Today I went to the Library Minyan, a well-known Conservative, lay-led minyan that I've been frequenting for some time--mostly because of the community. At times the davening can be quite good, as can be the drashot, but other times it seems like it is a barely contained social scene.
At the end of services at noon there was a painfully long announcement period---almost fifteen minutes. One announcement stood out: the Ritual Committee of the minyan would be having an open forum in mid-March to discuss the issue of whether or not to allow a gay couple, who are having a commitment ceremony in May (not at this synagogue), could be called to the Torah together for an aliyah and receive a blessing, much as male/female couples who are about to be married regularly do.
The senior rabbi of the synagogue has thought about this--and given his approval. The nature of this minyan is, however, to deal with its own issues of praxis. If you've read the book "Jew vs. Jew" there is a chapter about this minyan's struggling with an earlier issue (I think it might have been about adding the names of the "emahot"--the ancestral mothers--to the Amidah. Other issues the minyan community have struggled with include whether or not to use amplified sound on Shabbat and holidays (when the room can be extended far away from the amud--the table at which the prayer leads the service and can be hard to hear. Another episode put to vote of the membership was whether or not services could be video-taped, such as b'nai mitzvah or other occassions where electrical devices would otherwise not be used.
And so now the biggie---what will we do about gay people who want to be treated fairly--that is equally--with other congregants? What do we do with gay people who pay their dues, find the love of their lives, and want to recognize it on the Shabbat before their ceremony before the Torah like their heterosexual counterparts? Do we allow it? Do we put it to a vote?
The question in the Library Minyan is to do some learning about this, have a panel discussion, and then have a vote. Many people today assured me that they believed it would pass easily--however, I was a bit dismayed. There will be some for whom this is a matter of their interpretation of halacha, Jewish law, and according to their halachaic interpretation, it is an "assur"--prohibited. There will be others who say that there is nothing out of the ordinary except that there will be two people of the same gender and it hasn't been done before.
Two people are already on the panel---both of them have played leading roles in the Conservative Movement and its Law Committee--in fact, one of them will be in Maryland this week to again attend a vote on the issue, including one of his opinions that is up for discussion.
I had a particularly strong reaction to all of this for any number of reasons. One, I don't like the idea of "second class" or "two-tiered" Judaism. Two, I feel like the humanity of this issue is removed by making it a debate about law and standards or whatever---the person who has asked is a well-know member of the Library Minyan community who has opened his house on many times to people (parenthetically, the synagogue has never hesitated to accept his generous financial contributions).
Third, I worry when there is a forum such as one that is coming up that people may not have thought seriously about what the issues really are and may articulate something that may sound, well, inarticulate or even worse downright nasty. This is a country where people still see gays and lesbians as a class of people where discrimination is okay.
I also worry about the young gay kids--the teenagers who may be discovering their own sexuality and are part of this community who may hear this debate and find parts of it hurtful (I pray that is not the case!)
I guess that my anger was raised because it seems ridiculous to have to go through this process in 2006. Also, I'm becoming a rabbi in a movement where it is an issue that has been mostly dealt with--there are many Reform rabbis (not all) who will perform commitment ceremonies and have no problems at all (other than normal rabbi/congregant relationships) with same-gender couples having children in their religious and day schools, as well as pre-schools.
The person who wants this aliyah is my friend and he's aware of the process--yet today the announcement just sorta felt like a slap across the face. We'll see what happens at the meeting.
