Hanoch Daum
Photo: Itzik Birn
Where's the wisdom?
Op-ed: Rabbi Yigal Levinstein's pronouncements are reprehensible, and so is political exploitation of an opportunity to condemn; perhaps we should redirect our attention to more deserving persons.
I remember when my father of blessed memory, who was a rabbi in the Golan Heights, wouldn't agree to forbid watching "The Saturday Game," which was a weekly summary of games on Channel 1 on Saturday nights.
From a Jewish law perspective, I'm not sure that he had an exact explanation for it. After all, anyone who claims that the program violated the Sabbath would be correct. But my father understood that people were already watching "The Saturday Game," and he understood that it wasn't really terrible—certainly not compared to the other option: that they would watch the program after he had declared it forbidden by Jewish law.
"Better to sin unintentionally than willfully"; "It is time for you to act, Lord; your law is being broken"—take whatever Jewish reference you'd like for this handling of the situation. Bottom line—and here I'm jumping to current events—is that if Rabbi Yigal Levinstein were a slightly more intelligent and empathetic man, as a teacher and adjudicator should be, he wouldn't have dared to dub as "perverts" young men who must have learned in his pre-army preparatory course as well. But what can you do: The God for whom they also yearn created them with a different sexual orientation.
Yigal Levinstein addressing pre-army yeshiva students (Photo: Bnei David Yeshiva)
The renowned Torah scholar Rabbi Kook, by the way—and this was brought to my attention recently by Rabbi David Stav—wrote in one of his books, Orot HaKodesh, that homosexuality is a natural tendency. He didn't permit this halachically (He was writing 100 years ago.), but he found the courage to say that this phenomenon was not a "perversion."
What I'm trying to say is that if an Orthodox rabbi is not brave enough or not yet able to halachically permit an LGBT lifestyle, then he must be a real bastard to excoriate those people and to curse them with such rudeness.
But something else needs to be said: The public debate too swiftly has become a festival of condemnation and empty pettiness. Yesterday, they fought in the Knesset over who said the worse thing, Levinstein or Orsher, why this man was condemned and another was ignored, and why's responsible for Cain killing Abel. And when I was watching that, a suspicion arose in my heart that perhaps people aren't sad all because of the horrific words that were said, but are rather delighted by them, happy for the opportunity to turn up the flames and add wood to the fire of local strife.
Personally, I'm truly saddened by these Religious-Zionist rabbis who are desecrating God's name, but I'm also sad that they're getting so much exposure, while the voices of moderate and inclusive rabbis don't get sufficient exposure.
A week ago, at the Euro final, a crazy streaker ran on the pitch. The game stopped, but the cameras didn't film him. This was a great decision by UEFA, not giving those nutcases who invade the pitch the perverse right to win the dubious glory that they so desire. It seems to me that we too need to follow this path and give less space to dark opinions and more to expressions of liberal positions and to people who see Judaism as inclusive and such that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
