The document itself contains several statements I believe on the evidence to be false. I’m interested in the mental health professionals who appear to believe such phlogiston.

p.s. Still trying to trace that Academic – most Uni administrations are closed at the moment.

http://www.massresistance.com/docs/gen/11d/torah_declaration/index.html

Especially the list of “mental health professionals” signed on. Know any of them?

But yes, Throbert, I’m sure it was hyperbole.

Additionally, by the time of the first century, the use of the death penalty had so many requirements attached to it that the Talmud rendered it practically unenforceable.

Judaism wasn’t as cold and compassionless as the Christian gospels make it out to be back then.

Emily and Throbert can you help me out here? I have an understanding, which is probably more of a misunderstanding, that the Torah for very far right Jewish groups takes a very minor place as compared to the Talmud.

I would defer to Emily on this since she’s Jewish and I’m not, but as far as I know, it’s not true at all that highly conservative Jews place more weight on the Talmud than on the Torah — after all, the whole point of the Talmud is to help illuminate and explain the Torah. I think it might be more correct to say that some liberal schools of Judaism, and particularly Reform Judaism, tend to de-emphasize Talmudic study in comparison to traditionalist right-wing Jews.

It seems to me, with my limited understanding, that this emphasis on the Torah by the creators and signers of this document is being used only as an enticement or gateway to Christian groups.

On this point, however, I’m sure you’re correct — since the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Bible) is considered by Christians to be divinely inspired and authoritative, but the Talmud is not.

Then again, since the point of this effort was to attack homosexuals specifically by appealing to the prejudices of conservative heterosexuals, the signatories might have wished to avoid drawing attention to the fact that the Talmud condemns solo masturbation by males (including straight guys) far more explicitly than the Torah does, and almost as harshly as Leviticus condemns anal sodomy between two men.

Granted, the Talmud doesn’t advocate the death penalty for male JO, but one Talmudic passage recommends that:

“in the case of a man, the hand that reaches below the navel should be chopped off.”

(The Talmudic prohibition on masturbation is based on the story of Onan spilling his seed on the ground — thus female masturbation isn’t serious enough a sin to be worthy of amputation, because no seed is spilled.)

P.S. Just try reading that Mass Resistance statement again, but mentally substitute “masturbation” for every reference to “homosexuality”, e.g.:

The Biblical understanding that no one is “born gay a bologna-spanker” coincides with mental health experts who are not intimidated by political correctness. The only Torah-approved course of action with regard to homosexuality Portnoy’s complaint is psychological therapy coupled with repentance…

What occurred to me is that there is one social services agency in Brooklyn that is Jewish based and they got those staff members to sign. There were a whole boatload of Social Workers from Brooklyn who had signed at the end.

There are, of course, tons of Jews in all five boroughs of NYC, but if I’m not mistaken, the largest concentration of Haredim (aka “Ultra-Orthodox Jews”, or more jocularly, “the black-hat crowd”) is in Brooklyn.

Looking over the list of signatories, I see that they are broken into several categories, and there is a section of Hassidic rabbis (also “Ultra-Orthodox”), who are nearly all in Brooklyn. The “Chabad” section represents yet another branch of “Ultra-Orthodox”, although none of these names are from NYC. And several of the yeshivas (Jewish religious schools) listed are haredi, according to Google.

On the other hand, I assume that the names listed under “Yeshiva University”, as well as many of the “Mental Health Professionals”, are Modern Orthodox — although I could be mistaken. (My impression is that the Haredim totally break the familiar stereotype of Jewish parents who push their sons to become doctors — because all that time spent reading textbooks full of secular science is time NOT spent studying the Torah and Talmud, doncha know! So I would guess that the M.D.s and Ph.D.s are predominantly Modern Orthodox.)

Anyway, I’m a bit curious to know what the actually breakdown was among the signatures between “Modern Orthodox” and “Ultra-Orthodox” — although generally there’s no way to tell just by looking at the names of the individuals or the congregations they’re affiliated with.

While I was out getting some groceries, I had another thought on that “Torah” document from Mass Resistance, and Teresa’s question about why they cited the Torah but not the Talmud.

Obviously, their aim was to make a sweeping condemnation of homosexuality in all forms. But the Talmud’s coverage of the subject is specific and nuanced, and doesn’t lend itself so easily to the kind of blanket statement they wanted.

First, the Talmud primarily addresses and condemns homosexual transgressions by Jews, and is less concerned with homosexuality among Gentiles, except insofar as to remind Jews that homosexual acts ought to be shunned as an “idolatrous Gentile custom”.

Second, the Talmud treats lesbian acts as a less grave offense than male homosexual acts — IIRC, a Jewish woman caught in lesbianism was merely disqualified from marrying a man of the kohanim priestly lineage, but under no circumstances would she be liable for the death penalty. (Unless, I suppose, there were major aggravating factors, such as having lesbian sex for money on the altar of Aphrodite, or something like that.)

Third, the Talmud clearly specifies eyewitness evidence of “penetration” as a necessary condition for applying the death penalty to male homosexual offenses as per Lev. 20:13 (the qualifying phrase “as with a woman” being interpreted to mean “penetrative in the manner of vaginal intercourse”). So by implication, non-penetrative male homosex, such as mutual masturbation, is a significantly “less worse” transgression; at least it wasn’t a capital offense.

(Admittedly, intentional “spilling of seed” in a non-procreative way is [duh!] generally the goal of all male homosexual acts, so these are still serious sins based on the Talmudic analysis of the Onan story — but not necessarily a violation of Leviticus.)

So — different treatment of Jewish and Gentile homosex; different treatment of male and female homosex; and male/male anal sodomy (between Jewish men) singled out from all other same-sex acts in its own special category of awfulness. Not very blanket-y.

You’re right Throbert, it’s an expression that calls for monetary compensation. The verse in Exodus about “eye for eye” is the same thing – monetary compensation.

If Christians weren’t so ignorant about Judaism and our Jewish Scriptures they claim to love so much they might see how truly flexible and adaptable the Tree of Life is. Pity.