Same Sex Marriages; A Match Made in Heaven?
Rabbi Mendel Kaplan
This burning question is currently rocking our Federal government and the foundations of our very society. Unfortunately, it seems to have eluded the radar screen of the traditional Jewish community. While the Christian, Muslim and various other faith-communities have mobilized and mounted massive organized campaigns of resistance in an attempt to preserve the sanctity of marriage, silence has by and large been the contrasting reaction of their Jewish counterparts. Yet if pressed for a genuine response, any Jew who believes in the immutably Divine origin of our holy Torah and the revelation at Sinai will invariably express chagrin and disgust at this attempted redefinition of the hallowed institution of matrimony. And for good reasons, the Torah’s divinely inspired tapestry of ethical conduct and sexual morality are being violently unraveled before our eyes! And so the question begs to be asked, why aren’t we speaking up?
To be sure, conferring the sanctity of marriage to relationships outside the borders of traditional matrimony certainly sounds like an incredibly progressive idea. Proponents of the proposed watershed redefinition tout it as the natural outgrowth of our society’s ever-evolving human rights enlightenment that has gradually seen slavery abolished, women granted equal rights, and more recently the rejection of xenophobia and the dismantling of the race disparities that once defined our Western civilization.
One (Jewish) MP recently told me that the passing of this landmark legislation would be an appropriate way to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz where, tragically, numerous homosexuals were brutally murdered alongside it’s 1.5 million Jewish victims. I suspect this type of emotional rhetoric may have something to do with our muffled response. Undoubtedly, we who know more about discrimination and suffering than many others are exceptionally loath to even appear discriminatory or bigoted, and so we should. However, the underlying problem is that this perspective is patently false, and it personifies the currently popular political distortion of the truth. The real issue revolves not around human rights or persecution; rather it is the proposed destruction of the axiomatic divine principals that were introduced at Sinai 3,317 years ago! And as faithful Jews, we must be concerned.
It would seem that a good deal of introspection on the concept of Ohr laGoyim is in order. Our community is truly exemplary when it comes to caring for others. It consistently teaches the world how to appropriately share good fortune, prosperity and
G-d’s blessings, but it is simply not sufficient to serve as a beacon and “light onto the Nations” with the Torah’s lofty concepts of compassion, loving kindness and tzedakah alone. While these are cardinal ingredients in the Jewish portrayal of a just and righteous society, they alone cannot solely represent the heart and soul of our divine mission with integrity.
At Sinai, we as a Nation were collectively charged with the sacred mandate of educating the world about G-d’s true and objective code of morality. Specifically, this Divine ethical offering was called the Sheva Mitzvoth of B’nie Noach, also referred to as “G-d’s Seven Universal Laws for all of Humankind.” The fourth in this series of Noahide Laws is all about valuing the bond of family and honouring the divinity of marriage. This is the simple and true meaning of Ohr laGoyim N’taticha (I have placed you amongst the universal family of Nations so that you may serve as a beacon of [spiritual] light) . G-d expects us, the Jewish People, to make every possible effort to share the moral and ethical code that Moses conveyed to us from Sinai with the civilizations in which we live. We are expected to endeavor to illuminate our societies, at any given time, with these timeless ideals. Anything short of that constitutes a tragic abdication of our sacred Jewish obligations and an abandonment of a major detail of our divinely imposed mission on earth!
There is much to be said to explain the Torah’s position on the meaning of marriage; however the crux of the matter is not whether one understands or appreciates the wisdom and virtue of G-d’s decrees but rather our obligation to observe divine precepts. A Jew must seek to follow the ways of the Torah with utter devotion. At times we may (be fortunate enough to) do this with clarity and comprehension, and at other times we may (unfortunately) require blind faith, but we must always follow with devotion. While we may not like this challenge and not feel good about being politically incorrect, doing what G-d asks must always take precedence. In short, the time has come not only for traditional Canadian Jewry to find it’s voice and speak up, but instead to begin to lead this fight rather than follow.
Rabbi Kaplan is the spiritual leader of Chabad @ Flamingo in Thornhill, and serves as a Chaplain of the York Regional Police.
