Sunday, March 26, 2006

Straw Men

At the end of an interesting conversation about the role of mockery and sarcasm on blogs, Yaakov Menken demonstrates that he utterly misunderstands Conservative Judaism's argument for changing the rules about homosexuals.

Those in the Conservative Movement who wish to lighten the restrictions, do not claim, as Yaakov says, that,"...the Holy One, Blessed be He, who created Time, wrote the Torah not knowing that humans could have “monogamous homosexual relationships." In fact, they make no claims about God, at all.

What they say is that an error was made by those who interpreted His commandment. Those who want change do not say God made a mistake; they say that man made a mistake.

Unfortunately, as the story of Eliezer ben Herkanes teaches, a majority of men are entitled to their mistakes, and neither a Bat Kol nor the Conservative Movement's law committee has the power to correct them.