Q&A: Homosexuality
Homosexuality
Question
Hello Rabbi,
You tend to say that in your view there is no moral problem with male same-sex intercourse and homosexuality, only a halakhic and religious problem.
I would like to understand your position more deeply: in your view, if the Torah had not been given, or alternatively if you were not a believing person, would you see any problem in this act, or not?
From a simple reading of Scripture, it seems that the prohibition of male same-sex intercourse is not necessarily the reason the act is considered an “abomination,” but rather the result of how it is viewed. That is, the Torah sees some kind of defect in the act—human, familial, or cultural—and therefore forbids it, not the other way around.
Out of the belief that the Holy One, blessed be He, does nothing for no reason, it is reasonable that the act does indeed carry some sort of meaning, even if we do not always understand its full depth. Therefore, it seems that saying this is only a religious problem, without any further explanation or content, is not rationally satisfying.
Do you think the commandments were given solely in order to fulfill the command, or do you think they also have certain reasons, such as control of desire, preserving holiness (a somewhat vague concept, but it seems to contain something real), channeling sexual desire into the framework of a couple and family, and ensuring the birth of children?
And ultimately, do you not think there is some meaning to the word “abomination” beyond its being merely a marker of religious prohibition?
Answer
I said that I do not see this as a moral problem but as a halakhic problem. So what kind of question is what I would think were it not for the Torah? Don’t you see that that is exactly what I wrote?
The word “abomination” is also used about other things, and some of them do not seem to be a moral problem. The Talmud in Nedarim explains “abomination” as “one goes astray through it.” Therefore nothing can be inferred from here. I have written more than once that my moral views are not derived from the Torah. On the contrary, I interpret it in light of my views. Like all of us.
I have explained more than once that at the foundation of the commandments there are no moral considerations at all. Note well: not merely that some of them are not directed toward moral values, but all of them. Therefore, when I say there is no moral problem here, that does not mean this is some empty and arbitrary command. It is directed toward other values, not moral values. Like eating pork, impurity and purity, and many other commandments of the Torah.
Discussion on Answer
Yes. That is my claim. The term “abomination” appears in the Torah also regarding forbidden foods (Deuteronomy 14:3), and especially several times regarding idolatry, which is also not a moral abomination but a Torah one. The same is true regarding taking back one’s divorced wife.
Rashi on the verse in Deuteronomy 14:3 writes that an abomination is “anything that I have made abhorrent to you.” Clearly as I said.
Forgive me, but I am unable to understand the Rabbi’s explanation.
The word “abomination” in the Torah describes something regarded as abominable—that is, contemptible, disgraceful, and hated. The homiletic interpretation brought in the Talmud is only a derashah, and as such there is no obligation to accept it. I do not think the Rabbi would accept a similar interpretation elsewhere in the Torah, because it is obvious that this is not the Torah’s intent. This is evasive, or at most a nice homily.
The Torah says explicitly:
“Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all of these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. And the land became defiled, so I punished its iniquity upon it, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”
And before that it specifies that this refers to forbidden sexual relations and male same-sex intercourse, included in “all these abominations.” The Torah attributes to these acts the description of abomination, and therefore of something disgraceful and corrupted in itself; to such an extent that the Canaanites were expelled from the land because of them, even though they were not given an explicit command to refrain from them. That implies that, according to the Torah, natural morality is supposed to reject these acts, and the Torah merely reveals their deeper moral significance and fixes it in place.
I am aware of the approach the Rabbi presents—the sharp distinction between Jewish law and morality—but here that separation seems problematic.
After all, we keep Jewish law because it is God’s will. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, says about a series of acts that they are abominable and that they corrupt human society, how can we ignore the value-laden aspect that the Torah itself attaches to them?
The Rabbi and others tend to say that there is binding morality even outside the Torah; otherwise there is no logic to the punishment imposed on the generation of the Flood. If so, why should we not say the same here regarding forbidden sexual relations, and especially male same-sex intercourse? If there is no moral defect in them in themselves, what justification is there for the punishment imposed on the Canaanites? They did not transgress commandments given to them—and yet they were punished. The simple explanation is that the Torah assumes the existence of a basic natural morality, and that these acts are indeed considered disgraceful even before the Torah was given.
Even impurity and purity—so it seems—have an inner logic: creating distance from low and disgraceful things, shaping a psychological attitude of awe and holiness, and so on. These are not mere inventions, but straightforward ideas that give the commandments meaning. And even if that meaning is not a logically necessary derivative of the descriptions and commands, it is at least a plausible and sensible proposal for understanding them.
As for the claim that everyone comes to the Torah with prior assumptions—of course that is true. But that is not a reason not to listen to the Torah. On the contrary: one should integrate reason and moral intuition with what the Torah reveals to us. And if the Torah itself says that there are acts that are disgraceful and that corrupt the family structure and human society, why assume in advance that it has nothing to teach us in this area?
Is it really hard to understand that lying with an animal is a disgraceful act?
Are all these prohibitions, in the Rabbi’s view, an arbitrary whim of the Master of the Universe?
When the Rabbi speaks of “moral values,” it seems he means only a very basic level of not harming others, or Kant’s categorical imperative. But what about higher levels—of holiness, purity, the image of God in man, and the shaping of the personality in the spirit of the Torah?
And when the Rabbi mentions “religious values”—do they have real meaning, or is this just a blanket label for commands for which the Rabbi has no explanation?
I ask all this out of a genuine desire to understand the Rabbi’s approach, not out of provocation. I hope I managed to clarify the questions properly.
The Rabbi’s explanation says that the abomination is the result of the divine command, and so too Rashi’s words. But this claim does not seem plausible from a straightforward reading that seeks the intent of the verses. The wording clearly means to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, forbade these things because they are an abomination, not the other way around. The abomination is the reason for the prohibition and not merely its result.
“And you shall keep My charge, so as not to practice any of these abominable customs,” etc. That is, the customs of the nations in this context are disgraceful and invalid in themselves, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, forbade them to us. Otherwise there would be no justification at all for punishing the nations for those acts, since they were not commanded not to commit them. It seems that forbidden sexual relations contain something bad in themselves, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, forbids them. This does not contradict the second interpretation of the word “abomination”—that it is the result of the prohibition. But it seems that in the context of forbidden sexual relations, we are speaking about a prohibition and command that stem from the fact that the abomination exists in itself, not that they create it.
They are disgraceful and invalid religiously, but not necessarily morally. Therefore the command forbids them. When something is religiously flawed, that too precedes the command. A command that does not deal with morality is not necessarily an arbitrary command. It too can direct us toward acts that are fitting or flawed in themselves. Just not morally flawed, but religiously.
I understand that the Rabbi calls this “religious,” but I am not sure I fully understand what that means.
After all, every command that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands us is by definition a religious command—even if its actual content has no “natural” moral significance before the command.
But specifically in our context, it seems that the Torah is not commanding out of a vacuum, but on the assumption that within the sexual prohibitions there is some measure of essential defect—that the command does not create the defect, but reveals and exposes it.
That is: the Torah reveals to us that these acts damage a healthy and whole human reality, and therefore forbids them absolutely. Does the Rabbi know how to point to any rationale or understanding of this defect?
Or once one says “religious,” is that the end of the discussion and our duty is only to observe?
Let me give an example: a person who drinks a lot of alcohol, uses drugs, goes out partying every other day, and changes girlfriends at every encounter—is not perceived by us as a person of stature.
His life is not an especially worthy or elevated life, even if we cannot point to a clear and distinct moral defect in each and every act.
Similarly, a person living among the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, in a very primitive and animal-like framework—something about that way of life feels less human, less refined, less spiritual.
Does the Rabbi not agree that there are situations in which the very form of life creates a lower human quality—even if it is hard to define it in sharp moral terms? And if so, should we not say that the sexual prohibitions come precisely to establish a higher and fuller human and spiritual reality—even if that is phrased in terms that are not entirely precise?
Indeed every command has religious significance, and therefore nothing at all can be learned from the existence of a command about the moral question. Murder too is immoral because we understand that it is immoral, regardless of the prohibition “You shall not murder.” The prohibition comes to add a religious layer.
Your second question touches on what I called aesthetic values. Search for it here on the site.
Does the Rabbi believe that these values are something binding or at least worthy, or are they a cultural fiction that arises from our feelings but has nothing real to it?
Religious values are emotional fictions? We have no feelings about them at all. I didn’t understand the question.
So can one basically say that the concept of “abomination” mentioned regarding male same-sex intercourse relates not to morality but to Jewish law—that is, that by the halakhic standard it is defined as an abomination? Can one attribute a standard of evaluation to halakhic values, or is that not how Jewish law works?