c. 2006 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ The committee that interprets religious law for the Conservative Jewish movement voted Wednesday (Dec. 6) to accept a legal opinion that allows for the ordination of gay rabbis and the blessing of same sex unions.

The committee, however, also approved two other opinions that uphold the movement’s current ban on both, leaving it up to local congregations and seminaries to make their own decisions about which position to follow.

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, whose 25 voting members are rabbis, accepted three of the five opinions presented. The most permissive of the opinions, written by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner, allows for the ordination of gay rabbis and the blessing of same sex unions, but retains a ban on male homosexual sex. The other two opinions retain the current ban.

The Conservative movement is considered the middle ground of America’s major Jewish movements, home to an estimated 1.5 million U.S. Jews. The more liberal Reform branch approves the ordination of gays and allows rabbis to bless same sex unions, as do Reconstructionists, while the more traditional Orthodox do not.

“We as a movement see the advantages of pluralism, and we know that people come to different conclusions drawing from the same basic resources of our tradition,” said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chair of the committee. “We recognize from the beginning of our movement that no single position could speak to all members of the community.”

While it is not uncommon for the committee to adopt different opinions, four of the most conservative committee members resigned after the debate, including Rabbi Joel Roth, whose paper was one of those accepted.

“At this point it is my feeling that not only the permissive opinion that was validated, but the two that were not were outside of what I would consider the parameters of Halakhic (Jewish law) tradition,” Roth said.

The committee is allowed to accept multiple opinions because papers, or teshuvot, require six votes to pass. The committee had declared the two more permissive papers that did not pass to be takhanot, or significant breaks with tradition, which would have required 13 votes to pass. Each received seven votes.

“The past two days have been extraordinarily intense,” Abelson said. “There has been tremendous respect shown for all opinions.”

Dorff, who co-authored the most permissive paper, is rector of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, one of the two U.S. Conservative seminaries. Although formal decisions will have to be made, he expects the seminary will vote to accept gay students in the near future.

Arnold Eisen, Chancellor-elect of the flagship seminary of Conservative Judaism, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York, has said that he personally supports the ordination of gay rabbis, but indicated extensive discussions and votes at the school are still to come.

“Despite this decision, there is still much work to do to bring us to a moment where we fully embrace gays and lesbians as part of our movement,” said Sarah Freidson, a rabbinical student at the New York seminary and co-chair of KESHET, a JTS group that advocates for gay equality.

This is the first major decision on the issue since 1992, when the committee decided against gay ordination and did not permit rabbis to perform commitment ceremonies for same sex couples.

“There are going to be people, no matter what is decided, who will be happy and there will be people who will be disappointed,” said Rabbi Jermone Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, before the decision was made. “Our challenge is to help those people who are disappointed for whatever reason or who might be angry for whatever reason to help them stick within in the synagogue structure and within the religious structure.”

KRE/CM END ROAN