Francine Klagsbrun has demonstrated in her column, “You Better Start Swimmin’ Or You’ll Sink Like a Stone” (Opinion, Aug 9), that over the past several decades she has evolved from practicing liberal Judaism to promoting Jewish Liberalism. She glorifies the “marriage” of a non-Jewish male to a Jewish “convert” male.
In order to justify this relationship as Jewish, she quotes Rabbi Elliot Dorff, who distorts the Talmudic reference of “kavod habriyot” (human dignity) to apply to gays. No matter how politically incorrect, no one can throw out the biblical commandments against both gay relationships and intermarriage. A marriage between two males and/or between a Jew and a non-Jew is not a valid Jewish (read: halachic) marriage, no matter how many glasses are broken under a chupah. And it is a farce to declare this ceremony to be “according to the laws of Moses and Israel.”
Klagsbrun’s final point is that it may not be easy to adjust to the pace of social change and we lose out if we don’t make an all-out effort to do so. I suggest that the social change we have experienced in the past decades may not be for the better. We all need to put this rapid “social change” in historical perspective and compare it with the values and traditions that have kept our Jewish people and religion alive and “swimming” for over 3,000 years.
Don’t let go of our well-tested life preserver in these treacherous currents.
