Judaism & Homosexuality
The Jewish Approach to Alternative Lifestyles
57 min
- February 24, 2015
- |
- 5 Adar 5775
Rabbi YY Jacobson
4928 viewsClass Summary:
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Rabbi YY Jacobson
- February 24, 2015
- |
- 5 Adar 5775
- |
- 4928 views
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Sol -1 year ago
Why are we on this path again?
It is now 2023, and this discussion is 8 years old. And what has happened since then, since it became imperative to welcome, support, reach out to and embrace any and all people, no matter what sin and idolatry they are involved in? Not only is homosexuality and transgenderism being taught to children as young as kindergarten age, it has special protections and rights. Thousands of children, especially girls, are getting hormone blockers, even surgeries, while they are still minors, because they believe they are the wrong gender. Men can walk into any women's private spaces, bathrooms, locker rooms, shelters with no consideration whatsoever of female's safety. They don't even have to make any physical changes whatsoever, all they have to do is say, "I identify as a female", and all doors must open. Pedophiles are being supported now, too, and just like the homosexuals, they also claim that they deserve "understanding" and "support", because they, too, were "born that way" and have no control over their attractions. At the same time, there is a genuine move to start granting children "sexual rights"-not rights to decide if they want to obey Mom or Dad, or if they want to go to school and do homework, or if they want to brush their teeth or clean their rooms, because they are "too young" to make those decisions, right? But they somehow are able to make decisions about sexual activity, as in if a pedophile approaches them, it is ok to get the child's "permission" because the child "has the right" to say "yes" to a pedophile. LGBT can proudly engage in lewd parades in Tel Aviv, and everyone is supposed to celebrate and love them for it, or they are "homophobic", "haters", "religious nuts". Israel is doing what it has done throughout history: caving to the pagan world to gain approval and to be liked, instead of standing on the strength of Torah and the protection of HaShem. And when has that ever worked? Why do we offer such "compassion" and "sensitivity" for sexual perversion, talking about it constantly, explaining endlessly all the ways to treat deviants with kid gloves, but we don't do the same for thieves? Liars and murderers? Idolaters? We are told to spit at hearing the name of JC, and not to set foot in a Christian church because its a place of idol worship, but when it comes to sexual perversion, its all "compassion" and "sensitivity". Rabbi YY loves to quote "scientists" and "psychologists", for surely they know better than Torah, right? Not a single thought given to the effect that deviant behavior has on a family, a community, a whole nation, only consideration for the deviant's desires. Who cares about the others, even the children, they destroy to satisfy their desires, we must think of them first, last and always. This will lead to what it always led to in the Tanakh-grievous, large scale and destructive repercussions, deserved by us, because once again, we chose to please ourselves instead of HaShem. "My Laws are not too hard for you..."
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אדיב -2 years ago
אודות הנושא של נטייה מינית חורגת (לדעת רוב העולם הדתי)
תודה רבה לרב על עייונו הרגיש והחנון בנושא משיכה לאותו המין. כאחד האנשים שיש לו נטייה לכך מילדותי עד היום הזה רצוני לברר שאין נטייה זו מוגדרת אך ורק לתאוות המשגל אלא נכללת בה גם משיכה תחושתי עמוקה וטבעית שאינה קיימת בכלל כלפי המין השני.
ולדעתי אפילו אם אפשר להתגבר על התשוקה ליחסי מין עם גברים אחרים אי אפשר לדכא או לכלות הצורך הפנימי לאהבה הדדית עם בני אותו המין. אי אפשר לאדם לרמות את עצמו שביכולתו להרגיש רגשי אהבה כלפי אשה. בשבילי דבר שכזה מאוד נמאס כגועל נפש שאין גדול ממנו.
ועוד אינני יודע למה הקב"ה עושה ככה לברואיו, לתת בם נטייה טבעית עמוקה אותה הוא מגנה כתועבה חמורה שראויה להיענש בעונש מוות ע"י רגימה באבנים (סקילה). לדעתי אי אפשר לומר שהקב"ה אוהב אנשים כאלו ללא תנאים. איזה סוג אב היה מתעולל בילדיו באופן כה אכזרי?
לאנשים כמוני אין ברירות הרבה: או לחיות חיי שקר או להישאר לבד במשך כל ימי חייו בלי אהבה ובלי רעות (דבר שהורס ומאבד את נשמת האדם) או לעזוב את הקהילה כמו שאני עשיתי.
כשיש התנגשות יסודית בין תורה ומדע, לדעתי הפחותה, על כאו"א לברור לו את הדרך שנראה לו הכי טובה בשבילו שהיא ממילא ממעטת את הדרך השנית כי הרי בלתי אפשרי ליישב את שניהן.
אני מודה לך שוב כי אתה שומע לקולות אנשים כמוני על אף שלפי התורה אנו ראוים להיגרש מכלל ישראל ולהישרף באשי גהינום לעולם בהיותנו כמו שה' עצמו בראנו ועשנו.
בהצלחה.
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NS"P UK -6 years ago
Mindblowing
This recording is the best i ever heard from R' YY so far!
חזק ואמץ!
תמשיך ככה
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ruchel pollak -3 years ago
The torah does speak about bad influence and bad friends
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Elie -9 years ago
to Yisroel, if you right click when on the 'download mp3' and go to 'save as' that should do it.
Joe, I dont think you were paying attention to what Rabbi JAcobson was saying. He never said to cure homosexuality, but that those who struggle with it and want to live a 'straight' life and have a family and kids according to the Torah, can do so. They will still struggle with these feelings once in a while but dont have to act on it. they may never be cured but can cope and live full productive lives. Those who are not interested and will act on it, will do so regardless of what anyone says. I trust you are intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between the two ideas.
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Joe -9 years ago
What do you think of this story? Are they closed minded or are you perhaps completely in la la land?
A gay “conversion therapy” group defending a first-of-its-kind consumer fraud suit will not be allowed to present expert testimony premised on the view that homosexuality is a mental disorder or is abnormal.
Hudson County Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso barred the testimony in Ferguson v. JONAH on the ground that regarding homosexuality as an illness is contrary to the overwhelming weight of scientific authority.
“By definition, such theories are unreliable and can offer no assistance to the jury, but rather present only confusion and prejudice,” Bariso said in an opinion made public on Feb. 9.
His ruling affects the testimony of six expert witnesses for Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), which provides therapy meant to cure gays and lesbians of their same-sex attraction.
JONAH, a Jersey City nonprofit, believes homosexuality is a learned behavior that can be reduced or eliminated through psychological and spiritual help, according to Bariso.
It describes itself on its website as “dedicated to educating the worldwide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors which lead to same-sex attractions.”
In a test case backed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, JONAH was sued in 2012 under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act by four young men who underwent the therapy and two of their parents.
They claimed that it is fraudulent to assert that people can be cured of homosexuality and that JONAH used deception to lure them into using its services.
JONAH counselors employed techniques that left them alienated from their families, such as encouraging them to blame their parents for being gay and going so far as to have them participate in violent role-play exercises in which they beat effigies of their mothers, the plaintiffs allege.
The plaintiffs seek to recover what they paid for the therapy plus the cost of the treatment they allegedly underwent to repair the harm caused by JONAH, subject to trebling under the CFA, which also provides for attorney fees.
With trial scheduled for summer 2015, both sides filed motions in December asking the court to hold certain expert testimony inadmissible and Bariso heard oral argument on Jan. 30.
He granted the plaintiffs’ motion as to all six of JONAH’s experts.
Two of them have ties to what was known as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) until last year when it renamed itself the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity.
Californian Joseph Nicolosi, who has a doctorate in psychology, is a founder and former president of NARTH, while James Phelan, a clinical social worker and instructor at Ohio State University, is on NARTH’s Health Practice Section Committee.
Dr. Joseph Berger, a psychiatrist in Toronto who has written and lectured on psychotherapy for homosexuals, had an article published by NARTH and his testimony was based in part on articles by Nicolosi and Phelan, Bariso said.
A fourth expert, Christopher Doyle, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Maryland, is director of the International Healing Foundation, which provides psychotherapy to men conflicted about their sexual orientation.
The plaintiffs argued for keeping out their testimony on the basis that homosexuality is a normal variation of human sexuality, and thus any expert opinion concluding that it is a disorder should be inadmissible.
In support, they cited the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from the list of disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Berger, Nicolosi, Phelan and Doyle were to testify that psychotherapy and other methods can alter sexual orientation, that some aspects of JONAH’s program may be defensible, that homosexual desire is the result of trauma and/or that conversion therapy is a legitimate option that should be available to those who seek it. The plaintiffs did not argue that those opinions were necessarily false but that they amounted to inadmissible net opinion because they rested on the initial false premise that homosexuality is a disorder.
Bariso found that the DSM is “unquestionably authoritative in the mental health field,” and rejected JONAH’s contention that the decision to remove homosexuality was politically motivated and not based on science, saying it was not the court’s role to second-guess the categorization.
Bariso referred to a general scientific consensus on homosexuality, saying the World Health Organization and many other professional groups had followed the APA’s lead and it had been embraced in the public policy of New Jersey, which banned gay conversion therapy. The New Jersey statute withstood a federal court challenge in a decision affirmed last September.
“JONAH hardly can argue that all of these organizations—including a federal appellate court—were the victims of manipulation by ‘gay lobbying’ groups,” Bariso said.
Bariso held JONAH could not counter the scientific consensus by pointing to NARTH because they were a minority and “a few closely associated experts cannot incestuously validate one another as a means of establishing the reliability of their shared theories.”
Bariso did, however, allow Berger to testify regarding the absence of any discussion of JONAH in Michael Ferguson’s post-JONAH treatment records, saying Berger was qualified to opine that it is atypical for treatment records not to mention any dissatisfaction with the purported cause of a patient’s harm.
Testimony by two other experts was excluded as irrelevant: Dr. John Diggs, who was to address the health risks of homosexuality, and Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger, who was to provide Orthodox Judaism’s view.
Bariso denied without prejudice JONAH’s motion to exclude three plaintiffs’ witnesses, saying JONAH could bring an in limine motion later seeking to bar specific testimony from them.
Lina Bensman of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York, who represents the plaintiffs, said the ruling means that “the so-called experts won’t be able to confuse the jury with junk science, or rather junk theories cloaked in the language of science.”
A lawyer for JONAH, Charles LiMandri of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., called the decision “probably the best possible thing for us” because it will remove the distraction of proving whether particular behavior is disordered and “cause us to refocus on the most important issues, people’s right to make choices and to get help if they want.”
LiMandri added, “I feel that we have more than sufficient evidence to prove they did not misrepresent anything and that the plaintiffs were not harmed.”
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Yisroel Mogilevsky -9 years ago
Thank you for sharing this. I tried downloading MP3 doesn't seem to be working.
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