By Rabbi Herschel Billet

Issue of January 1, 2010/ 15 Tevet 5770

As an Orthodox Jew and an ordained rabbi, I fully accept that the Torah from the very beginning endorses heterosexual relationships and forbids and condemns homosexual relationships in very strong terms. From my perspective the Halacha is unequivocal and we are duty-bound to accept it in both theory and practice.

Nevertheless, I believe that Chazal would not have wanted the story to end with this determination of what the Halacha requires of us. In addition to observing Halacha fully, we must also understand the complicated situations of human beings in non-ideal situations in the real world.

Rav Yochanan ben Zakkai instructed his five great students to “go out and see a good path to embody and a bad path to avoid.” Why should five of the greatest rabbis of the Mishnah have to “go out and see”? Why not tell them to “Go in and see”? Doesn’t the Bais Midrash contain all of the answers inside its sacred walls? The answer is that perhaps the Bais Midrash alone is insufficient if the Torah is to be a Toras Chaim! Perhaps the lessons of the Bais Midrash must be applied in a practical way to the realities of an imperfect world. An Orthodox Jew knows well what the Torah says about homosexuality. But what many of us do not know, and I believe should know, is what it is like to be a homosexual person from an Orthodox Jewish family trying to live in an Orthodox Jewish community. Unfortunately the Bais Midrash cannot teach you that. Only “going OUT and seeing” can teach you about that subject.