BOCA RATON (VINnews) — Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, a musmach of YU and Rabbi at the Boca Raton Synagogue, responded to the recent court ruling that forces Yeshiva University to accept a “pride club”.
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In a Facebook post, Rabbi Goldberg defended YU and explained why it is unacceptable for the institution to host a club that is a disgrace to Torah values.
Here are excerpts from his post:
“I think there are times we need to stand up for Hashem and His values and say things that would be much easier to be silent about”
“…it is simply unreasonable for students in a Yeshiva (even one that has a secular university component) to expect to be allowed to have a club that, no matter the intention, at its core enables the celebration or pride in an activity and a recognition of relationships that the Torah unequivocally prohibits.”
“A Yeshiva…is not an environment that someone publicly taking pride in an identity the Torah doesn’t recognize will find the response and support that they are looking for.”
“Saying all people should be treated with respect but a pride club at a Yeshiva is incompatible and a non-starter doesn’t make me insensitive or a bigot, it makes me loyal to multiple values that are compatible and that I believe Hashem wants us to equally maintain”
One commenter replied:
I understood that if they want to follow the law for institutions organized the way they chose to, they must allow it. Your protesting is commendable but they cannot have it both ways.
Declaring YU a secular institution for the purpose of money erases the defense that it is freedom of religion. Either you”re a religious institution or not and YU has chosen not.
Wow! How refreshing to hear.
It’s mind boggling that this is even a discussion….Volozhin the preeminent yeshiva in Europe closed it’s doors before compromising on it’s values by including general studies/languages in it’s curriculum. For a yeshiva to condone what the Torah calls a toeva is a discussion???
I wonder if there is going to be a split in the MO community?
Sad that no one is recognizing that this is all YU’s fault. They separated RIETS from the university, despite the Rav’s protests, so that YU would NOT be considered a religious institution and therefore eligible for Government grants. They collected tons of grants and thought this fraud was OK. They danced and must now must pay the piper.
Every Rebbe and Rabbi should should stand up against this tide of perversion thats going penetrate the walls of their homes and school GD forbid .
I would agree with Rabbi Goldberg except that under the current Yeshiva University administration, the place is hardly “a yeshiva”. For the most part, its a mediocre secular college in a socially orthodox environment with “light” judaism. Sure, there is a strong commitment to Torah within REITS, male students all wear yarmulkes on campus and the students are all expected to observe kashrut and shabbat on campus but that is hardly the core of Yeshiva today. YU at its core today – for its administration – is about its basketball team, pr, and about figuring out ways to make money so that its administration can continue to have jobs and tell the world what great things they are doing. Look at its ads, the articles it puts in print, and the president’s messages – they are hardly about Torah values.
The Hebrew requirements of yesterday are gone, the Bible requirements of yesterday are gone. The pictures YU so proudly distributes to the media of its basketball team hardly evoke a sentiment of ‘bnei” torah”. Tu’bishvat is a day for the president to write about its link to Martin Luther King. Interesting, but torah?! And the Wall Street Journal is a place to write about the president’s great pride in… basketball” – after all, thats what YU is about, right? And the board says “Amen. Great.” Why? Because its good for “business.” Sadly, “Torah u’madah” is gone – the president avoids the phrase – replaced by five nonsensical gobbly-gook “torot” that are devoid of torah values and smack of atheistic values- presumably directed at a large donor base that includes many less orthodox and even unaffiliated. It seems that to those behind the scenes at YU , it actually is “all about the Benjamins”. This is hardly the Orthodox Yeshiva University I attended years ago and I submit it is likely not the orthodox institution that Rabbi Efrem Goldberg attended either. I for one, am ashamed of what YU has become under its current leadership and I am actually appalled by how quickly this administration has managed to completely undermine my deep loyalty to this institution.
Rabbi Goldberg, I agree that it would be chutzpah for a gay pride group to make demands on a yeshiva that are not compatible with Torah values. And I have no doubt that the group would never make such a demand in Lakewood or Brooklyn – in real Yeshvot and likely not even in Lander College . But the ‘pride’ group would likely not have been drawn to those environments in the first place because they would view them primarily as “yeshivot.”. Given what YU has become, it is understandable that the gay pride group would show up and makes its demands. After all, Rabbi Goldberg, if YU is a Yeshiva, why is its primary educational officer – second to the president – an intermarried Jew?
mm
His words are something, a start, but not adequate, since he recognizes an alleged toeivah “identity”. There is no such thing. Once you recognize such an artificial creation, a scam, you are down a slippery slope to toeivah clubs and toeivah month R”L. Let him tell that to RIETS dean Marc Penner, David Bashevkin of NCSY, and Chaim Rapoport and Samuel Boteach of Lubavitch while he is at it.
You can’t cut the baby in half, recognizing a toeivah identity, but not action. Keep the baby, the Torah intact, and don’t slice it up.
He wrote that the Torah addresses toeiva as only an act not a noun. Yet he still continues to maintain that it is both, presumably because secular society believes that.
The obvious reason that the Torah doesn’t define that “orientation”, while severely condemning and forbidding the act, is that it is irrelevant what one feels is their orientation.
There are all sorts of struggles that people have, some innate/born (like Chazal discuss certain people having a born/natural tendency to spilling blood should channel that towards being a shochet, etc., which is a mitzvah) and some acquired.
People who have this particular struggle (a desire to have homosexual intercourse) should be supported and helped just as anyone with any other struggle would be helped.
But creating a new category of “orientation” just because current secular society claims that there is such a category, has no basis in the Torah and is something that no rabbi should follow and not promote.
Unfortunately, this is one small example of Modern Orthodoxy infecting its Orthodoxy with Modernity.
If we don’t want people being pulled into gay pride, we have to respect those who choose the lonely life of voluntary celibacy to avoid sin.
With all respect to Rabbi Goldberg. The judge apparently based her decision on the fact that YU is chartered as a non-religious entity Basically saying “We are not ydidden and we don’t want anybody to think we are.” Ok, but when you lie with dogs…
of course standing for your religious principals does not make you insensitive or a bigot. the court never said that.
the court said you cannot have your cake and eat it too, you are either a religious organization or a secular. if you are a secular organization entitled to government public funding then you cannot discriminate against gays, you allow other groups to form student a club so you must allow them too.
if you are a religious organization then do whatever you want just don’t expect government public funding
I guess standing up for your beliefs doesn’t apply only in cases where it hurts and restricts OTHER people, it really means you have to stand up for your convictions even when YOU stand to lose out.
So lets see which will be stronger your convictions or money.
I don’t know enough about this topic to comment intelligently.
Effy G from behind the line for 3!
Imagine….
What happens when Chaim comes to his Rosh Yeshiva and asks him to officiate his marriage to Shlomo?
What happens when the Rosh Yeshiva refuses?
Does the case go to a lower court or even the Supreme Court?
What if the opinion of the judges decrees the Rosh Yeshiva must comply and perform statutory same-sex marriages?
The Rosh Yeshiva recognizes his serious dilemma to either not comply with the judgment of the secular court and incur serious penalties or violate eternal Torah Law.
Will the Rosh Yeshiva seek a loophole and justify succumbing to the court decision or will he realize the time of the end of his exile is imminent?
Cannot happen…I wonder!
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