474. Hurrah!

Excellent news: JTS to Accept Qualified Gay and Lesbian Rabbinical And Cantorial School Students. Although my practice is basically Conservative and I'm in awe of the scholarship at JTS, I'm unaffiliated and was never terribly thrilled with the movement, mainly because of their closed-mindedness around this issue. Encouraging us to live lives filled with gemilut hasadim, deeds of loving-kindness, yet hiding behind halakha as justification for denying rights to a segment of the population never made much sense to me. I applaud Arnold Eisen for spearheading the process of affirming that halakha, while always sacred, is a living, breathing reflection of the people and times in which it applies. I believe that God put us here to grow, learn, and interpret God's words in the mirror of our changing world--and, in the process, discover what God really means.