Q&A: Attitude Toward the LGBT Community
Attitude Toward the LGBT Community
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Maybe this is a somewhat provocative question, but I still wanted to ask: a0
How does the Rabbi think one should relate nowadays to LGBT people To hate and despise them (and perhaps even legislate laws against them), or to accept them?
Answer
I’ve written about this more than once. There is absolutely no reason in the world to hate a person because of an inclination, and in my opinion there should also be no laws legislated against them. This is a democratic state, not a state governed by Jewish law. Do you hate someone who doesn’t keep kosher or desecrates the Sabbath? Those are people who could much more easily observe Jewish law and still do not do so. For someone with a different sexual orientation, it is much harder to do so (I assume that you and I also would not withstand that test).
You can see things I’ve written on the matter here:
הרב מיכאל אברהם: תומך בחוק הפונדקאות; מתנגד לחוק שמונע נישואין חד-מיניים; תוקף את אזהרת משרד הבריאות
And also in the chapter in the third book of the trilogy that is devoted to the issue. It is brought here: https://www.kamoha.org.il/?p=450654
Discussion on Answer
"The State of Israel is the foundation of God’s throne in the world"
I do not understand how a person who has studied quite a bit of Torah, and even thinks it is divine, can live in peace with the fact that the State of Israel (the state of the Jewish people), which is a positive thing for the Jewish people, allows "gay marriage"—something that will surely lead to as much male homosexual intercourse as possible (an abominable act) and as much destruction as possible of the normal family unit according to Judaism and Jewish law. There is no need to send me to long, weighty articles full of unnecessary philosophizing that do not really integrate these two things.
It simply does not work.
You cannot both think that the Torah is divine and also say that it’s fine for the Jewish state (whose character we influence) to cause as many abominable acts as possible. It’s ridiculous.
Of course one must love people with a homosexual orientation, just as one loves any other person.
As is known among our mistaken secular brothers, it is generally accepted that married people, especially those with children, engage in fewer acts than single people, and according to this, on the contrary, one should encourage gay marriage in order to save them from many acts, and about anyone who assists in this Scripture says, "Through those near Me I will be sanctified," and he hastens the redemption, and if Israel merits, he himself will be the Messiah speedily in our days, amen.
Alex, you don’t let up.
Definitely legislate laws—not against them but for our benefit. But there is no reason to hate or despise.
Limi,
It seems that you live on empty slogans. The State of Israel is full of Sabbath desecration. What do you think about God’s throne in the world where the Sabbath is desecrated and non-kosher food is sold openly? Is LGBT what bothers you exclusively? The term "abomination," which is assigned to homosexuality, does not necessarily express a moral abomination (check this term in the Torah and you’ll find that; and see also Nedarim 50).
What all this has to do with the divinity of the Torah, I have not been privileged to understand. There is a halakhic obligation, and that is what should be taken into account. In our state this is not a factor and should not be a factor. A democratic state is not supposed to get into its citizens’ innards. That’s what is called freedom of religion and freedom from religion. According to your approach, in the next stage the majority in the state will forbid prayer or visiting graves because that is a repulsive act in the eyes of the secular majority. Not to mention funding for religious activities and exemption from military service and tax breaks for kollel students, etc., etc.
You should wake up and understand that the State of Israel is nobody’s throne, neither in this world nor outside it, except perhaps in your wild imagination. It is the seat of the public that lives in it, and it is supposed to serve that public as best it can.
And as for the claim that such permission increases sins and destroys the family unit—they already answered you in kind. Do you expect a gay man to marry a straight woman so as not to destroy your magnificent family unit?
So there you go, I tried to write an answer without too many hair-splittings that tire you out. Even though it definitely tired me out.
A law for the benefit of the vaccinated is necessarily against the unvaccinated.
As for hatred or contempt—go and see that quite a few people have turned anyone who made a different medical decision from theirs into an enemy and a potential murderer.
And this is inspired by the donkey serving as prime minister.
At least on one thing we agree—the State of Israel is closer to being a toilet than God’s throne in the world.
An anxious, fascist, intolerant state, where life is becoming more unbearable by the day.
Alex,
As is my way, I won’t get into the question itself here—whether you are right or the others are right (although my position is known). My claim is that completely independently of that, I will now place a mirror before you, and you can examine what they think versus what you think, and now go and see the difference between my son and my father-in-law.
Anxiety and hysteria are a natural human phenomenon, especially in a time of plague (or what seems to people to be a plague). And it seems to me that you and your friends in opinion are the finest example of this matter (except that in your case the hysteria is not about the plague situation, because you are hysterical about the consequences of the vaccines and not about the plague). Notice the anxiety, and the hysteria (the hysterical fear of the vaccines, as if there were some terrible danger here), and also the hatred toward someone who thinks differently from you and tries to defend himself against you (in his view), which are reflected in your words. It is at least as intense as all these noble traits among the people you are attacking. And I haven’t even mentioned the obsession with this marginal and unimportant issue in all kinds of different and bizarre threads that have nothing to do with it.
Notice that they are trying to defend themselves against you (in their view), and yet despite thinking differently from you, they allow you to make your own decisions and even fund the damages your decisions cause, and minimize the harm to you as much as possible (you can enter various places through testing and the like). You complain that at the same time they are careful to defend themselves according to their view. Do you want everyone to adopt your own view so as not to be considered haters of humanity? In your words you seem like someone who hates them and slanders them for not letting you murder them in peace (in their view), and at the same time you call them haters of humanity and hysterical. The mirror I placed before you shows you that everything you said about them applies to you with even greater force, much more than it does to the others. Maybe it would nevertheless be worthwhile for you to try this time to think about it.
And I haven’t even mentioned your cheap demagoguery, as if this were about hatred of someone who made a different decision from theirs. Nobody cares about the decisions you make, as long as you are the one who bears their consequences (that is, pays for the medical treatment you may need, if you need it, and does not infect and endanger others). Others have the right to stand by their opinion and defend themselves against dangers that they think exist, just as you have the right to stand by your opinion. And if the rights conflict and there is a conflict of interests (a zero-sum game), it is accepted among us that the majority decides. Simple and clear as an egg.
It is well known that one who has not injected himself with coronavirus genetic code (called in the foreign tongue a vaccine), which produces in him coronavirus proteins that harm the body and rouse the immune system to emergency status, is filthy and loathsome and one should not come into contact with him.
The pure ones, the sons of the pure spiritual race, the obedient and disciplined who do not ask questions and do not raise difficulties, those who say "we will do and we will hear," possessors of free choice who act of their own free will according to what is told to them and presented to them in the propaganda and media channels that care and are worried about public health—these moral people have decided in their free choice that the unvaccinated must be destroyed and isolated, excommunicated and eradicated, from youth to elder, children and women, in one day.
H
A response from Limi,
Michi, the goal is to turn the state into God’s throne in the world—that is a utopian state. Because of people like you and anti-religious atheists, the state is moving further and further away from that.
It is absolutely not only LGBT that troubles me. I also fight, for example, against Sabbath desecration when possible. For instance, not long ago when ליברמן visited a mall in Ashdod on the Sabbath and boasted about it, I publicly came out against it. If they try to repeal the "Pork Law," I and others will also come out against that.
Your attempt to present opponents of "gay marriage" as though these are people focused only on this issue
is a failure, false, and wicked, and it is demagoguery. Jews are trying to fight as much as possible against everything in this state that is distant from Judaism and from divinity.
Homosexuality is a severe and explicit Torah prohibition. Whether the abomination (a negative thing) is moral or otherwise does not matter at all. It is a severe prohibition. And you also agree (I hope) that the connotation is negative.
I am not against homosexuality because the majority is against it. I have no idea how you inferred that.
I am against homosexuality because it is a severe Torah prohibition, and also because I want the state and the Jewish people as a whole to be as close as possible
to their Father in Heaven. Homosexual marriage distances that.
Regarding homosexual marriage—
Any homosexual who has the possibility of living with, and perhaps even being attracted to, a woman, and of bringing forth enduring offspring, can
do that. Factually, quite a few stories are known of such people (not bisexuals, but
homosexuals who are not repulsed by women).
Regarding homosexuals who are repulsed by women and really cannot establish a family and enduring offspring (this is, in my opinion, an utterly negligible number among all gay men)—
One can try treatments (of course, being cautious on the subject), and if that also does not succeed, one can fill the void in their soul with other things—
for example, study Torah, be career-oriented, contribute to the Jewish people, etc. You’re invited to listen to a class on the subject by Rabbi Sherki at the Yedaya Institute, a 3-minute segment.
In any case, what you are doing is very puzzling—
Instead of answering the question I asked (how a person who studies Torah and believes in its divinity supports something
that will definitely increase male homosexual intercourse), you are as if "throwing the ball back into my court."
Still, I will answer you—
It is better that a limited number of people not marry than that a law be legislated here that will cause even more
legitimacy for families that are halakhically invalid, and even more legitimacy for male homosexual intercourse.
So yes, those who do not marry will probably still sin with male homosexual intercourse anyway (perhaps less), but if they do not permit "gay marriage" here, it will certainly give less legitimacy to other people to develop such inclinations or surrender to them if they exist within them.
And now I will ask again:
How does a person who believes in the divinity of the Torah support something that will cause something the Torah clearly forbids?
Enough hypocrisy!
…
A few remarks
1. You wrote: "the obsession with this marginal and unimportant issue"—I think there has been no more important issue in recent years, and not from the medical aspect but from the civil-rights aspect.
Are we a state that respects human rights or a fascist state? It is astonishing to me how you ignore the weighty questions and dismiss the issue with a wave of the hand (and in general—you do not even examine positions of other doctors and scientists with a different opinion, but dismiss them with strange contempt).
2. Why do you assume that my opposition (I don’t know what "you all" means—I am speaking for myself) is because of anxiety and hysteria? I can testify about myself (and so will anyone who knows me) that I am not afraid of either the disease or the vaccine; in my view this is influenza with public relations. And true to my view—I do not put the rag on my face (both because there is no logic in it and as a refusal to go along with the act of obedience), and for a year and a half I did not refrain from mass events, including crowded demonstrations. In short—I am not getting vaccinated because I see no need for it (an experimental scenario against a flu-like illness), not because of anxiety or hysteria.
3. I do not hate the vaccinated (except for the leaders of the lie, like Benito and his cheering squad), but rather pity them. I simply expect them, as grown adults, to rise above the anxieties that run them and not harm the human and civil rights of someone who in his great insolence does not agree with the medical position in which they believe!! And in this our fascist state "excels," permitting forceful and violent measures such as firing people and exceptional restrictions, to the point of talk about preventing medical treatment by some doctor (which belongs more to the 1940s in Germany).
I wrote a longer response but deleted it—since in your eyes this is a "marginal and unimportant" issue, our time is better not wasted…
Anyone who accepts a bribe from the state should not be listened to at all in matters that concern governmental interests:
"For the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts the words of the righteous."
Hello Rabbi,
Maybe this is a somewhat provocative question, but I still wanted to ask, with a slight change from the original question…
How does the Rabbi think one should relate nowadays to the unvaccinated—to hate and despise them (and perhaps even legislate laws against them), or to accept them?