Selasa, 30 September 2014

Can Jews Be Gay Or Are They Prohibited

By Karina Frost


As homosexuality is being more and more accepted in the community these days, there are still some groups that do not accept homosexuals because of the culture of the group. One of the groups that do not condone to homosexual acts would be the Jews. So the main question of the issue would be can jews be gay or not.

Now the main teaching of the Rabbis when it comes to homosexuals would be the fact that the religion itself does not condemn gays at all. What they condemn would be homosexual actions like erotic acts of people that are of the same sex. So in a nutshell, a person can be a homosexual but they are just not allowed to perform homosexual acts as this is considered a sin.

Now to see as to where this kind of teaching came from, one would first have to look at the Bible as a source. Now the main source as to where the scholars got this teaching would of course be from Leviticus eighteen verses twenty two. This verse states that a man cannot lie with another man like he would with a woman otherwise it is abhorrent thing.

Now while there is no actual explanation as to why God made this commandment, many Rabbis did have their own interpretations. The most common one would be that when God created the world, he only created man and woman. So naturally, homosexuality is something that is unnatural to creation.

Of course since this claim had no basis, people were not convinced of its validity at all. Now Bar Kaparrah tried to make a conclusion about this issue in Talmud by stating another teaching in the Torah. He claims that the Torah emphasizes the importance of marriage and procreation with homosexuality posing as a threat to it.

So if the Torah states that a man cannot be together with another man, then one would also probably ask where this leaves lesbians. One would also probably ask whether lesbianism is allowed in this religion. Well lesbianism may not be as frowned upon, but it is still not allowed.

Now Judaism does not condone to homosexuality as a whole so this includes both gays and lesbians. Of course for the lesbian couples, they would also use the Talmud interpretation wherein procreation is a must. However, since lesbianism is not explicitly mentioned in the Torah, they are not as strict.

So the answer to the question based on the interpretations of this issue is that yes one can be a gay Jew. Since the Rabbis do realize that most gays are born that way, they do not condemn the people. They do however, condemn the act of homosexuality because it goes against the laws of their belief. So if one is gay or lesbian and is a Jew, he or she will not be condemned by the group but he or she must also not do any homosexual acts otherwise he or she will have committed a grave sin.




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