He died a month later, on the eve of the Shabbat when the weekly Torah portion includes the Jewish legal prohibition on homosexual intercourse, calling it an “abomination.”
“I do resent anyone that is trying to make this about him being gay,” the source said. “It’s the chicken or the egg situation. Did being gay in the Orthodox community make his depression more triggering, or was it that he was depressed, and felt alone, which made being gay so much harder?” Even his closest friends say it’s impossible to untangle those forces.
I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteThe Torah says stone men who engage in male homosexual behavior. True, courts rarely put people to death -- a court doing so once in seven or some say once in seventy years earning the court a reputation as a Killer Bais Din (it's a Mishna, and I may not have it exactly right.) But the courts nevertheless did put homosexuals on trial I would assume. And the king and Sanhedrin I think have extra-judicial powers to restore societal order if things get out of hand, like if gay parades start taking place perhaps?
That being the case, I personally would be repulsed by a gay couple sitying down next to me in Shul. It's like someone sitting down next to me in Shul on and holding an unlit cigarette.
"I know it's Muktza," he whispers to me. "But at least it's not lit."
Then at Kiddush, he laments to me that someone such as him who likes pork feels left out.
Here's what some would want me to say: "I want you to know you are welcome here. We love you."
But I don't get how to do that without wearing away some part of me.
"Hmm," I think to myself. "I feel an urge to sin sometimes, too. Murder is my desire, having been born on a Wednesday and not channeling my predilection for blood into being a Mohel or a physician. I know! There's an openly gay man thst Davens in our Shul. I'll flash my gun to him. How is that worse than his bringing his boyfriend with him?"
The Alphabet people want the public to think that the high suicide rate among their kind, is attributable to societal intolerance.
ReplyDelete“Yeshiva University left mourning” I’m an alumni of YU: Yeshiva College and Teacher’s Institute June 1967. I had such good teachers wow wow. Allow me this week’s double parsha בהר בחקתי there is the debate how to count the fifty year Jubilee, Leviticus 25:8-12.
ReplyDelete8 You shall count off seven weeks of years---seven times seven years---so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month---the Day of Atonement---you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land. 10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty דרור throughout the land for all the inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, neither shall you reap the aftergrowth or harvest the untrimmed vines, 12 for it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you: you may eat only the growth direct from the field. shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
Rosh Hashana 9a
You are to count the fiftieth year, but you are not to count the fifty-first [Lit. the year fifty and first. So our texts, the meaning being, according to Rashi, that you are not to reckon the fiftieth year as fiftieth to the Jubilee and first to the next septennate. Tosaf., by a slight change of wording, renders: You are to count the fiftieth year (as fiftieth to the Jubilee), but you are not to count the fiftieth year as one (to the following septennate), which is a smoother reading.], to exclude the view of R. Judah, who said that the fiftieth year is reckoned both ways [as fiftieth to the Jubilee and first to the next septennate.].
I like the view of Rabbi Judah. My understanding Jubilee year is separate and holy no sowing. It is the last of the 7 x 7 a sabbatical year a Jubilee. My view, the slaves work in last cycle of 7 years, six years, much like work six days a week and rest on Shabbat. Slaves rest and not working.on 7th Sabbatical year, eating and drinking and relaxing in their master’s house. On Yom Kippur that year the beis din declares a Jubilee for that year. Slaves are pronounced free and return to their holdings right after Yom Kippur. That year is a sabbatical year no sowing. The following year starts again the 7 x 7 cycle. The number 50 counts the year of the Jubilee + 7 X 7 = 1+49 = 50.
Update on me. I put a certified question to NYS courts:
Does TIAA have contractual standing to deny me 100% my pension that I paid for when I was Assistant Professor at Lehman College September 1988-June 1991 etc and TIAA paid me 100% $750 monthly 1993 and reduced to 45% from early 1994 with no end in sight? I quote from the Bible {\em Leviticus} 19:11: You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.
You positively NAILED it.
ReplyDeleteWell yes, just like when a trans kid committed a massacre we were immediately told that it was because of societal persecution.
ReplyDelete> It's like someone sitting down next to me in Shul on Shabbos and holding an unlit cigarette.
ReplyDeleteI think the issue isn't the guy with the cigarette but the guy who everyone knows is cheating on his wife or the guy who everyone knows is getting rich off business fraud but everyone shakes his hand and he gets offered Shishi every Shabbbos because he made a nice donation
Ok. But the guy cheating on his wife is focused on Davening that very moment while he's sitting next to me. And the guy getting rich off fraud let's say closes his shop on Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteSo I can deal with them where they're at, which means I can accept that maybe for two hours or so while they are in Shul they put aside their sinning. But it's the guy in Shul being allowed to chum up to his husband that would erode my resolve to keep the Mitzvos I struggle to keep