Pinchas Winston Worries About Gay Marriage

My objection to Pinchas Winston's election edition of his weekly "Connecting the Dots" column is not that it contains paragraphs and paragraphs of discredited lies about Barak Obama, but because of the silly things it says about gay marriage. For instance:

As a Torah Jew, how does one live in a place that legally sanctions a Torah abomination? How do you even vote for leaders who support such sanctions?

The Torah uses the word to'evah or sheketz* (words that are often, but not necessarily correctly, translated as abomination) to describe at least eight different things:

1. Eating any water-dwelling animal that does not have fins and scales (Leviticus 11:12)
2. Eating any four-footed flying thing (Lev. 11:20-3) The reference is to insects, in particular locusts which use their front four feet for horizontal propulsion, and their hind legs for jumping.
3. Idols. (Deuteronomy 7:25-26) From the context it seems the idols themselves are the abomination, and we are enjoined not to own them or to covet the gold and silver that is on them.
4. Any act of clairvoyance, such as speaking with the dead, or with spirits, or a display of magical powers (a chover chaver) (Deuteronomy 18:11-13)
5. A women who wears men's clothing. (Deuteronomy 22:5) Though this has been expanded to include pants, the narrowest interpretation is that this refers to weapons.
6. A man who takes back a woman he has divorced, after she marries (and is divorced by) someone else (Deuteronomy 24:4) 
7. Any act of commercial dishonesty, in particular keeping dishonest weights and measurements. (Deuteronomy 25:15-17
8. And of course, sodomy is called abominable as well (Leviticus 20:13)

Rabbi Winston lives in Israel, which makes us wonder if he's asked himself his own question.

1. Israel does not ban the sale or consumption of shellfish.
2. Israel does not ban the sale or consumption of insects.
3. There is no law in Israel against owning idols; in fact many are on display in Israeli museums.

4. Faith healers and miracle workers flourish in Israel. Indeed, several of the richest rabbis in Israel are all specifically this type of con man.

Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Ifergan, the X-Ray Rabbi

5. Israeli women are permitted to wear pants and carry guns:

By wearing pants and holding a gun, this woman is
committing the moral equivalence of sodomy

6. There is no ban on men remarrying their ex wives under any circumstances.

7. Commercial fraud is illegal in Israel, as it is in most place. (though the sad truth is that Rabbi Winston's community like my own, turns a blind and forgiving eye towards various acts of business dishonesty)

8. Though same-sex marriage is banned in Israel, the country recognizes homosexual civil unions. Same sex partners have several rights, including pension rights, and guardianship rights, that are not yet recognized in several American states.

So Rabbi Winston, please tell us: As a Torah Jew, how do you permit yourself to live in a place that legally sanctions so many different Torah abominations?

More to the point, as an Israeli how can you criticize America for becoming more liberal when, on the question of your pet-peeve, gay marriage, America, on the whole, is currently LESS liberal than Israel?

** Due to an editing error, the post originally spoke about to'evah, only rather then sheketz and to'evah. The Torah uses both words to describe things that are detestable or abominable which is the word Winston uses in his rant.


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