{"id":75548,"date":"2015-09-25T14:51:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T22:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=75548"},"modified":"2015-09-25T14:51:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T22:51:51","slug":"open-letter-to-out-of-the-closet-rabbi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=75548","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter To Out Of The Closet Rabbi"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benkoff writes<\/a>: Dear Rabbi Gil Steinlauf:<\/p>\n

You sure made a splash yesterday when, as the senior rabbi of Adas Israel (the largest Conservative synagogue in Washington DC) you announced that you are divorcing your wife and coming out as gay.<\/p>\n

In a letter to your congregation, you asked for its \u201ccontinued trust in me to guide you as your spiritual leader as I truly am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such assertions are common by LGBT people \u2013 that being gay is \u201cwho they are.\u201d But it\u2019s an unfortunate and very narrow construction of someone\u2019s identity. Rabbi Steinlauf, \u201cwho you truly are\u201d indeed involves your libido, sexual orientation, and desired family format.<\/p>\n

But you are also your faith, your marriage (your wife is also a rabbi), your parenthood (you have three children), your politics (you\u2019re a Zionist and a proponent of social justice), your community, your status as a role model, your profession (calling?), and your job. To decide that one important but ultimately secondary aspect of your identity is your very essence \u2013 to which everyone in your family, congregation, and community must adapt \u2013 is awfully selfish.<\/p>\n

Worse, Rabbi, is your attempt to justify your decision with reference to our sacred texts. Your letter cites the great Talmudic personality Abaye saying a scholar whose inside does not match his outside is an abomination. Does anyone seriously believe that our sages of blessed memory would think a rabbi who opts to stay closeted is MORE abominable than one who leaves his wife to pursue intimate relationships with other men?<\/p>\n

Please.<\/p>\n

Steps like yours no doubt feel like the right thing to do for gay men in loveless marriages. But you\u2019re not just any gay man. You\u2019re one of the most important Jewish leaders in your city. Part of your job is to help model a loving Jewish family.<\/p>\n

Leave aside homosexuality. What does your announcement say to the many men in your synagogue who are more sexually attracted to younger women than to their wives? I doubt you\u2019d approve of a congregant breaking up his family to chase after his 28-year-old secretary.<\/p>\n

Oh, but you say being attracted to men is \u201cwho you are.\u201d Well, for a lot of heterosexual males, being attracted to younger women is \u201cwho they are\u201d too, but we don\u2019t give them dispensation to seek \u2013 casualties be damned \u2013 self-actualization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Benkoff writes: Dear Rabbi Gil Steinlauf: You sure made a splash yesterday when, as the senior rabbi of Adas Israel (the largest Conservative synagogue in Washington DC) you announced that you are divorcing your wife and coming out as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homophobia","category-rabbis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75549,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75548\/revisions\/75549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}