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My "Halakha Le'Maaseh" (Practical Jewish Law, in quotes for a reason, as you will soon see) class made me frustrated and angry as all get out, yesterday. This is unusual in degree, not in nature, as the teacher of the class has rather unusual views and standards, (he wants to derive pretty much All his halakhic practice from the Talmud, ignoring or playing pretty fast and loose with all later sources and generally treating them as optional interpretations of the Gemara rather than as powerful sources in their own right) and tells them to us as a major piece of the class- while of course telling us that his purpose is not to persuade us that his way is right. So I'm often interested in what he has to say while being frustrated that it's being presented in a class billed as halakha le'maaseh, because it isn't, generally, and there's plenty of detail on actual practice that would be awfully useful to go into instead. He also goes through it all too fast to really dig in to the implications of various sources and of what he's saying, so it all just gets stirred up and then not dealt with for real. When he brings a gemara, reads it to us quickly and explains it his way, very quickly, and only dealing with the parts he finds relevant- well, it feels like a bit of a cheat to me. But we also do only have so much time, and he already gives us far more prep work than can be done in the allotted amount of time for seder. (I spent the allotted amount of seder time with my chevruta earlier than the regular slot as she has class then, and then spent the next similar amount of time working on reading the articles he assigned, and didn't finish. Yes, I'm not the fastest reader in Hebrew, but still, I got through 1.5 of the 2 Hebrew articles, giving me no time for the 2 English ones. I think that the relevant seifim of Shulhan Arukh, and 4 articles are more than one can prepare responsibly in less than 2 hours, myself...)
Today, however, the whole situation just rose to a higher level of insanity. Our topic of the day was concerns of food and wine prepared or handled by either gentiles or idol worshippers, depending on how you read the texts. So after he explained that the prohibitions on such folks' oil and bread were either no longer in effect or loosened in effect, and that the reason for the prohibition was the prevention of intermarriage, he went to a very interesting set of places. First, he voiced his opinion that if these two prohibitions are indeed kept- no eating food or drinking alcohol with non-Jews, that indeed the people keeping those prohibitions will not intermarry, because eating and drinking are the ways in which people really get to know each other and build relationships. It was interestingly phrased and framed, but not so bad thus far. Then he went on to say that if this was the case, then indeed these rabbinic prohibitions Ought to stand, However he had a way of saying that perhaps marriage to or sex with non-idol-worshiping gentiles might not be actually forbidden.
Then he made his case. In doing so, he applied a rather interesting combination of texts that were in fact cleverly assembled. However, in doing his reading of them, he gave two interpretations, one of which he gave and then appologized for because it was racist (it suggested that we view all non-Jewish women as if they're in niddah, married, etc and therefore it is bad for Jewish men to sleep with them), and then gave another reading, saying that because these categories (the same ones as before, as it was the same text) don't apply to non-Jewish women, one shouldn't sleep with them because then when you slept with a Jewish women, you might come to violate those very significant categories of prohibitions. Technically, this is fine. However, the way he discussed it made women into total sex objects with a. no will of their own, and b. nothing to distinguish them except being Jewish or not.
He totally brushed off my classmate's comment about whether his interpretation was valid in the reverse, i.e. for non-Jewish men, saying that they were just lumped together- which is absurd when all the issues are specific to which direction the gender arrangement is set up. It also seemed to suggest that he thought that this might be a good idea to permit, which felt similar in style to the much earlier disastrous decision to find some way of legitimating (sort of, if you look at it with one eye, squinted just right) driving on Shabbat, only more so. Not to mention all the bad sociological trends that it would just reinforce. The Conservative movement desperately needs to find ways of being inclusive and being seen as inclusive and welcoming without finding wild ways to permit things that aren't permitted and just make the situation worse. Easier said than done, but I'm firmly convinced that in the matter at the Very least, this is not the way to do it.
Today, however, the whole situation just rose to a higher level of insanity. Our topic of the day was concerns of food and wine prepared or handled by either gentiles or idol worshippers, depending on how you read the texts. So after he explained that the prohibitions on such folks' oil and bread were either no longer in effect or loosened in effect, and that the reason for the prohibition was the prevention of intermarriage, he went to a very interesting set of places. First, he voiced his opinion that if these two prohibitions are indeed kept- no eating food or drinking alcohol with non-Jews, that indeed the people keeping those prohibitions will not intermarry, because eating and drinking are the ways in which people really get to know each other and build relationships. It was interestingly phrased and framed, but not so bad thus far. Then he went on to say that if this was the case, then indeed these rabbinic prohibitions Ought to stand, However he had a way of saying that perhaps marriage to or sex with non-idol-worshiping gentiles might not be actually forbidden.
Then he made his case. In doing so, he applied a rather interesting combination of texts that were in fact cleverly assembled. However, in doing his reading of them, he gave two interpretations, one of which he gave and then appologized for because it was racist (it suggested that we view all non-Jewish women as if they're in niddah, married, etc and therefore it is bad for Jewish men to sleep with them), and then gave another reading, saying that because these categories (the same ones as before, as it was the same text) don't apply to non-Jewish women, one shouldn't sleep with them because then when you slept with a Jewish women, you might come to violate those very significant categories of prohibitions. Technically, this is fine. However, the way he discussed it made women into total sex objects with a. no will of their own, and b. nothing to distinguish them except being Jewish or not.
He totally brushed off my classmate's comment about whether his interpretation was valid in the reverse, i.e. for non-Jewish men, saying that they were just lumped together- which is absurd when all the issues are specific to which direction the gender arrangement is set up. It also seemed to suggest that he thought that this might be a good idea to permit, which felt similar in style to the much earlier disastrous decision to find some way of legitimating (sort of, if you look at it with one eye, squinted just right) driving on Shabbat, only more so. Not to mention all the bad sociological trends that it would just reinforce. The Conservative movement desperately needs to find ways of being inclusive and being seen as inclusive and welcoming without finding wild ways to permit things that aren't permitted and just make the situation worse. Easier said than done, but I'm firmly convinced that in the matter at the Very least, this is not the way to do it.