As homosexuality is being more and more accepted in the community these days, there are still some groups that do not accept homosexuals because of the culture of the group. One of the groups that do not condone to homosexual acts would be the Jews. So the main question of the issue would be can jews be gay or not.
Now the main teaching of Judaism when it comes to this aspect is that Jews are not against gays at all. What they do not allow would be the sexual acts that gays would commit with each other. So basically, what they are trying to say is that Jews are actually allowed to be homosexuals but they are just banned from committing any of the sexual acts that heterosexuals would do with each other.
Now to see as to where this kind of teaching came from, one would first have to look at the Bible as a source. Now the main source as to where the scholars got this teaching would of course be from Leviticus eighteen verses twenty two. This verse states that a man cannot lie with another man like he would with a woman otherwise it is abhorrent thing.
Now while there is no actual explanation as to why God made this commandment, many Rabbis did have their own interpretations. The most common one would be that when God created the world, he only created man and woman. So naturally, homosexuality is something that is unnatural to creation.
The thing about this reason is that there actually is no basis for it which means that it is not very convincing. It is for this reason that there is an interpretation that was created by Bar Kaparrah in Talmud. He claims that homosexuality is against the teaching of marriage and children which can be found in the Torah.
Now if one would notice, the Torah only explicitly points out that men and men are not supposed to have sexual acts together. Of course this means that they left out the women who like other women. So now there would be a question as to whether lesbianism is also frowned upon too.
Now with this issue, the Jews also prohibited acts of lesbianism among their fellow females. The reason would also involve the teaching of having a family and procreation. However, since lesbianism is not explicitly mentioned in the Torah like how gay men are mentioned, the Rabbis are not as strict.
So the answer to the question based on the interpretations of this issue is that yes one can be a gay Jew. Since the Rabbis do realize that most gays are born that way, they do not condemn the people. They do however, condemn the act of homosexuality because it goes against the laws of their belief. So if one is gay or lesbian and is a Jew, he or she will not be condemned by the group but he or she must also not do any homosexual acts otherwise he or she will have committed a grave sin.
Now the main teaching of Judaism when it comes to this aspect is that Jews are not against gays at all. What they do not allow would be the sexual acts that gays would commit with each other. So basically, what they are trying to say is that Jews are actually allowed to be homosexuals but they are just banned from committing any of the sexual acts that heterosexuals would do with each other.
Now to see as to where this kind of teaching came from, one would first have to look at the Bible as a source. Now the main source as to where the scholars got this teaching would of course be from Leviticus eighteen verses twenty two. This verse states that a man cannot lie with another man like he would with a woman otherwise it is abhorrent thing.
Now while there is no actual explanation as to why God made this commandment, many Rabbis did have their own interpretations. The most common one would be that when God created the world, he only created man and woman. So naturally, homosexuality is something that is unnatural to creation.
The thing about this reason is that there actually is no basis for it which means that it is not very convincing. It is for this reason that there is an interpretation that was created by Bar Kaparrah in Talmud. He claims that homosexuality is against the teaching of marriage and children which can be found in the Torah.
Now if one would notice, the Torah only explicitly points out that men and men are not supposed to have sexual acts together. Of course this means that they left out the women who like other women. So now there would be a question as to whether lesbianism is also frowned upon too.
Now with this issue, the Jews also prohibited acts of lesbianism among their fellow females. The reason would also involve the teaching of having a family and procreation. However, since lesbianism is not explicitly mentioned in the Torah like how gay men are mentioned, the Rabbis are not as strict.
So the answer to the question based on the interpretations of this issue is that yes one can be a gay Jew. Since the Rabbis do realize that most gays are born that way, they do not condemn the people. They do however, condemn the act of homosexuality because it goes against the laws of their belief. So if one is gay or lesbian and is a Jew, he or she will not be condemned by the group but he or she must also not do any homosexual acts otherwise he or she will have committed a grave sin.
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