or, no vote

CJLS decision has been delayed ’till at least December. More on that when there’s more to tell.

the vote

Today the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is meeting to revisit the movement’s policy on homosexuality. There are four tshuvot (legal positions) on the table, two of which would permit gay ordination and sanction homosexual relationships in the movement. There is, of course, the possibility that they’ll delay final decisionmaking yet again, but I think today is the day.

The Torah commands us to stone to death a rebellious son who disobeys his parents after being warned. The rabbinic tradition, evidently thinking that this was a little bit harsh, found ways to qualify this law into obscurity: it’s only in such-and-such case, if he commits a very specific crime of theft stealing exactly these things with exactly this amount, and it can’t happen if X or Y or Z OR Q factors are present, etc. Similarly, the rabbis took the line, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (etc)” and asked, “Wait, does this LITERALLY mean the offending person has to give an eye, or does it mean that he has to pay monetary equivalent to the damages inflicted?” (Eyin tachat eyin mamash… oh maimon?) The legal tradition protested what it saw as an unjust pshat (plain reading) of the text, and it found a way to foreground the sanctity of human lives over a strict and bloodless reading of halakha.

The law does not have to and should not be read at the expense of human dignity and basic notions of justice. I am praying that the CJLS does the right thing today.

Vikkkkktory!

I am registered at the University. For classes. I even have a username and password for the computer system. Now all I need is a student ID and to pay them–but I suspect they won’t forget to send me the thing about what I owe in tuition, somehow.

This all, of course, took hours, but I have the sweet glowing feeling of accomplishment, and a marginal sense of security that I might not have to ever go through all that again (bli ayin hara, puh puh puh). Plus I have figured out that I can learn a decent amount of Talmud on those long long busrides up to campus, which is also not bad.

Now I am home, and I am tired.

This Too is Torah

There’s a famous story in the Talmud about a curious student who took his studies to the extreme. The yeshiva boy in question, Kahane, hides under the bed of his teacher, deliberately listening in on the master’s lovemaking with his wife. He is shocked by the way they chat and joke together all during the act, but tries his best to remain unnoticed. To no avail, however; in one dramatic moment, his presence—and chutzpah—are revealed.
“Kahane, are you there?” his teacher thunders. “Leave now, because it is rude!”
It is not, and I will not, Kahane calmly replies.
“For this, too, is Torah, and I must learn.”

My Sunday afternoon class rocks the house. I mean, I knew it would–I’ve had the prof before, I’m a fan of his crazy, somewhat radical approaches to halakhic texts, and the material? Dang. It’s a class on Even Ha-Ezer, the section of the Shulchan Aruch dealing with relationships, kinda. We’re covering the issue of spilling one’s seed, homosexuality, intermarriage, the issues of a man and woman being alone together, defining Jewish lineage (Cohen and otherwise), the Jewish wedding ceremony in its varigated glories for a month-plus, and some other fun stuff.

Yesterday was priah urviah, ie the commandment to make babies. But like, as a side issue, we got into the theoretical case of a woman getting pregnant by bathing in a bathtub in which there was some, er, male seed not her husband’s. Can one fulfill the mitzvah of priah urviah by getting her pregnant that way? Should the owner of the seed get the mitzvah point, or the woman’s husband? There are several commentators with different opinions on how all that should shake down. Ineterstingly, medieval Muslim writers (doctors mostly) were also concerned with this–Averroes and the like, and/though the Jewish version of the story (including a wild story about how Ben Sira was conceived thusly) occurs earlier, in the gemara. My historian of sexuality of choice (the incredible Hanne Blank, author of the forthcoming Virgin: The Untouched History) informs me that this concern probably comes out of the fact that, at least since the Roman era, the public bath was considered a wild domain in which all sorts of interesting things happened, and it was considered a very male domain. For a woman to go bathe there (even in all-women baths) was considered somewhat risky and very, as she puts it, secular. So whether or not this conception actually ever happened, the fear and/or urban mythiness of it was pervasive. It’s also likely, she points out, a “a way to explain away inconvenient (and previously unsuspected) pregnancies, esp. in unmarried women.” Logical.

In any case, that’s the sort of craziness with which I’ll be dealing this semester. I have no idea down which side-alleys we will travel in the pursuit of knowledge and Torah. What’s fun about it all is that even the weirdest sounding things have interesting possible implications for the real world–for example, the bathtub case (and who is considered the father of the child) pings straight into contemporary issues of sperm donation, and the legal status of the donor. We also did some stuff about adoption, also exceedingly relevant. Over the course of the course I think birth control, premarital sex and all sorts of other things are going to come up for examination. I’m so excited, because this is, I think, really important learning with really profound implications for our world(s), both in the private sphere and in the more public, policy-oriented one.

Today, for a little change of pace, however, God willing (if I can get through the University registration and all) I’ll be in a class on North American Jewry. Ironic, no?

Okay. Off to have a day.

still have the icgk

My cold has, in fact, gotten some funny ideas in its head after all. The last two days were the cold-plus-funny-woozy, and now we’ve moved into the feeling more energetic, but with more of the runny nose and the Bride of Satan full-body coughing. I know this sick well–it’s the 5 day routine my body’s been doing since college, when I got it for the first time (though with much more flair) travelling in New Delhi over some break. It’s semi-bronchitis, I think. I already sound like an 80 year-old chainsmoker, and over the next few days the icgk will disappear but the oh-so-sexy emphysema voice will carry on probably into next week.

The question remains, what to do about davvening tonight? The wondeful singy-songy minyan is meeting tonight, which I love, but I’m hardly in a state to sing. I’ll probably show up and croak along a little, then get into a gigantic coughing fit, and then just have to listen quietly and, like, lipsynch along as they go. So pathetic, really.

In other news, the semester actually finally starts for real on Sunday. So crazy. It’s March. That’s a time for midterms, not a new semester! In any case, I’m looking forward to getting back in the saddle of learning, as well as (well, maybe) having a little more structure around here…..

Shabbat Shalom!

i hab a code

So my attendence at both previously-posted events last night and this morning were cancelled on account of sick. It’s just a cold, but it’s the kind you have to watch out for because it really wants to turn into something gnarly. Since the semester’s just about to begin, I thought it wise to try to be healthy when that happens.

Bummed, but self-care always comes first. Today will be much sitting still and drinking tea, maybe watch a movie or something. I’ve been working my butt off the last couple of months–I’m not nearly as bored and relaxed as I should be at the end of a semester. Finally saw Ushpizin last night, though–great movie.

So, anybody make it out to the thing last night? How was it?