I just read this news piece from Ha’aretz News in Israel and wanted to pass it on. This development illustrates the moral and spiritual slide going on in even the most unlikely places.
Israeli Conservative Movement Approves Ordination of Gay Rabbis
’A very important development in Jewish law,’ says President of the Israeli Conservative Movement Rabbinical Assembly.
By Revital Blumenfeld and Yair EttingerTags: Jewish World Jewish Diaspora
Israel’s Masorti (Conservative) Movement decided to approve the ordination of homosexual rabbis, in a dramatic vote on Thursday.
The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, affiliated with the movement, will admit gay and lesbian students for training as spiritual leaders as of the upcoming school year.
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A Conservative rabbi marries a same-sex couple in the U.S. |
| Photo by: Courtesy of Gregg Drinkwater / Forward |
In doing so the Israeli Conservative Movement is joining the American branch of the movement, whose rabbinical seminaries have been admitting gay students for some years.
The question whether or not to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis has been rattling the Conservative Movement in Israel and the U.S. for the past decade. Unlike the Reform movement that took to the question with ease, deciding firmly on the acceptance of gay rabbis. The Conservative Movement, whose rabbis see themselves bound to Jewish law, has been caught up in heated debate over the subject.
Years of discussion led to two contradictory religious rulings in 2006, one requiring the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and another banning any such act. The two rabbinical seminaries affiliated with the movement in the U.S. move the ruling allowing the ordination, while the seminaries in Jerusalem and Buenos Aires adopted the ban on ordination. The issue nearly caused a rift in the movement.
To continue reading this story: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/israeli-conservative-movement-approves-ordination-of-gay-rabbis-1.425491
This brings to mind Revelation 11:8 (speaking of the two witnesses and Jerusalem)—
“And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
Having just celebrated Passover, what spiritual Egypt represents is fresh in our minds. I doubt there’s much question about what Sodom represents, but if anyone needs a refresher, see Genesis 13:13, 18:20, Genesis 19, and 2 Peter 2.