On JTS and Gays

So it's official (and I'm late, but so what), the Conservative movement is going to ordain gay rabbis. As some of you might have suspected, I'm in favor of this, but not just because I love homos. I also think this is an important step for JTS in grappling with its own intellectual honesty. The Conservative Movement knows full well that it isn't Orthodox, or even Orthodox-lite, and past teshuvahs have reflected this. The CM has made umpteen innovations over the years, from driving to Shabbos to declaring swordfish kosher. Invariably it has alternately been accused of selling out tradition for convenience and popularity and dooming itself by making controversial choices that will "split the movement", the eternal buzzword of terror.

But the reality is that if CM is supposed to be about anything, it should be having modern Jews grapple with halachic tradition, and via a specific process- that's supposed to be what distinguishes Conservative from Reform, at least structurally. For better or worse, Reform emphasizes individual autonomy, whereas Conservative follows its rabbinical bodies, trying to make up for what appears to be control by a small aristocracy by allowing multiple conflicting rulings, effectively creating a spectrum of permissible practice. In theory, I think this is a very interesting idea, in some ways reflective of the interpretive diversity illustrated in the Talmud and other pre-Modern Jewish sources. But at the same time, I think this approach is ultimately more useful, and appealing, on an intellectual level, to scholars and academics, than it is a practical program to keep a movement together. As sad as it may sound, one of the reasons Reform and Orthodoxy are gaining numbers at the CM's expense has to do with the relative clarity of their message: chuck the law, or keep the law. The nuance of the CM, particularly its insistence on having several permissible interpretations, precludes it from having any ideological unity or cohesiveness.

Now, this doesn't have to be an inherent problem, but the reason that this keeps coming up is the phenomenon of the wedge issues- first women rabbis, now gay rabbis, and in a few years, intermarriage and patrilineal descent. When the discussion in question has to do with formulating a policy, in determining whether or not CM is going to abolish something or keep it, it really can't say "both" and claim any pretense of intellectual honesty- and that is partially what alienates it from its rank-and-file. People who want to hear a definitive yes or no on an issue they feel strongly about aren't going to be satisfied with a "some say yes, some say no" answer. Conservative Jews who see the issue of ordaining gay rabbis as being part and parcel of the movement for egalitarianism and human rights aren't going to settle for a half-way solution.Ditto for CJs who see any concession to gays, particularly in the rabbinate, as rejecting halakha. Whether correct or not, these issues have become presented as zero-sum-games, and the Law Committee attempting to have it both ways without first working to counteract this impression only results in pissing off everybody while they spend years hemming-and-hawing before finally doing what everyone suspected they were going to do, which is accept gay rabbis. This is also good for CM's intellectual honesty because the movement was ALREADY allowing rabbis who came out after ordination to keep their jobs, making the whole question particularly absurd- once you allow practicing rabbis to be gay, you really can't still argue for keeping gays out of the seminary.

Some Orthos are understandably pissed. Some are downright wacked. They're using this to smear the CM once again, accusing it of violating halakha, divorcing itself from real Judaism, and so on. They say this reflects the trend of moral relativism, soon they'll have to ordain pedophiles and people who hump sheep (speaking of sheep, btw...) Of course, a lot of this is standard Conservative-bashing as well as an excuse to bitch about gays, as a cursory perusal of the above posts' comments show. What the Orthodox fail to understand (likely deliberately) is that this isn't about the CM rejecting halakha wholesale for "convenience's" sake, or about them willfully "violating the will of God"- rather, it reflects a difference in how they view the mizvot themselves. The CM is looking at this mizvah through the same eyes it did when it allowed women to sit with men, read Torah, and be cantors and rabbis, or when it abolished levirate marriage. It had nothing to do with a conscious desire to reject God or Judaism, it was about making a choice to change the tradition to reflect their movement's values, and the fact that most of their members stayed with them shows that it also echoed what most CJs believed, as well. The CM never worried about whether telling widows they didn't have to marry their husbands' brothers meant they were out of the club; it was in keeping with their conception of halakha as an evolving system that can be legitimately changed via the right process.

Though these divisive issues are always painful, in some ways I think they're necessary in order to give CM a little clarity on exactly what it's standing for. I don't think splits are a good thing, but in its attempt to remain one big tent, CM ultimately winds up alienating more people. If it can figure out exactly where its red lines are, by contrast, then it may be able to do a better job of keeping its members- if its politics aren't to people's liking, they'll go somewhere else (Orthodoxy, most likely, given the general trend of the movement as of late)- but if they don't start firmly reasserting who and what they are, there won't be anything left for people to identify or affiliate with at all. Incidentally, I don't think the ideal for CJ is to become a Reform clone, either- if all it has going for it is more Jewish literacy, a more traditional prayerbook and a few more (theoretical) mitzvah restrictions, I don't particularly see why it should stick around. Instead of defining itself by what it does or doesn't allow, CM needs to examine exactly what it's supposed to BE and move from there.

Levirate marriage was seen as archaic and outmoded, they got rid of it, and life went on. Most likely, this will be the case with gay rabbis as well. The movement may be on the decline, but it has more to do with it occupying the always-precarious middle position and the fact that it's hard to be a serious Conservative Jew and believe in it. The movement may be fighting a losing battle against time and low numbers, but ultimately those and the existential definition issue will be the deciding factor in its future, not wedge issues.