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Dec. 7th, 2006 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanBusy and even more busy these days (more on that later) but a pause to share this, from the New York Times:
Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: December 7, 2006
The highest legal body in Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies.
The decision, which followed years of debate, was denounced by traditionalists in the movement as an indication that Conservative Judaism had abandoned its commitment to adhere to Jewish law, but celebrated by others as a long-awaited move toward full equality for gay people....
But in a reflection of the divisions in the movement, the 25 rabbis on the law committee passed three conflicting legal opinions — one in favor of gay rabbis and unions, and two against.
In doing so, the committee left it up to individual synagogues to decide whether to accept or reject gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies, saying that either course is justified according to Jewish law.
“We believe in pluralism,” said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chairman of the panel, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, at a news conference after the meeting at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. “We recognized from the very beginnings of the movement that no single position could speak for all members” on the law committee or in the Conservative movement.
more here, va the NYT.
The thing to remember here is that Judiasm doesn't have the equivalent of a papal bull -- as the article says, this is just a theological ruling; the practical applications thereof are left to individual synagogues. And by 'individual' they don't mean "Western New Mexican synagogues" or "Northern American red-headed synagogues." They mean individual synagogues. And, as a rule, the decision will be made not by the rabbi/cantor of each synagogue, but by the members thereof, in a vote. So things could get veeeeery interesting soon.
(I was raised in the Reform tradition, where we don't get what the fuss is about. So long as they're good to each other, are good neighbors, who should say what they should do in private?)
And, in a total random comment, the 'i' key just came off my keyboard. Anyone have any suggestons on the best way to reglue it? (just the plastic top, not the actual mechanism)
Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: December 7, 2006
The highest legal body in Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies.
The decision, which followed years of debate, was denounced by traditionalists in the movement as an indication that Conservative Judaism had abandoned its commitment to adhere to Jewish law, but celebrated by others as a long-awaited move toward full equality for gay people....
But in a reflection of the divisions in the movement, the 25 rabbis on the law committee passed three conflicting legal opinions — one in favor of gay rabbis and unions, and two against.
In doing so, the committee left it up to individual synagogues to decide whether to accept or reject gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies, saying that either course is justified according to Jewish law.
“We believe in pluralism,” said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chairman of the panel, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, at a news conference after the meeting at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. “We recognized from the very beginnings of the movement that no single position could speak for all members” on the law committee or in the Conservative movement.
more here, va the NYT.
The thing to remember here is that Judiasm doesn't have the equivalent of a papal bull -- as the article says, this is just a theological ruling; the practical applications thereof are left to individual synagogues. And by 'individual' they don't mean "Western New Mexican synagogues" or "Northern American red-headed synagogues." They mean individual synagogues. And, as a rule, the decision will be made not by the rabbi/cantor of each synagogue, but by the members thereof, in a vote. So things could get veeeeery interesting soon.
(I was raised in the Reform tradition, where we don't get what the fuss is about. So long as they're good to each other, are good neighbors, who should say what they should do in private?)
And, in a total random comment, the 'i' key just came off my keyboard. Anyone have any suggestons on the best way to reglue it? (just the plastic top, not the actual mechanism)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-12-07 04:15 pm (UTC)The key-cap should snap right back on, but if the locking tab is busted out of the molded plastic keycap, and you don't intend to ever service the thing again, a single small drop of superglue ought to do the trick. Put the glue on the little pin on the keyboard, not the key cap.
Laptop keyboards are weird, though, so this may not apply to your particular design.
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Date: 2006-12-07 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 04:29 pm (UTC)The on-call engineer strikes again. Bwahahaha!
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Date: 2006-12-07 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-09 04:26 am (UTC)Any mosquitos around this locale now, though, are tucked away in sheltered locations where they won't freeze solid or... they're frozen solid. And dead. Best kind, IMGDO.
Anyway, Scooter is the 'tiel we were given by Misty Lackey and Larry Dixon in 2003, from the second clutch of Misty's breeding pair of 'tiels. He lives in a birdie mansion in a corner of our living room.
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Date: 2006-12-09 06:16 am (UTC)http://www.glbtjews.org/article.php3?id_article=254
"Liberals Cheering at JTS, Crying Foul Elsewhere Over Gay Debate
By Jennifer Siegel
"Even as the incoming liberal chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary appears to be solidifying his control over Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution, the movement’s congregational union is being accused of sidelining vocal supporters of gay rights..."
"Supporters of another, more far-reaching liberal opinion - one that would completely overturn all restrictions on homosexual behavior and relationships - were already asserting that a procedural maneuver was being used to keep their opinion from passing. Now they say that their views are being given short shrift in forums on the issue organized by the movement’s congregational arm, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
"One of the opinion’s co-authors, Rabbi Myron Geller, recently circulated a letter to the editor of the United Synagogue Review, criticizing the magazine for not including his opinion in a recent forum on homosexuality.
“It is inappropriate that the United Synagogue Review... provided information to its readers only about two of the three positions on the [religious] status of gays presently before the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards,” Geller wrote in his letter.
“It is entirely possible that that third view expresses the opinion of a substantial part of the Rabbinical Assembly membership and perhaps of a majority of the constituency of the USCJ,” Geller wrote. “That view holds that there is no basis in halakhah nor has there ever been any, to bar homosexuals from the rabbinate because homosexuality was never forbidden. It also asserts that the contemporary understanding of homosexuality, that it is not a choice or lifestyle anymore than heterosexuality, permits change in the halakhah about prohibited sexual behavior, and therefore, monogamous homosexual relationships should no longer be judged illicit.”
"The more sweeping of the two liberal opinions was also not represented at recent forums in New York and Toronto that were organized by the USCJ...."
===============
Rabbi Geller is someone I first met when I was a child, and have seen twice this year--he attended my father's funeral, and performed the services at my mother's. At the latter, when I asked him what he was doing these days, he told me that he was going to be presenting a paper in December based on halakhic law stating that there were no longer any reasons in contemporary times to prohibit and homosexuality in Judaism.
He's hardly a wide-eyed radical sort--when I first met him, he was a relatively young married rabbi with young children who was at the end of his service as an active duty chaplain in the US military. He continued to serve I think as a reservist running Jewish services at Ft Devens, where my mother was working. I met him because he was trying to persuade my father to fix his antique furniture purchased in Europe, damaged majorly in transit and poor storage conditions. I have vague recollections of helping my father out with the restorations, helping adjust clamps and putting blocks in place for clamping to glue broken or replaced parts together, after my father had taken the broken furniture apart to start to repair it.
He and my parents remained friends for the rest of my parents's lives.