The Conservative movement has been roiling since Dec. 6, when the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued three position documents, or teshuvot, on issues relating to homosexuality.
But of Wisconsin’s three rabbis who are officially affiliated with the movement, only one so far has taken a definite stand on what the committee has done.
“I have not changed my position” on this issue, said Rabbi Jacob Herber of Congregation Beth Israel during an interview on Tuesday.
He also said that had he been on the committee, he would have voted with those members who favored the document by Rabbi Joel Roth, professor of Jewish law and Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
This document constitutes “a reaffirmation of the consensus statement the committee reached over a decade ago,” Herber said.
Moreover, as the mara d’atra (Jewish law decider) for his congregation, “I will be guided” by what Roth wrote, Herber said.
The “essence” of that document, Herber said, is that it “affirms that gays and lesbians are welcome in Conservative congregations, youth groups, camps and schools; that they will not be denied honors in worship or lay leadership; that members of the Rabbinical Assembly and Cantors Assembly will not perform commitment ceremonies for gays and lesbians; that the rabbinical and cantorial schools will not knowingly admit sexually active homosexual students, nor will the Rabbinical Assembly nor the Cantors Assembly, but no ‘witch hunt’ will be instigated against those who are already students or members; that the issue of whether sexually active homosexuals may function as teachers or youth leaders will be left to the rabbi authorized to make halachic decisions for a given institution within the Conservative movement.”
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However, Roth’s document was not the one that made headlines. That teshuva was written by Rabbis Elliot Dorff (a Milwaukee native), Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner.
According to the JTA report on Dec. 7, this document does allow Conservative clergy to officiate at commitment ceremonies for homosexual couples and permit the ordination of homosexuals as clergy. However, this document also retains and upholds the Torah prohibition against some male homosexual acts (Leviticus 18:22).
Both of these documents were approved by majorities of the 25-member committee, said JTA. A third document received the minimum of six votes necessary for adoption.
This document by Rabbi Leonard Levy suggests that some homosexual people might undergo “reparative therapy” for their sexual orientation.
Roth, Levy and two other rabbis resigned from the committee over its approval of the Dorff-Nevins-Reisner document, according to JTA. However, none of these documents is considered binding on every Conservative rabbi.
All three documents will be studied carefully in the coming weeks by the spiritual leaders and members of two other Conservative congregations in Wisconsin.
Rabbi Shaina Bacharach of Congregation Cnesses Israel in Green Bay told The Chronicle by e-mail that next month “we will study all the teshuvot in adult education and learn about the halachic ideas presented by the rabbis and discuss emotional and communal implications.”
Moreover, “I do see this as a wonderful opportunity to not only learn about the teshuvot themselves, but to explore the halachic process itself with congregants,” she said.
Rabbi Kenneth Katz of Beth Israel Center in Madison also said that he and members of his congregation will be studying the documents during the next few weeks.
“We have to devise the right process for this particular congregation to decide how best to deal with” these documents and issues, Katz told The Chronicle in a telephone interview. “It will take a process.”
In addition, Katz dismissed as “wildly overblown” assertions that the Conservative movement could fracture over this issue. In fact, such claims are made by people who “fail to understand the basic structure of the movement,” he said.
The Conservative movement has “organs of governance that are designed to hold together a diverse population, so that people who may fundamentally disagree can nevertheless cooperate to have institutions we all want and need,” he said.
There appear also to be different levels of local congregational interest in these issues.
Katz said, “There’s both a great deal of interest and goodwill” over the matter in his synagogue.
Herber, on the other hand, said there has been “very little” interest in the matter expressed to him by congregants. “There have been some conversations, but it’s been minimal,” he said.
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