The Torah’s View of Homosexuality

The topic for this morning's session, בעזרת השם בלי נדר, is the Torah's position on homosexuality. What we'll be discussing is homosexual practice, not orientation. Everything that the sources we're going to be discussing are all addressing homosexual behavior, homosexual practice. I'm not aware of anything which in and of itself in terms of my own limited knowledge that statement isn't worth anything but also in terms of everything that's quoted on the subject, the Torah doesn't taki talk about a person who feels that he or she has an homosexual orientation. So what we're discussing about is the practice, the of homosexuality. We begin with the pasuk in Parshas Achrei Mos. The pasuk says, ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה תועבה היא. Literally the pasuk translates as we have it so hopefully provided here that again addressing a man that he should not lie with another man as one does with a woman. Sort of the Torah's euphemism of tishkav is a euphemism for having relations. More refined but otherwise similar to just like in the English idiom you'll excuse the crudeness that in English there's a crude idiom of so and so is sleeping with so and so and clearly that's intended again as somewhat of a euphemism for relations so that's the same lehavdil, lehavdil, that's the same usage of what lo tishkav means in the Chumash. So this is an unequivocal statement, a prohibition of male homosexuality. It doesn't the pasuk doesn't address female homosexuality. This pasuk only addresses male homosexuality. Now the Parsha of Arayos, of forbidden adulterous or incestuous or homosexual relationships, so the Parsha of Arayos appears twice in the Chumash. It appears once in Sefer Vayikra in Parshas Achrei Mos where the Torah details the prohibitions and then it appears a second time in the following parsha in Parshas Kedoshim where the Torah then details what punishment Rachmana litzlan is forthcoming for a person who violates those aforementioned prohibitions. So in the second source, which is drawn from Parshas Kedoshim, so the Torah again now is detailing what the person who again engages in homosexual practice is liable for:

ואיש אשר ישכב את זכר משכבי אשה תועבה עשו שניהם.

A man again who lies with another man and has again as with a woman, meaning that there are relations, to'eivah asu sheneihem, they're both guilty of having committed an abomination. מות יומתו דמיהם בם. And they would be liable for capital punishment, for the death penalty administered by a qualified religious court. Obviously that isn't something that we have in our day for many reasons. You have to have a Sanhedrin in the Beis Hamikdash in order to have capital punishment. You have to have that unbroken chain of semicha of ordination going back to Moshe Rabbeinu. The semicha, the ordination we have today is not that semicha. So for many reasons, for us, it's more of a theoretical statement but one which clearly serves as a barometer, as a way of measuring the severity of the prohibition. That the Rambam writes in, I think in his commentary to Pirkei Avos, he says that if a person wants to get a sense for what the severity of prohibitions in the Torah is, that not all prohibitions are of the same severity, so one can look to see what the generally, not always, sometimes this doesn't work but generally one can look to see what the... punishment is that's associated with that prohibition, and the more severe the punishment, so clearly the more serious the violation and the prohibition. Again, both of these verses deal with male homosexuality. Earlier in Parshat Acharei Mot, going back to Parshat Acharei Mot here for a moment, so right before the section in the Torah again which deals with forbidden relations begin, so we have in source 3, we read the following pasuk: כמעשה ארץ מצרים אשר ישבתם בה לא תעשו. You shouldn't act as the inhabitants of Mitzrayim of Egypt do, nor should you act, should you follow the practice of the current inhabitants of Eretz Kna'an, right? The land of Israel where I'm bringing you. And don't don't follow again their accepted traditions or practice. On this pasuk, so what are those be-chukoteihem lo telechu? What are those behaviors which are practiced in Eretz Kna'an? Rashi quotes from Chazal before we see source number 4 that of of the whole world, the two places which were most morally corrupt were Eretz Mitzrayim and Eretz Kna'an. The inhabitants of those two places were the most corrupt, they engaged in in the most morally offensive forms of behavior. So the Toras Kohanim, Toras Kohanim is the tannaitic teachings on on the book of Vayikra, so the Toras Kohanim on this pasuk comments, if you take a look at line 3 in the Hebrew of the source, u-mah hayu osim? What what were these quote unquote traditional behaviors in the land of Kna'an? האיש נושא לאיש והאשה לאשה. That what the Torah is prohibiting in saying be-chukoteihem lo telechu, here this prohibition of homosexual behavior includes not only male homosexuality, but female homosexuality as well. This pasuk with the Toras Kohanim then serves as the source in number 5, we're not going to read it together, serves as the source for for how it's codified in in the Shulchan Aruch. So again as we said last time, in a world that wasn't confused and that hadn't lost its moral compass, so basically the shiur should be over. There is no discussion. If you look in over a thousand years of Responsa, you won't find a single Responsum about is homosexual behavior permissible because there's no need to write Responsa about pesukim in Chumash. When you have a question which is which is a new situation which is an intricate question, so then the halakhic decisors write Responsa to clarify based on the sources what the din is. Rav Moshe Feinstein has a teshuvah about someone who had rachmana litzlan engaged in such behavior, turned to Rav Moshe for guidance of how to do teshuvah. So that you can find in the literature, but there is no literature because there is nothing to talk about, it's just unequivocal categorical pesukim in in the Chumash. People have and and the entire shiur is is with a very heavy heart. People have invented excuses for ignoring unequivocal pesukim and unequivocal tradition. So one of the excuses which is is out there is that yes, there is such a pasuk in Sefer Vayikra, but that pasuk is addressed to a man who's heterosexual. But it's not addressed to a man who's homosexual. Obviously no scriptural or textual or traditional basis for that, but that's sort of the excuse for first ignoring or trying to deflect an explicit pasuk. So to get perspective on that, we need to orient ourselves a little bit into Torah Shebichtav, Torah Sheba'al Peh, the relationship between the two. If you take a look in source number 10, so source number 10 is drawn from the Rambam's introduction to his commentary on the Mishna. It's something that everything obviously by definition everything the Rambam wrote is well worth studying, but there are really very, very fundamental concepts and ideas which to understand our tradition, to understand Torah, that the Rambam presents again with such lucidity here in the introduction to his commentary on the Mishna. Let's read a little bit.

דע כי כל מצוה שנתן הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה רבינו.

You should know these are the opening lines. The Rambam is beginning with I guess what is perhaps the most one of the most basic ideas in terms of Torah.

דע כי כל מצוה שנתן הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה רבינו עליו השלום.

You should know that every mitzvah that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave on Har Sinai on Mount Sinai to Moshe Rabbeinu, nitnah lo beferusha. He gave Moshe Rabbeinu the mitzvah with its accompanying explanation, its accompanying call it the user's manual, a guide to how the mitzvah is to be performed. היה אומר לו המצוה. First Hakadosh Baruch Hu would communicate the mitzvah itself, the commandment, to Moshe Rabbeinu, ve'achar kach, and then immediately thereafter אומר לו פירושה ועניינה. Then he would explain the how the mitzvah, the practicalities and the technicalities of how the mitzvah is to be implemented, how the mitzvah is to be observed, what you need to do to comply with the mitzvah. Now the Rambam sort of that's a more abstract description, so now the Rambam concretizes it with an illustration. So if you take a look at the bottom paragraph now here in source 10, Rabbotai. Vehinei lach mashal. And here's I'll give you a for instance, I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about says the Rambam. שהקדוש ברוך הוא אמר למשה, בסוכות תשבו שבעת ימים. So the mitzvah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said it's a mitzvah to dwell in sukkot for seven days. Now that pasuk alone, like what do you do with that pasuk? Who's supposed to dwell in a sukka? What's a sukka? What constitutes a sukka? How do you construct a sukka? You can't really do anything with the Torah Shebichtav. The Torah Shebichtav always is incomplete without the accompanying Torah Sheba'al Peh. The written law is at best intentionally too vague without the accompanying explanation and interpretation of the oral law. Achar ken, so first Hakadosh Baruch Hu presents to Moshe Rabbeinu this pasuk, בסוכות תשבו שבעת ימים, and then subsequently achar ken hodiya, then Hakadosh Baruch Hu taught Moshe Rabbeinu שהסוכה הזאת חובה על הזכרים לא על הנקבות. So the first note that the first thing the Rambam says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu instructed Moshe Rabbeinu, and again, this is an illustration, this is intended to be representative of how Hakadosh Baruch Hu taught Moshe Rabbeinu each and every mitzvah. So what's the most basic thing you have to know? The most basic thing you have to know, which then became ensconced and transmitted through our tradition, is to whom is this mitzvah addressed? To whom does this mitzvah apply? So this mitzvah in the case of sukka is חובה על הזכרים לא על הנקבות. The mitzvah of sitting in the sukka is obligatory for men, not so for women. Another class of exemption from the mitzvah, veshein hacholim chayavim. People who are ill are exempt from the mitzvah. Doesn't have to be a life-threatening illness. People who are ill are exempt from the mitzvah. Similarly, people who are in the midst of a journey. ושלא יהיה סכוכה אלא בצמח הארץ. That the s'chach, the overhead covering in the sukkah, has to be something that grows from the ground. The Rambam goes on to say and it can't be other materials which don't grow from the ground. It can't be something which is susceptible to kabbalat tumah, for being rendered impure, etc. So that means that the tradition that we have about mitzvos, each mitzvah Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave Moshe with the basic information, the basic details which are indispensable to have observed that mitzvah, to comply with that mitzvah. The very first example the Rambam gives is to whom is the mitzvah of sukkah addressed? It's clear for thousands of years, for thousands of years, no one ever suggested, it never occurred to anyone that the pasuk in Vayikra of ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה that categorically prohibits homosexual behavior, homosexual male homosexual relations, that that pasuk distinguishes between a man who's heterosexual or homosexual was never ever said. The reason it was never ever said was because it's a tradition for thousands of years which we know where those traditions go back to. Those traditions go back to Har Sinai. The following is said again, as is everything, with a heavy heart. It's not a word which is really part of my active vocabulary because it's a very heavy word. So it's not part of my active vocabulary. But to say that is heresy. To say that the pasuk in ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה is addressed only to a heterosexual man, not to a homosexual man. So we know from the Rambam that the basic details, the basic facts of every mitzvah are a part of the accompanying oral law which was given to Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai. When one comes in the year 2000 and I don't know when this was invented, whether the 19 or 18 or 17, I don't know when this distortion was invented and one says differently, so one is denying the oral law which was given to Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai. Go back now to source nine, please, rabbosai. Source nine is also drawn from the Rambam's commentary on the Mishnah. It's where the Rambam famously lists the 13 principles of faith which define what Jewish faith is and what demarcates faith from heresy. היסוד השמיני היות התורה מן השמים. That the Torah and we'll see in a minute, the translation of this phrase of Torah min hashamayim is not only that a Torah was given min hashamayim, but the translation of this phrase, you'll see in a minute why this translation is warranted. The translation of this phrase, the correct translation of this phrase, is that the Torah we have is min hashamayim. The Torah we have was given from heaven, from above, from God to Moshe.

והוא שנאמין כי כל התורה הזאת הנתונה על ידי משה רבינו עליו השלום שהיא כולה מפי הגבורה.

This Torah that we have, the Torah which we take out of the aron kodesh and that we read from Monday, Thursday, Shabbos, this Torah is the Torah which that Moshe Rabbeinu brought down to us. It's entirely from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, every pasuk, every word, every syllable. Now if you just if you turn the page and you take a look five lines from the end of this excerpt. Ukemo chen, and similarly, Peirush HaTorah HaMekubal, the traditional understanding of the written Torah, i.e., the oral Torah. וכמו כן פירוש התורה המקובל, similarly, the explanation, the interpretation, the traditional explanation, interpretation of the Torah, גם כן מפי הגבורה. That's also from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And and look, וזה שאנו עושים היום, that which we do today, mitavnit hasukka, the way our sukkas look, velulav, the species that we take, that we identify as a lulav, what we employ as a shofar, the way our tzitzis look, the way our tefillin, hu be'atzmo hatavnit, this is the same, the same form, shape, species, etc., אשר אמר השם יתברך למשה, which which God communicated to Moshe Rabbeinu. When one challenges, God forbid, the traditional interpretation of these basic identifications and definitions of mitzva, it contradicts this principle of faith. And that's that's what it is. Another excuse that has been put forward to somehow or other reconcile the irreconcilable of someone wanting to profess to be a practicing Orthodox Jew and a practicing homosexual. So another excuse that's been put forward is that there is a principle in halacha of ones. And there is a phrase that appears in the Talmud of ones rachmana patrei. So the principle of ones is that a transgression which occurs due to coercion, a person is not held responsible for. The context in which the Torah presents it, the Torah says that if a a married woman, God forbid, is raped, so then the Torah says ולנערה לא תעשה דבר, that Beisdin should not punish her. Of course she shouldn't be punished because what happened was due to coercion. So that's another excuse that that's been put forward to again to reconcile the irreconcilable. No no one really thinks that's true because if you buy into that then you have to give the same pass to rapists and people who engage in pedophilia and every other and any anything that makes any civilized person outraged because if there's no expectation that a person can overcome and control urges, so then any behavior, the most vile behavior in the world, can be whitewashed based on that. There's nothing unique about the, I apologize for the bluntness of the language, there's nothing unique about the drive in in in this area if that's considered coercion, then every urge, the urge that a rapist has will also be considered coercion and we should give them a pass. No civilized person believes that, no civilized person has ever believed that, no civilized person ever will believe that. We believe that a person has free will, that a person can control can control. We have instincts, we have urges, we have desires and then we also have a seichel, an intellect that is capable of identifying whether or not those drives, urges, and desires are healthy or unhealthy, permissible or prohibited and then we have the free choice to control our behavior. If you take a look there's a classic formulation of of what the principle of free will is here in source number 11, again drawn from from the Rambam, but there's nothing in terms of what we're talking about, nothing idiosyncratic. It's not that there's anything particularly Maimonidean. It's universal. רשות לכל אדם נתונה, the Rambam writes, the capacity is given to every man, every person.

אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך טובה ולהיות צדיק הרשות בידו.

If he wants to incline himself, herself, to the path of goodness and to be a righteous person, he has the capacity to do so.

ואם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך רעה ולהיות רשע הרשות בידו.

If the person wants to incline himself, he wants to put him on a track of evil and to be a wicked person, he has that capacity as well. Skip to Halacha Gimmel there in line six, rabosai. ודבר זה עיקר גדול הוא. This is a major principle. והוא עמוד התורה והמצוה. This is the pillar on which the entire Torah and the entire system of mitzvos rest. You remove this pillar, you challenge the axiom that a person is endowed with free will, freedom of action, freedom of behavior to control and determine his own behavior, so the whole system of Torah and mitzvos collapses. As the Rambam goes on to say, what is God giving us commandments for if we don't have free will to choose to comply or obey? How is it just for God to reward or punish if we don't have free will to comply or Rachmana litzlan not to comply? Part of the brainwashing of modern society is that people's noble instinct for sympathy and compassion is co-opted into rallying their support—again, not for people who have such an orientation, we're not talking about that, we're talking about for people who engage in such behavior and seek to do so by, in terms of our focus, by distorting Torah. You have to have sympathy. You have to have sympathy. So we're told that having sympathy means legitimizing the behavior and otherwise a person is guilty of being cruel and hard-hearted and some kind of phobic person. So let's discuss that for a minute. Sympathy, kindness, all those beautiful cardinal Torah values that the Torah introduced into the world, that the Torah taught the world, can never be applied independent of the moral system of what's right and wrong. Let's try to explain that. Is it an act of kindness if I'm sitting at the table, long table, six-foot table, I'm sitting at one end, there's some sitting at the other end, in front of me there's a bottle of wine and he says, "Can you please pass the bottle?" So is it a kind thing for me to pass him the bottle? Yes, no, maybe or otherwise? Depends. Depends on what? Depends on if the guy's an alcoholic. Oh. So if he's healthy and he wants to make Kiddush, yeah, it's a kind thing. If he's an alcoholic who's struggling to, or maybe he's not struggling, which is even worse, to control his alcoholism, so then it's not sympathy for me to pass him the bottle of wine. It's misplaced sympathy which is really just... feeding this habit that could kill him. So what's good, what's kind, what's an expression of sympathy can never be divorced, can never be separated from right and wrong. There's no, one can't talk about goodness a-contextually. What's good may be good in one context and may be inherently bad and evil in another context. Is it a good thing to go around sticking people with needles? Generally not, but if you're inoculating them and preventing them from horrible diseases, it's a wonderful thing to do and a mitzvah to do. So goodness, sympathy, kindness, they're not free-standing concepts that can be applied without being integrated into the moral system of what's right and wrong. To, in quotation marks, sympathetically support homosexual behavior—again, we're talking about behavior—to, in quotes, sympathetically support homosexual behavior is to encourage someone to violate one of the most severe and serious prohibitions in the Torah. Is to encourage someone to do something which the severity of the prohibition is such that, again, for us it's more of a theory which serves as a barometer, which is liable for capital punishment. So that's sympathy? Or that's the ultimate expression of cruelty? Given that things are so painfully self-evident, how is there so much confusion? Again, it's sort of like what we're doing today is sort of like asking a math teacher to give a 45-minute presentation on why two plus two is four. That's really the analog to this morning's conversation. So given that things are so unequivocal and so crystal clear, how is there so much confusion? Sorry, just to find it. Take a look at source 16 please, over there. דרך בריאתו של אדם. Human nature is such, להיות נמשך בדעותיו ובמעשיו, that a person is drawn, that an influence is exerted upon a person bede'osav in terms of his character traits uv'ma'asav in terms of his behavior achar re'av v'chaveirav. He's influenced by his surroundings, by colleagues, by friends, and it doesn't... the sphere of influence is not limited to colleagues and friends. נוהג כמנהג אנשי מדינתו. People are influenced by the social surroundings. Society, if a person is not aware of the potential and doesn't seek to counteract it, society exerts a very strong influence on what we do and how we behave. When a person doesn't filter... The ancient Greeks were pretty corrupt also, so I can't tell you, I don't know which society is more corrupt, whether that of ancient Greece or that of today's, today's society, so I don't know, but it's hard to imagine that it was ever more necessary in the history of the world to filter. Okay, before the Mabbul things weren't so good, so presumably that that was worse. A person can't just live in society without a filter. I live in New York City. New York City, there's a whole Halachic debate about whether you have to filter your water, so there are many big Rabbonim both sides of the issue, but so many big Rabbonim say can't drink water without filter. So, New York City, so many people don't drink the water without filtering. Even if you live outside of New York City, wherever you live in Western society today, there has to be a very, very good filter, because without that filter, without being conscious of just how susceptible we are to societal influence, so we are influenced. Go back for a moment please to source number three and you'll see something remarkable. כמעשה ארץ מצרים אשר ישבתם בה לא תעשו. Don't you act, don't you imitate the behavior of Eretz Mitzrayim where you lived.

וכמעשה ארץ כנען אשר אני מביא אתכם שמה לא תעשו.

And don't you, and don't you imitate, don't you mimic the behavior of the inhabitants of Eretz Canaan where you're going. Question, why does the Torah have to identify Eretz Mitzrayim? At this point in the Chumash, we don't know what Eretz Mitzrayim is? At this point in the Chumash, we don't know that we were in Mitzrayim for 210 years? We know very well. We know where Mitzrayim is on the map and we know very well that that our passports are stamped, that that we lived in Mitzrayim. And we also know where we're headed. So why is the Torah identifying Eretz Mitzrayim and Eretz Canaan? But it's clear what the Posuk means. The Posuk is telling us, maybe you'll think that you don't have to have your guard up against the practices of Eretz Mitzrayim and Eretz Canaan, they're so off, they're so repugnant, I don't have to be on guard, I don't have to worry about that. Okay, show me a, I don't know, show me a very tasty looking cheeseburger. Okay, so that has some appeal, so I'm going to have to be on guard against, against that. But the behaviors of Eretz Mitzrayim and the behaviors of Eretz Canaan, again Chazal say they were the two most corrupt societies. I don't need to be on guard against that. I wouldn't do it anyway. You don't even have to tell me what the prohibitions are. Says the Torah, Asher yeshavtem bah. The fact that the practices are so repugnant, that they're so off, don't, don't be lured into a false sense of security of thinking that you're not susceptible to doing it because Asher yeshavtem bah, you were there, you were exposed to their influence. And you're headed to Eretz Canaan, and you're gonna be exposed to that influence. So no matter how inherently, inherently, objectively repugnant their behaviors are, you are gonna be susceptible and you have to be careful about this. You have to know that and you have to be careful about this, because otherwise if a person doesn't have his guard up against societal influence, it's human nature. And we're all human and therefore we all have whatever weaknesses and whatever susceptibilities are part of human nature. One or two last comments, the first one is, I apologize, is out of order, I should have said it before. A very tragic, brazen statement that's made in this context. Quote, we don't have a problem, Orthodox Judaism has a problem. Let's take a look at source number 12, the Rambam. Hayesod harishon, the first of the 13 principles of faith which define traditional Jewish belief, להאמין מציאות הבורא יתברך, to believe in the existence of God the creator. Now let's try to get a - it's impossible to give a real definition of Hashem, of God, but let's sort of give a working definition to have a little bit of a feel for what we're talking about when we use that holy word. והוא שיש שם נמצא שלם בכל דרכי המציאות. There's a perfect being in every imaginable fashion. Nimtza shalem, a perfect being, bechol darchei hametzi'ut, in every possible way. Hu ilat hametzi'ut, he's the cause, the source of all existence, הנמצאים כולם בו קיום מציאותם וממנו קיומם. Existence is God's and we, he shares it with us, but existence is his. The traditional Jewish belief since Avraham Avinu, since Avraham Avinu, is that God is perfect. There's nothing problematic in God's Torah. In the world around us, so sometimes people just think of God as a brilliant physicist who is even more brilliant than the hall of fame in physics and that's what they discover in the world. So we certainly don't contest that part of it, but for us, God is the source of morality. He's not just the source of nature, he is the source of nature and he is the source of natural law, but God is the source of all morality as well. There's no such thing as anything in the Torah which is problematic and whatever - I don't want to come back to the 'H' word again, but there's no such thing as saying that we don't have a problem, Orthodox Judaism has a problem. What should our attitude based on all this be practically? So our attitude to someone who feels that he or she has a homosexual orientation but is not looking to condone or legitimize the behavior and is in a private, dignified manner looking to deal with that challenge should be one of unmitigated support. No one should ever use condescending words or slurs or anything of that, it has absolutely no place. Rabbanim, family members, should lend whatever moral support, religious guidance, support on every level to such an individual. If a person is not looking to condone it, a person is not going to celebrate it either and is not going to be marching down 5th Avenue celebrating it. That goes hand in hand with looking to legitimize and mainstream the behavior. The effort to, again, legitimize the behavior, to uproot one of Hashem's... mitzvos is something which is opposed on our part unequivocally. The shalva nefesh, it's looking to not only, which is bad enough, bad enough, not only uproot a prohibition of the Torah, but to do so with a heretical quote unquote justification. Whether that heretical justification is a denial of the Torah she-ba'al peh which tells us to whom the pasuk is addressed, whether that justification in quotation marks is even worse by saying that there's something problematic about one of God's mitzvos which doesn't contradict the eighth principle of faith, that contradicts the very first principle of faith. So that's something that we don't have any sympathy for that. We have sympathy for an individual who's looking like the rest of us to be a God-fearing Jew, who's not looking to uproot a mitzvah min HaTorah, who's not looking to legitimize what's illegitimate. Why do some people have struggles that other people don't have? That's not something that anyone knows. How God decides who's given which challenges and which struggles, no one knows, no one ever will know. When Moshiach comes and we look back at history retrospectively, we're not going to understand everything then either. God is infinite, His knowledge is infinite, His wisdom is infinite. By definition, it can never ever be totally, totally comprehensible and intelligible to us. All the ways of divine providence will never ever be fully understood and known to us because you have to be God to get into, I don't mean this literally, obviously, but figuratively, to get into God's mind and fully understand His ways of providence. He gave us the capacity to understand His Torah, to understand His mitzvos, to fulfill His mitzvos. He didn't give us the capacity because it's beyond finite beings to fully understand His ways of providence. Why do some people have this challenge? I don't know. There are many different types of challenges that only some people have and that many people don't have and it's a mystery of hashgacha, it's a mystery of divine providence. Practically, halacha l'ma'aseh, it's important to know. I'm not sure if maybe I forgot to list the source. Oh yeah, okay, take a look in source fifteen please rabosai. We know that a man and a woman, again, not married, it's not a father and a daughter, not a mother and a son, not a brother and a sister, are not allowed to be alone in a secluded place, in a secluded area. The Mechaber writes, Yosef Karo writes in his Shulchan Aruch in the last line of the first paragraph of source fourteen: u'vedoros halalu in these generations, sixteenth century is when Yosef Karo is penning these words: שרבו הפריצים יש להתרחק מלהתייחד עם הזכר. If the situation is such that violation of the Torah's prohibition against homosexual behavior becomes somewhat widespread, so then that issur yichud, that prohibition against being secluded applies not only for a man and a woman, but it would apply for two men as well. So the Beis Shmuel says, the Beis Shmuel is one of the major commentaries on this part of the Shulchan Aruch, on the שלחן ערוך אבן העזר, it's printed in. And in all standard editions of the Shulchan Aruch and in the margin around surrounding the text of the Shulchan Aruch itself, quoting again one of the earlier classical authorities, המחבר כתב כך לפי מדינתו. This ruling of Rav Yosef Karo reflected the reality of the time and place where he lived, שהיו פרוצים בעבירה זו, that there was significant breach of of this prohibition. Aval, and I don't know where the Beis Shmuel lived, I don't know, aval, medinas elu, wherever, whenever the Beis Shmuel was living—he didn't live in the 20th or 21st century, he lived a few hundred years ago—אבל מדינות אלו אין צריך להתרחק מדינה. It's not required. It's not required. It's kemiduma very clear that that that an individual who feels that he has a homosexual orientation, just halacha lemaisa is not allowed, the same way a heterosexual man can't be alone with a woman, so a a man who feels that he has a homosexual orientation can't be alone in a secluded place with with another man for the same rationale, why a the same rationale that prohibits a heterosexual man from being alone in a in a private place or area with with a woman. Okay, so I think that's maybe one last just one last comment. We spoke about the societal influence. One of the tenets of the society around us is what they perceive what it perceives as the inalienable right to self-gratification. That's what sort of fuels the society around us. Everyone has an inalienable right to self-gratification. If I want something, I should be able to indulge that that desire. That mindset is about as antithetical to the mindset of discipline and restraint which for the Torah defines Kedusha. Rav Soloveitchik was fond of of highlighting the fact that the Rambam in his Mishneh Torah, so he subdivides the Mishneh Torah into 14 books. So the the fifth of the the fifth of the 14 of the 14 books of Mishneh Torah is Sefer Kedusha, the book of of holiness of sanctity. And and what does the Rambam deal with it? He deals with the Halachos of forbidden relations and dietary laws, because it's in those two areas that the foundation of Kedusha is created. The discipline which is created by compliance with the Torah's directives, both in the area of dietary laws, what foods a person may eat, what foods not, what relations are permissible, what relations are not, that discipline is the bedrock and and foundation of of Kedusha. Thank you. Let's start with one question that's kind of a follow-up from last time, but connects to this as well. For the uneducated Orthodox consumer, whether speaking of the psak that we should wear tefillin, whether the misinterpretations of the psukim to legitimize homosexual behavior, sometimes those are found coming from rabbis who in their office have semicha, an ordination on the wall from a known yeshiva in Israel or America. Last time you differentiated between a rabbi and a moreh hora'ah. Is there any way to guide the uneducated consumer, as I say, how to at least tell how to be an educated consumer and try to see where things are coming from? So as as is true for you know any good question, you know שאלת חכם חצי תשובה, the I think I think the answer is implied. I also used to buy all my suits in Syms by the way, so I'm also into haven't quite gotten over over its demise. I'm also into being an educated an educated an educated consumer. But but the the choice of the phrase is very apt. That that we need to be educated consumers so that we can distinguish between Rabbis who are qualified to to render halachic rulings to whom we should look for guidance and and psak and and decision and and Rabbis who sadly maybe out of misguided sincerity, I'm not judging anyone's motivations, but Rabbis who sadly are not in the least bit learned and and have also been co-opted by this tidal wave of moral confusion that that exists. A person has to be an educated consumer. The way to be an educated consumer is we don't all have to be great great talmidei chachamim. We should all aspire to it to the rest of our ability, but a person doesn't have to achieve that to be to be educated enough to be able to discern and differentiate between different rabbonim. The the sad reality is that if you have a combination of Rabbis who overstepped their boundaries and again not commenting on motivation and as a result say things that are totally totally out of bounds. The combination of that with an uneducated consumer is is not good. That's a volatile combination and I don't know of any, the answer is that we need to be educated consumers and once we're educated consumers so you can tell whether it's it's a good suit or or not a good suit. You know that if it's all polyester there's a reason it's so cheap and it's not going to breathe and you're going to you're going to melt. Now for some of us that may not be so bad if we would melt a little bit, but that's a different story. Rabbi mentioned that you should should show un- undeviated support for someone that has an orientation like that. What does the Torah expect of someone in that position? Should they be celibate for the rest of their lives? Should they get married? Like what is what's the next step after someone has or is that an individual or as a community do we have a solution to that, that's communal? I mean certainly in in a homosexual sense the person has to be celibate. I mean that that much is is uniform and and unequivocal. Whether the person is is capable of getting married I think is very much has to be measured in an individual context. Obviously it it would only be appropriate if if it would be in a way that was fair to to his to his partner, to the to the woman that he would marry, he would have to you know be be capable of of you know the full range of of you know marital obligations. So whether that's whether that's an option would be something that presumably would have to be decided on an individual basis. Yeah thanks, thanks for coming, I really enjoyed that. So I have like a couple questions sort of like last time. I'm actually not how sure. Just to reassure, just to reassure everyone, we're actually leaving tomorrow night so you don't have to worry, I'm not coming back again so you can all, you can all breathe a a sigh of a sigh of relief. Yeah, yeah so I'm not sure how well they work together. I have some in a lot of different places, but I think I'm going to try to summarize them into two sections. They're both very unrelated. So I think right you you started out with more of like a halachic focus, so obviously it seems unequivocal you know what the halachic stance on this issue is. But right obviously there's a lot of like social implications which are even already coming out in the form of preliminary questions about this you know as to how to deal with it. Usually the focus is like for the person who's like dealing with this how do they deal with it? But my question is more geared towards like how does a community deal with someone who's struggling with this issue? So right like I I would say that the question is like for homosexual like Jews right we want them to come closer to Torah be able to be like even according to like your source sixteen right we want people to be in Torah according to So when it comes to helping people who are in this position to integrate into a community, it seems like there's a few problems that they face and certain ways that they might be overcome, right? So one major thing was sympathy that you mentioned in terms of it being important to treat people who are in this situation with sympathy. But so I have a couple of friends who are gay and have left the Orthodox communities that they grew up in and are not uninformed consumers, but very well know everything from halachot to observant Jewish life. And I think that what they generally ran into was this issue with the fact that on one hand, you want for anyone who's struggling with any issue, whatever sort of issue it is and whatever sin it leads them to engage in, there's this idea that you want people to have an organic path of growth. You want people to be able to work through their issues in a way that is organic and that can help them to actually get to where they need to get to. But it seems like in this issue, there's not really a prescribed organic path of growth. The two main options that I've generally heard thrown around for this issue are either stay celibate or get married to a woman, which seem to each contain, depending on the situation, their own halachic questionability. And I'm wondering in terms of for a community that wants to make sure that this kind of person feels comfortable staying in the community context, surrounding themselves with a Torah lifestyle, but also being understood and empathized with and actually feeling that empathy in a way that's not like, oh you have these two options and if this doesn't seem like your path of growth then you can't stay here anymore. So I'm wondering if you have some ideas about that. And then I guess my second question is, and I think I wasn't paying entirely entire attention to the source that you brought for this, so I can't really say exactly from wording the question the way that addresses that, but there was this idea that a heterosexual man shouldn't be alone with a woman, so that's obviously a very well-known halacha. But then there was the other thing that you brought, that you said a homosexual man should not be alone in a room with a man. I'm wondering how that chilluk was derived and how does that relate to how the verse that you brought in the very beginning from the Torah, which I realize is probably on a different level because it's not a commentary and everything else, but how does that relate to the dismissal of the idea that that verse is not addressed to heterosexual people, like you said, try to use the verse that way? So how is there this direct halacha? And also what does this potentially mean in terms of social isolation for people who are in this scenario with other people? Okay, so thank you for the sensitive questions. The challenge that an individual who feels that he or she has a homosexual orientation faces is not unique. There are, sadly, painfully, tragically, there are heterosexual individuals who want to get married and don't succeed in getting married. And all the challenges that are associated with being single on the various levels, they experience as well. And people open their homes and they invite people to come and to be guests, Shabbos and Yom Tov. And the issue of again, I guess not entirely unprecedented based on the source we just read in Shulchan Aruch, but let's say in terms of the past hundred, two hundred years, it seems the fact that the challenge arises in a context of homosexuality is new and different, but it's not fundamentally different than how one integrates a heterosexual individual who hasn't gotten married and whose prospects for getting married are not very good. And we all know that that lots of such people, no one ever thought that it created a crisis for the community, no one ever thought it created a crisis for the Torah. We deal with it and we know intuitively how to how to deal with it. You go to shul and and you see someone who who doesn't have their own family, you invite them and and you welcome them and and we were always able to do that and we always did that because no one was looking to solve or avoid their challenge by trying chas v'shalom to rewrite the Torah. So I think there are, there's a trail that's been blazed for for dealing with it. In terms of your second question, also excellent, and and it's very important to clarify that as well. The issur yichud is not drawn from the the prohibition against being being alone in a secluded area, is not drawn from let's say the verse that that says that adultery is forbidden. So that verse is just talking about the the act of adultery. It's not talking about being in a secluded area with with a married woman. Similarly, the the verse that that prohibits homosexuality prohibits the the homosexual act. It's not talking about the prohibition of being in a secluded area. There is an independent prohibition of of yichud, d'rabanan, d'oraisa, whatever, that's that's a different a different conversation. There is an independent prohibition of yichud which then gets applied to most but not all of the forbidden relationships. So again, since incest between a husband and a daughter, between a mother and and the son is is so against the natural instincts that we have, so the prohibition of yichud doesn't apply there. At most points in history that same reasoning carried over to the prohibition of of engaging in of of homosexual behavior as well. It was experienced as something unnatural and because of that the same way a father is allowed to be alone with a daughter even though if chas v'shalom that would be an incestuous relationship and a mother can be alone with the son even though that would be an incestuous relationship, so two men can be together even though that also would be a a forbidden relationship. When the ground underneath shifts, again, it's not the halakha changing, it's the reality to which halakha is being applied. And that prohibition is something which is a lot which is breached a lot, so then certainly someone who feels that he's susceptible to that because of the way he experiences orientation, so he's no longer analogous to the father-daughter mother-son, he's analogous to the man-woman relationship. Is that? So would he be allowed to be alone with a woman now or? The answer, which is a little bit too lengthy and will take us too far afield, is I think no, but but maybe some other time we we can talk about that. Let's distinguish between a situation of someone who is of course be-farhesia, who's engaging in a radical statement trying to challenge the Torah or challenge the Ribbono Shel Olam's perfection. We'll call it the rabble-rousers, the leaders of of whatever abbreviations are used now, which itself is part of political correctness to try to label it as something. But there are many broadly speaking in the Orthodox world who have given into their taivah, just like there are many broadly speaking in the Orthodox world who would sin in other ways as well. And I think a question that both the baalebatim and the rabbonim at some point needs to be addressed is what kinds of sinful activities lead to a situation where you're no longer welcome in our synagogues, in our schools, in our communities, and what kind We have to deal with the person as someone who is let's say not one of the rabble-rousers but someone who's recognizing the fact that he as you mentioned to the fact that someone who has orientation but never sins in that way clearly is deserving of our sympathy. What about the person who is sinning in that way? To what extent again if he's not trying to attack the Torah is he also deserving of our sympathy in terms of not that in any way condoning the behavior but he's a sinner, he's a chotei and a chotei to a large extent we have to try to be mekarev. So the mushkal rishon I think of many communities because to'eivah etc. is that that's it, that's what he is, we have to kick him out. But that doesn't necessarily seem to be the nuanced approach that we should be taking and when do we draw the line and saying you can't be part of a shul, you can't be an oleh l'torah, you can't be a chazan and so on and so forth and what nuance perhaps Rebbe presents today of someone who is sinning but still wants to be a part of the shul recognizing the fact that he is a ba'al ta'avah who's engaged in prohibited acts? I think that might have been part of Rebbe's question in terms of the fact that people didn't feel at home in the Orthodox community because they were ostracized so they just dumped the whole thing and that's clearly I don't think something that we want. One of the boys mentioned on the field that there was a rav recently who said, and I'm sure it was all taken out of context because the press is against anyone who chas v'shalom opens his mouth against this, that if you're homosexual to throw off your kippah. So there was probably in the context of someone who was trying to justify the behavior and saying that it was justified by the Torah but that kind of attitude or the perception that that's what Orthodoxy preaches, that if you're a sinner so throw off your kippah, I think is a problem that we have to deal with and if Rebbe could present some words on that. So thank you and I apologize I actually didn't pick that up in your question. The question is a very good one and to be perfectly honest I was sort of avoiding it because the answer is nuanced and the more nuanced the more room there is for misunderstanding but once the question is out there so b'siyata d'shmaya to say the right thing and to be understood. Fundamentally you're certainly correct. If someone that we know to be a mechallel Shabbos comes into shul we don't take him by the jacket and throw him out, chas v'shalom. We don't do anything of the sort. We live in a day and age when the way to influence people is as the Chazon Ish says ba'avosot shel ahavah with cords of warmth and nurturing not with harsh words and the like. If the person who doesn't observe Shabbos came into shul with a pin saying I'm a mechallel Shabbos and proud of it, if he wanted to come into shul, if he wanted to march in the down Fifth Avenue in the Israel Day Parade under a banner of Jews, desecrators of Shabbos, so we would tell him that he's not welcome in the shul. And if someone feels that I believe in the Torah but the flesh is weak and I'm doing something that I know is wrong, a person doesn't publicize it. I'm not sharing with anyone here all my faults. They're wrong, I'm embarrassed about them, I'm not going to publicize them. אשרי נשוי פשע כסוי חטאה. If I'm comfortable gratuitously, not that I'm sharing oh I'm a recovering alcoholic so I'll share my story to help other people in the same situation but if I gratuitously make it known I live in sin and the name is on the mailbox. We file a joint tax return. So that goes beyond someone who's a mumer leteiavon, someone who habitually sins not because he rejects the mitzvah but because he just habitually gives in to his desires. If it can, if it's really compartmentalized that the person is only a mumer leteiavon, that he accepts the Torah and recognizes that what he is doing is sinful. How is that possible? Because people, all people are capable of being inconsistent, that's how it's possible. And all of us are, but just to varying degrees, not to such glaring degrees in most cases. If a person really, really recognizes and acknowledges the behavior as sinful, so then yes, so then what you said is entirely true and on the mark. But that isn't the case if it's gratuitously publicized. על אחת כמה וכמה it isn't the case if it's celebrated. It isn't the case if the person identifies with the gay movement in broader society. The gay movement in broader society does not consider the behavior sinful. I hope that's, I hope, I hope that that's understood. I don't know, I'm not a sociologist. I can't tell you how many cases there are that fit all those criteria. Even the convention to come out and announce it is something which is very hard to reconcile with a belief and an acknowledgment that the Torah says that the behavior is sinful. So what you said in theory is true, and if there are cases that are there, then it's true in practice also. In terms of chinuch habanim, one thing about someone at my house and discussing being single and the challenges of being single, and somebody who comes to my house who is not keeping Shabbos, and talked about the yiddishkeit of Shabbos and the challenges of not keeping Shabbos. And in terms of chinuch habanim, when you have an open home and all of a sudden how much do you want to expose your children, specifically kids 14, 15, 16 years old who are in a Bais Yaakov system or in the yeshiva system, what are one of the Rav's thoughts on chinuch when it comes to these issues? One of the bigger questions of how we relate in general. My mindset was a little bit of I think there has to be boundaries. My boundaries for my Shabbos table for discussions, it's all part of the context. Having such an individual at the table, I didn't mean that therefore this becomes the focal point or even part of the conversation necessarily. I think you're, I don't think you need me to tell you this, you're 100 percent correct that, you know, kiruv rechokim or chizzuk l'acherim isn't done at the expense of the chinuch of one's children. What that translates to again, as you very correctly indicated, it depends on how sheltered or how exposed anyway the children are, and which is obviously a function of which of the various Torah societies and which of the various educational systems they're in. But clearly if there's, and I don't mean this in a negative way, I mean it in a positive way, if the child is in a bubble of kedusha that's going to be pierced by this. So then that conversation shouldn't be at the at the Shabbos table if if the child for better or worse isn't in that insular bubble so then it's a different story and and very much has to be decided on an individual basis. Could one argue the bubble of Kedusha is part of the problem of sometimes the Orthodox problem, the issue that Orthodox people feel towards other kids who are struggling through this where a bubble is just that we don't speak about? I don't think there's any adult in today's world who lives in a bubble, doesn't matter where you live. We all have cell phones in our pockets. The only reason I don't now is my cell phone doesn't work anyway so I got tired of carrying it around but we all have we all have cell phones in our pockets. No one lives in such a bubble. I don't think there's any adult who lives in such a bubble A. B, this problem is across the board. This problem is not only in certain segments of society, this problem is mamash across the board. Okay. So I have two more two fundamental questions regarding the Halachic process as such. The first is that the pasuk when it uses the language לא תשכב משכבי אשה, and this is different language from other sexual prohibitions, which in translation being you don't uncover the nakedness of the other. How do we understand the difference in language as being important? And why not use the same phrase for this case? The other question I have is regarding the Sugya in Sanhedrin where the Gemara seems to look at this pasuk in terms of asking if this is referring to an androgynous, like somebody who seems to be both male and female, and why that Halachic avenue in considering it that way is eventually rejected. So I don't know of a way of really answering the question being totally refined. What Chazal tell us about the Mishkevei Isha is that we also derive from this verse which prohibits male homosexual behavior that let's say a man and a woman, adulterous, incestuous relationship, if they would have relations not the normal way that man and woman have relations but what's I'm sorry what's called anal relations, that that would also be that that's also included in the prohibition. And what it says Mishkevei Isha, the fact that the word Mishkevei is in the plural is telling us that and it's quite clear why this is the natural context to tell us that since that's also considered constituting the sexual act both in a heterosexual union, so that's also why it's considered a sexual act in a homosexual context and and that's why this wording is used. The androgynous is the Halacha treats because anatomically the androgynous has both in terms of the sexual organs has both male and female, so an androgynous with another male is also considered Mishkav Zachar, also be considered homosexual. Should we stop here? No, go on, go on. Yeah, I was just going to move past this so getting back to Rabbi Heber's question, there was this mussar like talk that I was in like within the last three weeks and I remember this story which was basically that there was a non-kosher meat shop where someone was selling meat. And basically like I think it was a rabbi and someone else was walking by and someone the other person was sort of criticizing like whoever was in the shop or whatever Jew was in the shop. And so he totally like used an ayin tov approach and kind of like overlooked this real issue that like okay there's this Jewish guy's selling non-kosher meat. And I think the background was, look at this guy after the Holocaust and like had a difficult life and ended up sort of in this position where he was doing something that was like obviously violating like Torah Torah laws. So I'm wondering like why isn't this sort of approach to mussar used in more of like a social context in terms of like you mentioned names on the mailbox? How can even if you have names on a mailbox, even if you see that, so how do you know that the two people who are male are having relations together, how they're doing it if they are? So I just meant that figuratively. I didn't mean that that was that that was proof positive that the fact that there were two roommates that that God forbid I wasn't implying that the fact that there are two roommates implies anything. And I wasn't saying that at all, I just meant that as a figure of speech. You know that that if two men come or two women come and they tell the rabbi or the secretary of the of the synagogue, whoever it is, you know in the shul's membership list, you know, please list us as a couple. That's what I was sort of describing by on the mailbox. I didn't mean God forbid that the fact that there are two men who are roommates that that creates any cloud of of suspicion. That wasn't at all and I apologize if that wasn't clear.