For anyone Jew or non-Jew perplexed by the issue of homosexuality:
Judaism at its essence is the
sanctification of that which is holy.
Ha'Shem
gave to the Jew and to no other people His Law as
direct, Divine Revelation in the form of a Covenant called Torah, through which we are called out from among the other nations to live as a Nation of Priests serving the One True G-d of the Universe.
Torah isn't "accepting" of all ideas and behaviors as divine and holy!
Torah allows for mankind only those behaviors which G-d defines as acceptable.
Torah recognizes that the 'animal' side of human nature contains impulses, emotions, and thoughts which if acted upon, reduce us to a state lower than other animals, with the subsequent reduction of the entire world to a state of disorder.
Through Torah, the Jew learns and understands that there is a Holiness, Sanctity, and a Realm of the Spiritual, far removed from our lowly animal impulses, and that by observing G-d's Law and obeying our Covenant with Him, we make separate and elevated our
human nature from that of an animal.
Judaism recognizes that man is created a spiritual entity inhabiting a mortal physical body which in many ways resembles that of other animals.
Other nations worship at the feet of statues, or claim their human leader to be the G-dhead incarnate --
Torah commands the Jew to worship The One Creator G-d of the Universe - spiritual, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, and immaterial.
Other nations elevate conquest, murder, destruction, and death --
Torah commands the Jew to improve the Earth, forbids us the act of murder, and orders us to choose life over death in every circumstance.
Other nations elevate the hunting and eating of animals for food; some peoples as well even hunting and eating other men as food --
Torah commands the Jew not only to know which food G-d considers acceptable for man to eat, but also instructs us how to properly slaughter animals, how to properly prepare food and eat it, and even how to bless our food in order to sanctify our G-d who created it for us.
Many nations use the same body of water for depositing human waste, bathing, and for a source for drinking water --
Torah details how Jews must wash their hands even before eating food, and commands Jews to use pure water to cleanse our bodies and symbolically purify our souls.
Prior to Torah homosexuality was a universally practiced act, considered by the ancient Greeks as the 'highest possible form of love'.
Torah calls the practice "
an abomination, and forbids Jews the use of the
gift of sexual pleasure for any purposes other than the continuity of life, to be practiced in sanctity by a married man and woman.
Homosexual sex can not procreate our species, nor can it express love between a man and a woman.
Just the opposite is true.
Therefore it is an acting out of animal lust.
If an entire society practices it, the society disappears forever.
Those today who make the argument "
But it is natural and normal, and observed in almost every species of animal !" are indeed correct in their observations, because homosexual behavior
is found throughout much of the animal kingdom.
However, what such 'reasoning' overlooks entirely is that Judaism's purpose is to enable mankind to recognize, elevate, and sanctify his holy and spiritual nature; separate and apart from that which are the basest physical urges we share with other animals
A Jew strives for holiness and to sanctify G-d's creation.
Anger which if acted out would lead to murder, or lustful impulses to engage in sexual activity; we are allowed to recognize the reality of these thoughts which we all have at one time or another, but are not allowed to act on them --
Torah frees mans' intellect to reach for that which is Holy -- never again to be confined within the purely physical and animal "natural world".
It is the Jew with Torah who shows the entire world that G-d is indeed real and exists, and it is the Jew with Torah that alone is able to prove that mankind is different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
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p.s.
Of course, I realize that homosexuality exists.
I personally believe that many human beings are born with the inclination, and I have observed myself how blessed with brilliance and talent are so many of these individuals.
Whether such behavior is innately genetic or learned, Torah gives us the intellect and reasoning to understand that such inclinations are part of the natural world.
However, we must understand that such urges and thoughts are exactly the same as others in the natural world --
All of us at times feel the urge to murder, steal, or rape, but can and must use our free will and intellects to repress and never act on them.
So too, must we repress and never act out our base sexual impulses, regardless of whether they be heterosexual or homosexual.
Think carefully on this, JTF members, and realize the truth of these words.
You are free to practice the sexual lifestyles of all the pagan and evil nations which have long perished from the Earth if you so choose.
But if so, you must accept that you are no longer to be numbered among the Jewish people.
Also you must accept that Jews exist only because of Torah, and Torah never has and never will accept homosexuality, women priests, feminism, or any other "popular" fad being passed off as "rational, modern, and secular".
In fact, each and every one of these schools of thought are as old as time itself, and were practiced in every society in which ancient Jews lived.
Torah is replete with such lifestyles and even far worse ones being practiced long ago in the ancient world.
Ancient Canaanites practiced group sex and defecation as religious rite! ...
Sodom and Gomorrah is no myth ..
Talmud has a passage in which the ancient Rabbis who actually lived in Babylonian exile agree that it was only when the women of ancient Babylon demanded full equality with men that the great Empire fell.
Question: Who was it Judah Maccabee was fighting? --
Answer: The Assyrian Empire, remnant of Alexander the Great's Empire, who like the rest of the Greek world prayed to statues, ate pigs, worshipped the nude human body, spent their quality time being naked with other men "getting ripped" and "working out" in gymnasiums and then having anal intercourse with each other. They somehow got the idea that conquering Judea by force, putting pigs and statues in the Temple in Jerusalem, building gymnasiums and pools for the Jews, and legally outlawing circumcision and Kosher eating was the hippest and latest thing for the Modern Man of the New Age.
Then, as today, a large percentage of Jews would embrace the secular and pagan world with all its promises of wealth, excitement, pleasure, and sexual freedom.
Then, as today, any that did would be cut off from their people and perish.
Think about it.
Topic: Trembling Before G-d - a documentary about gay Jews (Read 14803 times)