I dont understand how contemporary Jews can be so liberal towards the rethoric of Homosexuals (an abhorrent lot of sexual perverted people) i think it's a distortion of the Torah and acceptance of paleo polytheism in neo form (democracy & secularism) (btw the Torah contains a lot of harsh and critical passages against sodomites/homosexuals).
Well, not all Jews are accepting of gay people. Many in the Orthodox world refuse to reinterpret Torah in light of what we now know about homosexuality.
But the reason that the rest of us can be accepting is that we understand that the halakhic system (the system of Jewish Law) is designed to help us reinterpret Torah as we grow and evolve as people, and as our understanding of the world around us grows, and as our moral and ethical sense evolves to become more refined. Halakhah, in its ability to reinterpret Torah-- even sometimes radically reinterpret Torah-- permits Torah to grow with us, to remain relevant as the point of covenant between God and Israel, rather than risking becoming stagnant and obsolete.
What the Torah actually says (it doesn't have "lots" of critical passages in regard to homosexuality, it actually has two: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) is this:
ואת־זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה תועבה הוא
V'et zachar lo tishkav mishkevei ishah, to'evah hee.
You shall not lie with a male <in the way of lying with women> it is a perversion.
ואיש אשר ישכב את־זכר משכבי אשה תועבה עשו שניהם מות יומתו דמיהם בם
V'ish asher yishkav et zachar mishkevei ishah, to'evah asu shnei'hem, mot yumetu, d'meihem bam.
When a man lies with a male <in the way of lying with women>, the two of them have done something perverse: you shall kill them both, and their blood-guilt will be upon themselves.
Aside from the more radical halakhic options concerning injunctions to prevent operative application of these verses, there is still a legitimate interpretive question concerning the language. The phrase
mishkevei ishah only appears in these passages, and so, lacking further context, we can't be certain exactly what it implied. Certainly it does imply something sexual, but we don't know the fullness of the context.
Given that both verses come amidst warnings not to adopt the practices of the Canaanite or Egyptian idolaters, it might be that the entirety of both warnings is not to all gay sex ever, but specifically to homosexual acts practiced during the course of idolatrous worship.
It also might be that, given that in those days sexual intercourse could be used to effect marriage, and marriage was the purchase of a woman by a man, a man was forbidden to have sex with another man in order to attempt to purchase him through marriage, because halakhically, men cannot purchase one another in that fashion (they could do so in other fashions, just not that one). But, presumably, if this is the case, then a man having sex with another man
without the intent to purchase him through
kiddushin (halakhic acquisition marriage) would not be in contravention of the law.
It could be that
mishkevei ishah refers to the common use in those days of sexual intercourse to assert dominance over a woman. By this understanding, we could say that non-consensual sex between men is forbidden (for example, prison rape), but consensual sex between male partners is not forbidden.
Or perhaps it is that the phrase signifies casualness. If a man can have sex easily with a man or a woman, and doesn't care who he sleeps with, perhaps in that case the sex is forbidden. This interpretation would be bad for bisexuals, in that it would essentially force them to pick a gender to have sex with, and stick with that choice. But it would not relate to men only interested in having sex with men.
At worst, it could simply be that
mishkevei ishah refers to penetrative sex: with a woman, this is always presumed to be vaginal; with a man, it can only mean anal. Therefore, at worst, one could say that male-on-male anal sex is prohibited, but oral sex and mutual masturbation are not. This is the position of the Conservative Rabbi Elliot Dorff, who adds that, while not a perfect solution, this interpretation results in a stricture on sexual relations that, in his opinion, is not very different from the restriction that heterosexual Jews are under to refrain from sexual intercourse during menstruation.
There are any number of other possibilities also. The point is, an obscure phrase is used, the precise meaning of which we cannot be certain. There is, therefore, room to interpret the text as loosely or as tightly as we feel is cohesively moral.
Even the Modern Orthodox community, which refuses to re/interpret Torah radically or loosely, knows that we are obligated by halakhah to take into account our understanding of how the world works. It is manifestly clear that homosexuality is genetic in some degree, and is a fundamental construction of the body and psyche. It is not a mental aberration or a free choice: in other words, gay people are born gay, they didn't choose to be gay. And therefore, even the Modern Orthodox know that it is forbidden to abuse them, to stigmatize them, and to act hatefully toward them. No one can help how God created them. Nor should they be expected to regret it.
In other words, regardless of how one chooses to interpret the verses in Leviticus, homophobia is prohibited by the halakhah because it creates
sinat chinam, baseless hatred.
Fortunately, many Jews are not slow to embrace the power of halakhah to interpret and reinterpret Torah, especially in situations when ten percent of the Jewish people could potentially be permanently stigmatized and oppressed if we interpret too strictly.
Two Jews who are against Homosexuality (especially Goldberg makes some interesting points.) *videos*
These guys are both Orthodox, for one thing. Most Jews are not Orthodox.
Second of all, the first guy clearly knows nothing. His psychology is archaic, his understanding of Torah medieval in the worst sense, and he does not in any way differentiate Torah and halakhah from
mussar (moralistic homiletics), resulting in a hash of custom, interpretation, and law that ends up being far, far stricter and more inflexible than actual halakhah needs to be, not to mention infinitely more ascetic than Judaism at all needs to be.
Third of all, I recognize the second guy. He consistently spouts Haredi yeshivah party line as though it came directly from Heaven. I see no reason to accept halakhic interpretation from someone whose credentials are entirely in doubt, who seems to be a youthful and overly-enthusiastic
baal teshuvah (essentially a "born-again" Haredi), whose halakhic outlook is intolerant, uncaring, and unreasonable-- all elements that halakhah is supposed to avoid.
