Supreme Court Of People and Of Heaven

So yes, I am a firm believer in live and let live. 

That goes for long time friends that have actually converted away from our cherished Jewish traditions to friends or relatives that choose a gay or lesbian lifestyle–it’s their choice!

And everyone has free choice to do what they think is right–that is the nature of free choice–if we weren’t free to choose, then how could we be responsible for our choices?

But what I am confused about sincerely with the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in legalizing marriage for gays and lesbians is not the concept of where everyone is equal under the law, but the open contradiction with the Torah (Biblical) texts that I am familiar with since I was a child in Yeshiva:

1) Leviticus 18:22–“Thou shalt not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 

2) Leviticus 20:13–“If a male lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them.”

I understand that many advocating for gays and lesbians have explained these texts as no longer applicable today (ref: Huffington Post):

– That the Biblical passages “do not refer to homosexuality as we know it today” (i.e. those that are consensual, not cultic rites, etc. )

– That they “are conditioned by the cultural and historical realities of the authors” and one needs to consider the greater biblical context for G-d’s love and caring of all. 

But looking at the strict text of these passages, they don’t seem to read as conditional (there are no conditions identified), and for those that believe that the Torah is divine (written by G-d) and is timeless, then how do we reconcile it with our wanting to be loving and accepting of ALL people who aren’t hurting themselves or anyone else?

Adding to the confusion, we read just this week about extremists like ISIS killing gays by brutally throwing them off of roofs and routinely about arch enemy Iran hanging them in the public square. 

Also going in my mind is the question of there being separation of church and state in this country, yet does legalizing gay and lesbian marriage affirm that separation or does it cross it by legislating against the strict scripture that many hold inviolate. 

Similar to the debate on abortion rights, these are where modern day-to-day issues and traditional religious teachings and values can be difficult to harmonize. 

I am truly happy for gays and lesbians that they can marry if they choose and find their happiness–everyone deserves this, but religiously, I am left unsure of how to reconcile this with the Torah as written. 

Can we think that we are free to choose the individual commandments we believe in or not or to find explanations where we don’t understand them or they don’t make sense to us–if so, how do we know we are doing what G-d wants of us or whether we are going astray?

In the end here the Supreme Court affirmed the right to choose and to respect all people under the law–this is fundamental to our basic beliefs in freedom, human rights, and love of our fellow man.  

But in so doing, will some see this as encroaching on G-d’s law and if so, what is the impact to those that are deeply religious and/or hold strictly heterosexual marriage as sacrosanct?

Surely each person must follow the dictates of their conscience which G-d has granted us, but pitting the Supreme Court of us earthly beings potentially against that of Heaven–this is a truly tricky and slippery slope to understand and reconcile. 😉

(Source Photo: Twitter @WhiteHouse)

How You Treat Animals

This little bird is singing pretty with his Coronoa.

But this isn’t always how we treat animals. 

Some absolutely revere their animals as integral parts of their family or faith–as pets, they may be loved and cared in nice homes, and as source for milk, dung, and tilling, they may even considered sacred as in Hindu India, or for sacrifices on the holy Temple alter in Jerusalem. 

I’ve seen dogs picked up after and wheeled around in baby strollers, while in the Movies like “Meet The Fockers,” Jinx the cat is exalted for doing her deed in the toilet, the same one used by the family.

One colleague told me how she had to run after her dog cleaning up all over her house, when it was sick and had a bleed out of its butt–yeah, ick!

And I remember learning about how in Nazi Germany, dogs would walk on the sidewalk, while Jews were forced into the gutters. 

On the other side of the animal coin…

We have animals sickeningly and inhumanly confined and caged in tiny spaces; starved or fattened; pepped up on antibiotics, and clubbed, electrocuted, given lethal injections, shot and cut up.

Animals are used for food, fur, and even so-called fun from cock fighting to bull runs.

Further, animals are used for research in everything from new medications to abusive studies in mind control and even punishment.

Animals have also been used for horrific torture of POWs where masks were attached to victims faces and a fire would heat the other side and force the rodent locked inside to burrow into the faces of their victims.

Similarly, in Nazi Germany, gruesome studies were conducted on humans by sewing live cats into the stomach of victims.

In more positive ways, animals have been used to locate everything from disease to the implements of war–from dogs being used in identifying human diseases like cancer and tuberculosis to giant rats used to locate land mines. 

Also, animal products are used in many life-saving medications. 

I found the remorse of an animal experimenter today in the New York Times to be refreshing, and those who choose to become vegan or disavow the use of fur and other animal products to be noble, as long as they accept that others may feel different. 

When the experimenter in his guilt thinks about the tables being turned, he imagines aliens coming to Earth and abducting and conducting experiments on us humans…oh, he seems to go, now I know how it must feel. 

Guess he didn’t think to walk in that chicken’s shoes before…

While to carnivorous animals, we are just another piece of beef in the food chain, other domesticated animals can be “man’s best friend.”

Killing an animal for survival is one thing, and where people draw that line can vary quite some–for example, how badly does Kim Kardashian need another fur to keep her warm?

But pure abusive and sick treatment of animals for amusement, profiteering, or psychotic ends is wrong, period. 

Animals are not people, but they are G-d’s creatures and sentient, and they should not be harmed or pained just because some of us like to act like animals too. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Shout It From The Rooftops

Awesome picture of the sacred Jewish prayer:

“Hear, O’ Israel, The L-rd is our G-d, The L-rd is One.”

In lights on Tel Aviv Mall in Israel. 

(One more from my Cousin Betty–thank you!)

Saving Iraq’s Jewish Scrolls

What a beautiful job by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

In Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, our Special Forces looking for WMD instead discoverd thousands of ancient Jewish texts.

The texts dating from 1540 to 1970 taken from the Iraqi Jewish Community were sitting defiled in the basement of Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence HQS molding and decomposing under 4 feet of water.

The U.S. military and NARA rescued these texts and have painstakingly restored and preserved them through freezing, categorizing, condition assessment, stabilization, mold remediation, mending pages, washing, binding, and more.

Pictures of the collection of texts from Iraq before and after preservation can be found here.

The collection includes:

– A Hebrew Bible from 1568

– A Babylonian Talmud from 1793

– A Zohar/Kabbalah from 1815

– A Haggadah from 1902

– 48 Torah scroll fragments

– And much more.

On October 11, NARA will unveil an exhibit in Washington, DC featuring 24 of the recovered items and the preservation effort.

Hopefully, the collection of Jewish religious texts will ultimately be returned to the Jewish community from which it came, so that it can be held dear and sacred once again, and used properly in religious worship and never again held hostage or profaned.

Thank you so much to both the Department of Defense and to the National Archives for saving and preserving these ancient, sacred Jewish religious texts.

You did a beautiful mitzvah! 😉

Passover 21st Century

This video (2011) by Aish.com is terrific! The story of Passover–“Google Exodus”– with all the technology of instant messaging, email, social networking, mapping, and more.I love how they make the traditional and sacred, new and promising again by “letting people go” and being able to see and interact with it in modern terms.

While some may find it challenging not to lose the essence of the old, when keeping it fresh, I think the past becomes more meaningful when we can truly integrate it into our daily lives.

I personally am still not comfortable with the idea of online Passover Seders or DIY Haggadah’s–and I don’t think I ever really will be–probably more because of guilt at not following strictly and the concern that people may change things so much as to either misinterpret or actually distort the truth of G-d.

However, I do think that we can strengthen regular people’s connection to their past and their faith only by truly bringing it in our present and looking to the future, as well.

The world of religion-can often be filled with controversy between those that maintain iron-clad religious practices from thousands of years ago and those that seek evolving routes to religion and G-d today.

When we can use technology to help people bridge the religious divide, we are helping people connect with their G-d and choose good over evil in their daily lives.

Neither modernism nor technology is inherently “bad,” and we do not have to run away from it–or escape through the Red Sea from it.

Rather, faith in the Almighty, in His hand that guides all, and in the doing good in all that we do, are fundamental to religion and can be shared online and off, as G-d is truly everywhere and in each of us.

Sometimes, I wonder when Orthodox people probe and judge with incessant questions of “What Shul do you go to?” “What Yeshiva do your kids attend?” “Do you keep Kosher?”  and more, I imagine G-d looking down on his “people of the book,” not with satisfaction that they follow his commandments, but with disdain for how people can hurt others and not even realize that is notreligious.

While I agree that unguided, people and practices can go astray, I also believe that automatic suspicion and rejection of new things is impractical and actually harmful.

Modernism and technology can be a blessing, if coupled with faith and integrity.

Congratulations to Aish.com for the good work they are doing in helping people integrate the old and new in a balanced way.