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12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +1 points

So I'm thinking particularly about adolescent thugs that beat up gay men. Those thugs are being taught as children, by their mothers and their preachers, that God commands that all gay men are to be killed.

My question is, does Lev 20:13 say what we are told it says? In which case, we need to work to make it clear that even though it says it, it is unacceptable. Don't gloss over it. It is wrong to teach children to kill people by the millions because of cultural prejudice.

Or does it say something else? In which case, we need to correct it.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 1 reply · +1 points

Yes, of course. As I have said several times, for years I have heard with great precision all the things that you are saying.

But I'm not asking what is or was practiced. I'm interested in a clear understanding of what the text of Lev 20:13 actually says. We (and I mean Jews, Christians, and Muslims) are teaching children that God commanded that *all* sexually active gay men should be killed.

If that's what it actually says, then fine. But to tell you the truth, if that is what is says, then it is that verse that is evil, not the millions of people that verse calls for killing.

But honestly, the words do not look to me like they say that. I do not read or speak Hebrew, but I recognize the words and the roots. I am pretty good with languages, so I know what a gerund is. We also have handy concordances that show every single occurrence of each word, and the usual interpretation of Lev 20:13 does not match how those words are used anywhere else in the written Torah or Tanakh.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +1 points

But Matt, to begin with, that is the entire question. It does *not* appear to me that it says that. I need to know what it says before I will take up any interest in how it was implemented. I've heard all those things before. What I have not heard is an honest straightforward answer to what it actually says.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +3 points

It does not seem reasonable that the Forward deleted my post asking about translation of text, while leaving the posts that call people rude names, including the author of the primary article.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 2 replies · +3 points

Silly? This conversation is based on a text that - we are being told - calls for me and millions of people like me to be killed. If you think that's ok, then you are being worse than silly.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 3 replies · +2 points

(1) Torah says what it says, and my impression is that what it says is not what we are told it says. It says two men "in a woman's bed." That's not The Gays.

(2) If you are right and I am wrong, then it calls for me and most of my friends to be murdered. If you promote that, then that makes you a bad person. You seem to be promoting it, so I feel uncomfortable.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 5 replies · +2 points

The fact that you are not currently enforcing a call for millions of people to be killed does not make it okay to continue calling for millions of people to be killed.

If it says what Shafran claims it says, then it is bad. You should be standing against it, not honoring or promulgating or even excusing it. If you did, that would make you a Bad Person ®.

My question is whether it actually says that or not.

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +4 points

Exactly ! The everyday usual intepretation of this phrase is "a woman's beds." You have to go out of your way, out of the typical use of the word to get it to mean "sexual intercourse." Mishkevei and related forms are used 46 times in Tanakh, and in 44 cases it means bed, beds, bedrooms, couches etc. Only in these 2 verses do we claim that it means sexual intercourse. Why? Is that correct, or is it just 3,000 years of deliberate misinterpretation?

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +4 points

I have read a good bit of Jay's work and I appreciate it. I have posted this same question over the past several months, including here at JDF. And yes, I have talked with a few Rabbis. But as I said, I have not seen this question addressed directly, so that's why I am asking again.

The answers always have to do with "there is no Halachic court" or "the Septuagint or even King James (sheesh) says..." So, I just keep askin' ...

12 years ago @ Jewish Daily Forward - Explaining Our Stance ... · 0 replies · +3 points

We aren't talking about "what Judaism follows." We are talking about "what the Torah says." That is what the Rabbi said, and I quoted him directly. I'm not asking anybody what they do. I am asking what it says.

It does explicitly call for a group of people to be killed. When you set out to kill a group of people, or call for them to be killed, it does not matter to me whether you actually hate them or not. You are no better a person if you do not hate them.

The question is who is this group of people. Is it men who have sex with men? (To me, so far, this interpretation looks like a tenuous metaphor.) Or is it men who lie with men in a woman's bed? (As well as I can tell so far, to me it looks like this is what the text actually says.)

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