of easy examples: I do not want to judge Jews for Jesus street preachers favorably. I want to rip into them for their ignorance and their co-opting of my religion. I don’t want to see that they are advocating for something that they truly believe in, misguided though they might be.

I don’t want to judge the anti-zionist protesters at Union Square favorably. I want to be angry and them for spreading a message of thinly-veiled hatred, even if the hatred is not theirs, but merely what they have been duped into repeating without knowing facts or history.

I don’t want to judge that Ultra-Machmir Chasid favorably who calls upon Jews to shun other Jews as “phoneys” and “pretenders” and “fakes” because their conversion or their mother’s conversion was not performed under Orthodox auspices, and seems not to care about the feelings of people whom he does not consider to be Jewish and as much as says so.

What does it mean to be someone who judges everyone favorably? Does it mean never to criticise? To always assume that someone means well, even when their words or actions suggest otherwise? Does it mean to be always an appeaser? Does it mean to go through life smiling mildly like a labotomized Zombie with never a harsh word for anyone? Does it mean never to be angry?

There are lots of yesses and nos in this, I think. There is, of course, the argument that this actually means judge every Jew favorably. After all, at the time in which this was written, it would have been very dangerous to judge every non-Jew favorably. It still may be.

Though there is wisdom in the general rule of trying to assume, at least initially, that the people with whom we interact on a daily basis, generally do mean well, and to remember that each other person is an “I” just like you are. Think about yourself and how you try your best, all day, every day, to be the best person that you can be. Then look at the person next to you and think how likely it is that they are doing the exact same thing, as best they can.

One day I was walking with Aaron to the subway. We were coming into Grand Central and we were talking. I noticed a woman struggling with a suitcase and so I said “Here, let me help you with that.” And I did. We got to the bottom of the stairs and Aaron turned to me and said “Look at you, being all helpful and stuff!” I said the first thing that popped into my head to say which was “I have to assume that she would have done the same for me.” He looked at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was. Because actually, no. Not everyone would do the same. But I know that I would. I do. And looking at another person, I have to remember that the “I” that I am, the way that I look out of my eyes and think my thoughts and feel my feelings and feel breath come into my body and go out of it… the person in front of me is an “I” in the same way. What I would do, the right that I would do by them, they can just as easily do the same right by me. In a strange way, thinking that that is the case and acting accordingly makes it seem all the more likely to me that, even if they would not have, maybe they will anyway because I judge them as being someone who would.

Judging others favorably begins with you, and what you do because it is for you to see yourself in others. Be a person that you want others to be and you’re on your way.

I realized this morning that I’d only once looked into Jen Freidman’s LiveJournal, and decided that it was about time to go exploring further becuase… well, she’s a soferet. That’s already pretty damn cool and definitely warrants investigation. Her LJ led me to her website. I printed out her essay on women and sofrut for further study later (more on that to come, I think) and I started looking around at her work.

Let’s just say, it’s almost enough to make me want to get married just to have a ketuba of hers on my wall.

David, a friend on a Jewish LiveJournal community took and ran with a line of thought I had brought up the other day regarding egalitarianism, in a reaction-post about my first experience davening behind a mechitzah. He turned it into a question for the community (comprised mostly of the “right-of-center” brand of Jews) about emotional reactions they have to seeing women make use of traditionally male ritual objects (tallis, tefillin, kippah, etc.) and taking on of traditionally male roles (cantor, rabbi, ba’alit tefilah, leyning, etc.) in their congregations or in general, and if, and how this conflicts with their intellectual or philosophical views on the subject of egalitarianism. We got some interesting perspective… 81 comments in all, and all remarkably civil.

So here’s the thing: I do not own tefillin. I want very badly to own tefillin. It is not likely that I will, anytime in the very near future, be able to afford tefillin. However, I started thinking… how wonderful would it be to have tefillin made by Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman? In principle, the answer is quite amazingly wonderful. But, as she says in her FAQ, “According to the halacha as it is currently formulated, if I write tefillin or mezuzot, they will be pasul (unfit for use). That said, I try to respect others’ beliefs, and if you believe that my writing is consistent with your belief system, I will write for you.”

David’s question had been easy for me to answer. I have no inconsistencies. Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m egalitarian, I wear a tallis, I intend to begin to lay tefillin as soon as I am able, I will be a rabbi, I can read Torah, I can lead a service, and that is that.

But today I found an inconsistency: I balk at the notion of having tefillin made by a woman. It is not because I think that it shouldn’t be done, but because we haven’t yet agreed, as a movement, as a community of Jews, that it can legitimately be done.

I think I understand what Neil Gillman has been trying to tell me. I mean, I always understood what he was saying, but I was on some level reluctant to acknowledge its hold, its power, its truth, and my belief in it:

Halacha is binding because we say it is.

We, as a community, have the authority to decide. And it is a system of checks and balances between the community at large and the institution of CJLS that maintains the dynamic tension in which we, The Conservative Movement, as a community, live and thrive.

That doesn’t really, practically, solve any problems. In large part it doesn’t make me feel any better or more secure in the future of The Conservative Movement. But it is good for me to acknowledge that my own sense of what is binding goes beyond my own gut (like the Reform) and neither is it dictated by dogma (as with the Orthodox).

I will say it, out loud. I believe that halacha was written by people. I also believe that halacha is a gift of God. And I believe that lo bashamayim hi. God left us in charge of what we do. God doesn’t change, but people, communities, laws, do.

I’m not ready, I don’t think, to use tefillin made by a woman. I would be, I am philosophically, because I feel myself equally obligated as a man to lay tefillin and because I know that this soferet also lays tefillin, my own personal belief is that, yes, it is sound for me to use tefillin made by her. But my community hasn’t yet OKed it.

And I am also not ready to be a rabbi until CJLS finally makes and declares their decision that it is ok for me to do so and be gay at the same time, though it helps that I’m not worried about this anymore.

I really feel that somehow I’ve gotten somewhere today. I feel like I’ve accomplished something, taken a step in my comfort with my religion and my place and direction in it. I feel also more confident and competant to defend my position.

I have also accqired two new heroes. Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman, and Shira Salamone for similar reasons. I love Amazing Jewish Women ™.

It’s frustrating to know exactly what you want to do with your life and to not be ready to just go ahead and do it. Sometimes the desire just up and hits me like a Mack truck.

I want to be a rabbi because I want a life of study practice prayer and teaching. I want a life of arguments, of questions and of more questions. I want sweet disagreements and ephiphanic agreements. I want to sit in rooms full of books with a laptop and a notebook and pen and a friend/colleague and to just go at it until we come up with something brilliant or go home exhausted, or both. I want to read all the relevant materials and I want to talk out my ideas with mentors and students, friends and teachers and children. I want to find the applications. I want to implement the solutions. I want to be a part of it. I want to be in the thick of it. I don’t want to be a pajama pundit of Judaism.

I want very much to be a rabbi. Those who are concerned with my wellbeing often tell be that I don’t have to be a rabbi in order to do the things that I describe above. I don’t have to be a rabbi to teach, to study, to practice.

Don’t I, though? Can I do this as an academic? No question. But why should I? Why shouldn’t I seek recognition as a teacher and student of my religion within my religion rather than outside of it? Certain people ask me with incredulity why I would want to be a rabbi. Here, finally, is my answer. Why wouldn’t I? Everything that I want points to the rabbinate. The rabbinate is the Jewish academic body and I want to be a Jewish academic. There are other ways, yes, but why go around when you can go straight?

Well, of course the answer to that is that I can’t go straight because I’m not straight. I want to go to Rabbinical school at JTS. Right now I can’t because I’m gay. JTS has a policy of not admitting into the rabbinical school anyone who is openly homosexual and has not renounced homosexual practice in their lives. The policy is also one of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and as such many go through the school closeted with what may seem to be minimal hassle to an outside observer. Anyone who has been closeted for any period of time however knows what a hassle it is just to not be able to talk openly about your life the way straight people can, to kvell about a boyfriend or girlfriend or even mention them, to have to refer to your boyfriend/girlfriend lover or partner as your “friend” while everyone else goes around arms linked happily with their significant others… just not talking about it is harder than most people have ever imagined.

The next question I am usually asked is why I don’t simply go to HUC or RRC, schools which would be accepting of me as I am? For one thing, JTS is my background. It’s where my mother converted and where I went to Hebrew school to voluntarily and enthusiastically continue my Jewish education after my Bat Mitzvah. It’s where my teachers and mentors are. It’s where the great minds of my movement, the Jewish thinkers most influential in my life, Schechter, Frankel, Heschel, even Kaplan (though he and the movement broke later) all studied and taught. JTS is where the resources reside in which I desire to steep myself. I am theologically and philosophically and by practice a Conservative Jew. I am a child of the Conservative Movement and have no intention of leaving it simply because of my sexual orientation.

This is exactly why I’m so very excited about having recently met and connected with Rabbi Steven Greenberg. I had the good fortune to hear about the Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the JCC through Dor Chadash, a “resource-for-young-Jews” type organization which one of my coworkers told me about. I looked at the schedule and who should be on the list but Rabbi Steven Greenberg, who wrote the book Wrestling with God and Men, a book about reinterpreting the place of homosexuality within traditional Judaism, and my main resource in the writing of my undergraduate thesis. He is someone whom I had long admired both academically and personally. Needless to say, I went to hear his lecture session. He gave a talk on revelation and its reciprocal nature which I thought was positively brilliant. His teaching style is wonderful and his energy is contagious. I knew from the moment he opened his mouth that he was someone I wanted to know.

After the session ended he was cornered by a bunch of people who wanted to talk to him. I hung back the way I tend to do. He was finished with the last person and was about to turn away from me to go. I must have made a motion toward him or something because he turned back to me and said “Hi.” I was caught off guard. I told him that I’d wanted to meet him for a long time, that I wrote my undergrad thesis on gays in the Conservative Movement and that his book was invaluable to me, not just from a research standpoint, but in giving me reason to hope that there is a way to work out this issue without sacrificing legitimacy.

He told me that I could give him a call and we could meet for coffee to talk. I’m excited to have made this connection. I’m glad I waited those few minutes in the crowded hallway to talk to him. The one person whom I feel is sufficiently concerned with halachic legitimacy who is an advocate for us, and who has solutions in mind, and I’ve got him. An academic ally, if you will.

Eight or nine years ago I had a similar experience with Rabbi Neil Gillman in which he, after leading a discussion in my 10th grade theology seminar at Prozdor, asked if I’d like to meet with him on occasion to talk theology. It was Rabbi Gillman who started me down a road of exploration of Jewish thought and inquiry that has ultimately led me to my desire to enter into the rabbinate.

I am convinced that there is a place for me and that it lies within the tradition and not without it.

My father showed my this in the Dead Tree News:

At Stuyvesant, Stanley Teitel, the school’s principal, has given the group wider latitude, saying he trusts other students at the school to be able to make up their own minds about Jesus Day. The school also has Jewish and Muslim clubs. The members of Seekers were free to post fliers for Jesus Day around the school and hold their event in the cafeteria after school.

“It’s your decision as to whether or not you want to go,” Mr. Teitel said. “I’m not forcing you. It’s not part of your instructional day. They’re just advertising this event is occurring. We do many after-school events.”

Several years ago, after receiving a directive from the New York City Board of Education, the school reversed its policy of prohibiting students from holding Jesus Day on campus, he said. Before that, the students held the event on a street corner near the school, off school property.

“We were told we had to give everybody equal access,” he said.

Bullshit! Bullshit I say! Equal access my ass… when I was at Stuyvesant the Seekers, as I recall, had their club meetings in the school, but were disallowed from evangelizing on school property. What the hell is unequal about that? Evangelizing creates a hostile environment for those of us who are not Christian. I know it’s very hard for Christians to understand that… who wouldn’t be grateful to someone trying to save them?

Here’s the thing… other faiths are not something to be saved from. I don’t care if you’re Christian and you think that your faith is the only road to salvation. You can believe whatever you want. You’d be wrong, but I’m not going to tell you that every day.

Evangelism is not the same thing as free exchange of ideas. Not in an institution such as a public high school in any case. It’s not a matter of equal access. I was a member of the Jewish Culture Club at Stuyvesant and while we advertized our events and meetings, we did not go out and tell people “Whatever you believe is wrong! You have to be Jewish!”

It looks funny written out like that, and it would sound funny if I said it. Because it’s ridiculous, right? Imagine though, if you will, that the vast majority of the people in the world were Jewish, and you were not, and people were constantly telling you that you had to be Jewish. You just *had* to. It’s just wrong and ridiculous *not* to be Jewish. *You* are wrong and ridiculous because you’re not Jewish. That’s not about ideas. That’s not about discourse. That’s an attack on you.

I’m too annoyed to try to write anything more for right now. I’ll probably come back to this. Especially if anyone tries to argue with me. *hopeful*

A couple of weeks ago I went to the synagogue where I went to Hebrew school as a child to hear a lecture given by my friend Rabbi Neil Gillman. The topic was Halacha in the Conservative movement, specifically about comments that he made at the USCJ International Biennial Convention in Boston.

“When aggada changes, halacha changes along with it,” he said. “That’s what happened with feminism.”

To be a Conservative Jew is to live with constant tension, Rabbi Gillman continued. That can be difficult. “If the purpose of religion is to order the world, to turn chaos into order, why are we introducing more tension into a tension-filled experience?” Because, he said, “embracing tension and ambiguity is good. It is healthy. But are we prepared to do this? Polar positions are always clear. The center is more complicated.”

Seems reasonable to me. Others were not so happy with his position.

In calling for a new vision at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial in Boston, Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary, argued that calling itself a halachic movement is intellectually dishonest and has failed to inspire increased religious commitment of congregants.

“We have to be open and honest, and try to project a religious vision, a theological vision,” Rabbi Gillman told The Jewish Week…

“He deconstructed everything and offered nothing, spiritually speaking,” observed Rabbi Michael P. Singer of Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “I couldn’t disagree more with Rabbi Gillman,” he said, asserting that “the idea of Conservative Judaism is to move our members toward an understanding of halacha,” which he called “the link to the past, present and future.”

Okay, when I went to see Rabbi Gillman in his office a few months ago, not long after this convention had taken place, I admit that I was none too thrilled to hear him say that we as a movement should cease to characterize ourselves as “halachic.” Many, it seems, have latched on to that tidbit as well, and it has caused a bit of a stir in the movement.

When I heard Rabbi Gillman speak at East Midwood Jewish Center, however, it became clear that reports of his declaration of the death of halacha in the Conservative movement had been greatly exaggerated. His opinion on the matter turned out to differ only slightly from mine:

Conservative Judaism has always defined itself as a halachic movement… but with an asterisk. The problem here is that the Orthodox also define themselves as halachic, but without the asterisk. It is through our own fault that the asterisk is on our head, because we as a movement don’t know how to assert the authority of our halachic process convincingly. Much of this is an educational challenge, as our laity for the most part doesn’t know which way is up… they don’t realize that they belong to an ideologically strong movement and tend to believe that we can be summed up as “Ortho-lite” or “Reform-Plus.” Either view suggests a state of transition, where the ultimate positive goal is Orthodox-style halachic adherence.

The problem is that we don’t believe in the type of halacha adhered to by the Orthodox, which we view as frozen in time and inflexible in a way that halacha was never meant to be from the beginning of rabbinic exegesis. We as a movement accept halacha, but as Rabbi Gillman notes, we combine it, as did the Rishonim, the great sages, with aggada, with the story of our time. We shape our path as we tread it, because that is what a religion must do in order to remain relevant. We retain what is important while also accepting that which is important. As Rabbi Gillman put it, “Gays and lesbians can enter rabbinical school… but oysters are still treyf.”

Why?

He and I agree that we can tell the difference. There’s no hard and fast system for determining what stays and what goes. This is something with which I have been struggling for a while, thinking that in order to move forward, I needed to come up with a solid presentable plan. That’s the whole point, though. There is no plan. There is only we, the people, to invoke a nice little cliche to drive the point home. Halacha is eminently flexible. It’s really not as though our halacha is less-than because we have chosen to take it in a slightly different direction than the Orthodox.

Still, Rabbi Gillman and I disagree slightly on what do do semantically. He seems to believe that, because of our asterisk mistake, we should abandon our claim to halachic viability, leave the label halachic for the Orthodox, and redefine ourselves as ourselves, not in relation to the Orthodox. Maybe it’s because I’m young and bellicose, but I’d much prefer to fight for it. Throw off the asterisk and build up our movement’s strength and momentum primarily through education and cultural initiatives. It’s harder to do that way, but infinitely more valuable in the end if we can pull it off.

But what do I know? I’m just a kid.

Oh, wait… no, I’m a grownup. And I’m exactly the age demographic that The Movement is trying to attract right now! Hot-diggedy-Hebrew-National-Dog!

Honestly, some days I feel like I need to just drop whatever I’m doing and go out and fight a war for Conservative Judaism single-handed. Sounds like fun, right?

I didn’t want to read the book. Why? Because I didn’t want to read a fiction story based on theories about early Christianity that I had been aware of for approximately seven years. I didn’t want to get swept up in the hype of an accessible page-turner that comes across to people of lesser intelligence as “brainy” in the way that people who can’t do crosswords like to do SuDoku because it makes them feel smart.

Not because it’s bullshit. Sure, it may well be bullshit, but no more so than that which it calls into question.

I’ve read a lot of negative reviews and opinion pieces on the film. The common strain in all of them is the tone of bitterness. Complaints about the technical quality of the film itself are practically an aside to the cries of offense and blasphemy and hooey. A common theme is the complaint that all the movie does is undermine Christianity, as though Christianity were universally accepted as a good thing, or even THE Good Thing ™. How dare this author, this director, these actors blaspheme against The Faith.

Well you know what? How Dare THE FAITH Blaspheme Against MY FAITH?

I’m going to come out and say what no one ever dares to: The very doctrine of Christianity itself is a blasphemy against Judaism. Jews, as a whole, don’t make any sort of big deal over this. It’s not our business if non-Jews believe in something that counters our system of belief. The Goyim can believe what they want. When the Christians start to encroach on our communities and try to turn our youth over to their side, sure we get upset. But we counter by turning inward and working to strengthen ourselves within our own communities, not lashing out against the Christians, but focusing on keeping our own engaged.

When we are challenged from the outside, we answer that challenge with our own challenge to ourselves.

The DaVinci Code and the theories upon which it is based call into question some of the doctrine upon which modern Christianity, primarily Catholicism, is based. Are the assertions that are made true? Did Mary Magdeline have a sexual relationship with Jesus of Nazareth? That’s not a question that can be answered anymore than can the question “did Jesus really walk on water?” Though easier to answer perhaps is the question “Which is more plausible?” I’ll let you answer that for yourself.

I liked the movie. There was nothing in it that was new to me, and nothing particularly shocking. Frankly, I like seeing accepted tenets of any faith (including my own) called into question. It gives people something to think about, something to chew on.

I admit (and I’m not particularly proud of it) that I am an intellectual snob. I tend to shun that which is too accessible, especially when it masquerades as something particularly lofty. But here is a case where accessibility may lead to a mass questioning of accepted doctrine… something that can only be for the good, if you ask me.

What this leaves is the question of Jesus himself. The focal point of the film is the central conundrum, as Scorcese puts it, of Christianity… having a central figure who is at once completely human and completely divine. God manifested as man, and man manifested as God. I’ve recently been in friendly debate about this issue with a very good friend of mine who is a devout Christian. He cannot understand why I can so easily reject Jesus as Christ, as God, and I cannot accept a God who is not wholly beyond the physical realm. Judaism teaches that God is inconcievable and invisible. God can only really be spoken about in metaphoric terms, and while we believe in prophets and messengers who can communicate the will of God, but it is contrary to and incompatiple with Judaism to believe that a man can embody God, when man cannot even see God and live.

Now, Judaism of course does not have a single unified party line when it comes to theology. We tend to talk more about what God is not rather than what God is, which leaves the question open to individual interpretation. This is a major issue I’ve always had with Christianity, at least with most of the Christians I’ve known. Theology isn’t personal. Religion becomes deeply personal because it’s all about your personal relationship to Jesus Christ and there aren’t the same sorts of laws and rituals that comprise Judaism. But the question in Christianity always seems to come down to “Do you believe in God?” rather than “What do you believe God is?” Most of the folks I know who reject “organized religion” do so because they’ve moved past the ability to accept a single fixed notion of “God The Father” sitting on His throne in heaven, and as far as Christianity goes, once you question God, what is there to hold on to? All there is is faith.

Which brings me to another point about the whole concept of Christianity: it’s all got to be based on pure faith and faith alone. Jesus performed Miracles which were witnessed by a few people, who told other people who told other people. A few people who heard these stories wrote them down. An authoritative body weeded through them and chose the four versions that matched most closely what they believed to be the Truth and conveyed what they believed to be the true meaning of the story. Adherents were then sent world-wide to make others believe the story, and to believe that their religion, based on people and places and events that these people had never seen or heard of, what the only way to reach The Kingdom of Heaven. What proof did they bring? A book telling a story, their own faith, and sometimes weapons.

I’m not going to say that the basis of Judaism isn’t euqally dubious. It is similarly based on a book of stories detailing events that we haven’t seen or experienced directly. The differences, however, are as follows:

1. Our central revelatory event “happened” before all of the children of Israel. Our “proof” is the tradition, which is passed down from generation to generation, supposedly witnessed by all of our ancestors, not by a few who then spread the word. Given that this is still not evidence the difference is purely philosophical, but it is significant. This is something that I’ll have to come back to in order to elaborate.

2. The religion doesn’t demand faith in the book. Rather, it demands engagement, study, interpretation, thought. Which brings me to…

3. The religion itself is merely the structure. The theology is something that you have to help to fill in on a personal and a community level. There are relatively few assertions that Judaism makes about God because we don’t believe that God is something that can be fully understood. But rather than dismiss it as “mystery” we insist on engaging and struggling with the question. Because we are Yisrael, the people who struggles with God.

What it has always come down to with regards to the question of why I won’t accept Christ is simply, well, why should I? I have no reason to believe that this one rabbi who lived about 2000 years ago in an era of oppression and hopelessness where preachers and prophets and messiahs were crawling from the woodwork was all of a sudden not only The Messiah (who incidentally did not bring about the End Of Days and the World To Come) but was, in fact, God. I have a religion and I have my own ever-evolving theological sense, and quite frankly, Christianity flies in the face of it.

To Be Continued…