Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406060127
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Why take seriously all the restrictions against nonmarital sex, they say, when the Bible also includes such prohibitions as forbidding sexual relations while a woman is menstruating.
But in a groundbreaking new report that attempts to develop a contemporary sexual ethic for the nation's largest branch of Judaism, a commission of Conservative rabbis includes among its recommendations encouraging American Jews to consider the value of regular periods of abstinence that the traditional regulation requires.
Many people today fall short of the ideal of reserving sex for marriage, but that does not mean discarding the full range of Jewish moral teachings on relationships, says the Rabbinical Assembly's Commission on Human Sexuality.
``If people nevertheless are engaging in nonmarital sex, all the rest of Jewish law still applies to them. It's not an all-or-nothing thing,'' said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, author of the pastoral letter ``This Is My Beloved, This Is My Friend.''
The commission's report was presented in early May to the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which sets official policy for the group. The assembly represents 1,500 Conservative rabbis who serve 1.5 million congregational members.
Among its traditional teachings, the report not only upholds the importance of marriage but condemns adultery as a gross violation of Jewish law. The report also condemns casual and promiscuous sex.
But in recognition of changing sexual practices, the report offers guidelines for sex outside of marriage. Values the commission upholds include no coercive sex; modesty in speech, dress and sexual activities; honesty about each partner's commitment to the other, and fidelity.
``Committed, loving relationships between mature people who strive to conduct their sexual lives according to the concepts and values described above can embody a measure of holiness, even if not the full portion available in marriage,'' the report says.
Still, referring back to Scripture and Jewish tradition, the report does not attempt to group together homosexual and heterosexual relationships outside of marriage.
While nonmarital heterosexual relationships are frowned upon in the Hebrew Bible, homosexual relationships are considered a capital offense, Dorff noted. Even as the report notes that some people are calling for changing the church's assessment of homosexuality in light of modern findings indicating individuals do not choose their sexuality, the report also states that classical Jewish tradition has seen homosexual relations ``as forbidden - indeed, as an `abomination.'''
The report even encourages adherence to the Jewish law forbidding sex during a woman's menstrual period for such values as re-enforcing the recognition that neither partner is just the sex object of the other and there are times each month when their relationship must be played out on other planes.
``I think that this is an important, innovative step for the Conservative Movement. What it is saying is the tradition that has been largely disregarded had and has values. Let's look at them again,'' said Rabbi Kass Abelson of Minneapolis, chairman of the Law Committee.
What the report already has accomplished is getting rabbis to talk about sex, a subject that needs to be out in the open if congregation members are to apply religious teachings in this area of their lives, according to Dorff.
``Since we rabbis don't say anything about it, everything is prohibited, which means they don't want to talk to us. Or everything is permitted, which means they don't have to talk to us,'' Dorff said.
``The truth is somewhere in between.''
by CNB