It seems that the plague that has affected other streams of Judaism has finally hit the Orthodox community, that plague is what I call misuse of affiliations. Orthodoxy is much more about image than anything else and if you want to roll in our circus you have to abide by certain rules. If you break certain social norms and customs which are visible within authentic Judaism you may call yourself Orthodox all you want, but within Orthodoxy you will not be considered as such. “Rabbi” Shmuely Yanklowitz wants very much to be called an Orthodox Rabbi, but he simply isn’t, no true Orthodox Jew would call him Orthodox and I’m afraid that him and so called other “open orthodox” rabbis are a wolf in sheep’s clothing trying to infiltrate and eventually destroy authentic Judaism. This so called Rabbi has written a post about why being an “Orthodox” Rabbi has compelled him to support gay marriage. The entire piece is misleading, because not only is the title making a complete mockery of Orthodox Rabbis, but he doesn’t even look like a proper rabbi. Clean shaven, smiling, and obviously wearing a colorful yarmulke, true Orthodoxy would never consider him to even be in the club, let alone a rabbi in the first place. 
Let us compare Rabbi Shmuely to those women in the chabad world who feel the need to explain that Chassidic women are free and strong, while most chassidic women are nothing like these few mostly BT chabad ladies that have no idea what it’s like to live in an insular community. Open Orthodoxy is basically a bunch of conservadox folks who want to call themselves Orthodox because they have a mechitza. Having a 30 inch tall mechitza with an entrance for women to grab the Torah is hardly Orthodox. Sure, you’re trying to fit into the “letter of the law” yet what happened to the spirit of the law. Then when it comes to other things like the gays, you want to go about it in a spirit of the law fashion and reinterpret the letter of the law for your liberalism. You can’t have it both ways and still wish to remain part of a community that prides itself on their lack of hypocrisy. The true Orthodox community is so moral that even speaking of the gays in a respectful way can lead to sin.
Unfortunately, the yetzer harah has clearly inserted itself into the hearts and minds of the Open Orthodox movement, which aims to reinterpret thousands of years of practice. It wasn’t enough that they tried to create women rabbis, it wasn’t enough to throw some bible criticism into the mix, you had to take the very thing that Orthodoxy is based on and shove it back in our faces. Do you not understand that the gays threaten frumkeit in ways that women rabbis could never do so. The gays aim is to make marriage so non-sacred that we will soon be married to cars and dogs, bestiality is the obvious next step and then incest. Unfortunately, most of these clean shaven rabbis are too young to see the far reaching effects of the gays and their gay agenda.
You cannot call yourself an orthodox rabbi and support gay marriage, you cannot be clean shaven and garner any respect, and you most certainly cannot wear a knitted yarmulke and then proclaim yourself an expert on reinterpreting the Torah. Until Daas Torah and the gedolim say that gay marriage is ok, it’s not ok. It’s not about hatred, it’s not about bigoted views, it’s about what Hashem wants and Hashem wants us to do something unpopular like not allow gays to get married or do bris milah, we have to do such things. Unfortunately, these Open Orthodoxy people want to take God out of the equation and see the humanist side in everything. Social justice and real Judaism don’t mix.
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Rabbah Avi Weiss agrees.
I don’t think even the Open Orthodox want you to marry “cars and dogs”. That would be auto-eroticism, and everyone knows that’s wrong.
Impressive. A sophisticated play on words par excellence- Bravo!
is this for real?
did you read the Rabbi’s post? all he favors is the right for gays to have civil marriage. Why should an Orthodox rabbi care whether the state confers marriage rights on two men or two women? No one’s talking about religious marriage rites or contracts. I would hope all Orthodox rabbis would favor such a position. Orthodox rabbis don’t ask the state to punish sodomy or treif or remarrying one’s wife after she had been with another partner. Why would they want the state to distinguish between the civil rights of gay and straight Americans?
Why should you care if Orthodox people or rabbis care about participating in the discussion? People are either free to express their opinions or not. They are opposed to changing thousands of years of a definition of marriage between a man & woman as being the normal healthy concept of marriage. Otherwise, why can’t I marry my mother, grandpa, & daughter if marriage is simply based on consenting adults consenting to a marriage? You must admit that LGBT’s are interested in discriminating against that because they always tell me when I extend what they’re asking for, marriage, to other consenting adults. They say, well, we’re not talking about incest or polygamy. How incredibly hypocritical & discriminatory!
“why can’t I marry my mother, grandpa, & daughter if marriage is simply based on consenting adults consenting to a marriage?”
One of the stupid slippery slope arguments made by people who don’t really think things out.
There is a very clear cut societal benefit to prohibit incest due to the greatly increased risk of congenital diseases.
As for polygamy, I’m not sure what your point is. Rabbeinu Gershon was the innovator in Ashkenazic circles who overturned “thousands of years of a definition of marriage” which allowed for polygamy. And laws regarding polygamy have actually been loosened somewhat by the courts recently. It is – after all – an acceptable form of marriage according to the Torah.
Aha, there’s a social benefit to prohibiting incest because of genetic diseases. But there’s no benefit in prohibiting same-sex marriage because it doesn’t lead to children?
And how about gay incest? What is the societal interest in prohibiting that?
Admit it: you’re just as bigoted as anyone else. You just like shtupping men.
Dan- Whether they marry or not, gay people are unlikely to breed, although many do using various artificial techniques. Do you actually know any gay couples or are you still sitting inside your bubble? I think all you frummies would be better served if you started paying attention to the things that educated people like R’ Shmuely have to say (dude, check out this guy’s bio) rather than bending hand to ear listening to these guys that barely have a high school education.
Lol, I have a much more advanced secular education than this idiot.
Well, in your case, it certainly doesn’t show.
Tell me about the great wisdom in this article.
“I’m a faux-rthodox rabbi, and I agree homosxuality is assur, but still think we should be nice to people and why can’t they get a civil marriage.”
Real deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Maybe I would chap the depth if I had a BS in BS also.
From Wikipedia:
“Yanklowitz was ordained as a rabbi at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and he received a second rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, and a third rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo of Jerusalem. He completed a bachelors degree at the University of Texas (Austin), a masters degree at Harvard University in Leadership and Psychology, and a second masters degree in Jewish Philosophy at Yeshiva University. Yanklowitz completed his doctorate at Columbia University in Moral Development and Epistemology and has taught at UCLA Law School and Barnard College.”
Wait, Dan you have more than three smichas, two masters and a PhD, and you spend time posting comments to this inane sight? At least I have an excuse (only one graduate degree), but you must either be fooling yourself or are ego- maniacal (or both).
So he has two BS semichas, and 3 secular degrees in BS.
Yes, I have that beat on both.
You have a “much more advanced” secular education? Are you including all your online degrees?
BS- you live in your brother’s basement and applied your yeshiva time to get a BS degree from Flybynight University with a masters from Payfordegree College and then went on to get a PhD from Whowantsadiploma State.
Your comment is funny since it describes precisely what this idiot did.
He got two semichas which are the rough equivalent of omline degrees. And then goes to the harvard school of education to get a BS degree which anyone could get and just displays you have money to waste. And then doubles down with a phd in narishkeit.
And no, I won’t tell you my creds since you won’t believe it anyway and I don’t want to out myself. But boy am I laughing.
Semichas from Shlomo Riskin and Nathan Lopes Cardozo are BS? Because these rabbis are not completly and utterly ignorant about anything that’s not learned in a haredi yeshiva like “true” Gedolim are?
That, or because they give semicha to ignoramuses like the idiot in question.
Yes, but you are lying because that is not the reason why incest is illegal. It is illegal because it is immoral.
It’s like me saying that gay marriage is illegal because it doesn’t lead to children. That isn’t why.
You’re right that genetic problems isn’t why incestuous marriages are illegal, but it’s not because it’s “immoral,” either. It’s illegal for the same reason that gay marriage is illegal: because most people find it icky. And we have to have legislation to prevent people from doing things we think is icky, right?
Oh, its because I find gay marriage “icky”? So why do you call me bigoted then? Is it bigoted to try to outlaw things which are icky?
(Do you always try to find the least likely reasons for things?)
So why not legalize incestuous marriage for people who cannot have children? That would logically follow.
Like same-sx-incest marriage
how about this “They are opposed to changing thousands of years of a definition of marriage that whites marry whites and blacks marry blacks as being the normal healthy concept of marriage. “
Except that there is no such thousands of years of such a definition of marriage. The prohibition of white/black marriages existed only in a few places (the US south, apartheid South Africa) and only for a few hundred years, at most. In Othello, we have the black Iago married to the white Desdemona, and theatergoers 400 years ago never blinked an eye. Find me any culture in recorded history where men married men or women married women.
The Torah says the gays are an abomination, this means that since everyone should be holding of the shiva mitzvos, that technically if there was a beis hamikdash today, it would look much bleaker for the gays than it already is.
ironic that your name is morris ayin… It SHOULD appear to even an idiot’s eye that the site is frumSATIRE
Since when do abominators deserve rights. Next thing, we will want to honor others the Torah considers abominations, like those who are dishonest in business. It’s a slippery slope when you begin to take those the Torah labels as abominations and give them rights and honors.
While I agree with you on the gay marriage issue, I can tell you that some of the greatest Orthodox rabbis of the 20th-21st centuries were clean shaven. Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rabbi Marvin Heir, etc.
And how many bearded Orthodox rabbis have been indicted recently for all kinds of fraudulent business practices and child molestation. Heshy Fried doesn’t know what he is talking about and has invalidated his own argument. Shame!!!
The article is challenged in many ways; it’s very disjointed, pretty much insane.
Heshy – This does not seem to be satire.
Ones mans satire is another mans seriousness.
To the contrary, this strikes me as one of the most obviously satirical posts I have read in a long time. The old silly Heshy is back!
Hysterical……and obviously satire.
Anyone who can’t see the over-the-top satire in this has not read much of
Heshy’s writings. This is great! I love it. I laughed pretty hard and spilled my
coffee this morning. What’s next Heshy? I blame this whole fashtunkinah
fagelah issue in Judaism on the BT’s. Obviously, the BT’s and gerim, coming into
Judaism after realizing their secular lives are empty and without any meaning,
just can’t let go of their Progressive, secular, liberal ways and truly embrace
frumkeit like the FFB. What do you want to bet these “orthodox” rabbim
are all pretty much BT’s? How does this fagelah “rabbi” get around the sin
of not spilling seed? A FFB would know this is wrong. Chillul Hashem!
But some Shlomo-Come-Lately BT’er “rabbi” who listens to The Village People
& Melissa Ethridge? They will try to rationalize and find some “gay loop hole”
in the Talmud. No, it’s nothing like an eruv either so don’t go there!
And yet the satire will sail right over so many heads…
If bein pro gay marriage is bein an orthodox rabbi, then knocking him on his ass for bein gay is the mark of a tolerant person. XD
My favorite part of this blog is how everyone tries to convince themselves that the things they agree with are serious and the things they don’t agree with are satire.
Sheep: who cares what Heshy meant? If you like the argument, and agree with it, then agree with it. If you don’t, then don’t. Are you only able to disagree if Heshy also disagreed?
lol at your first point
You can always tell Heshy hit home when the commenters don’t realize the jokes, sarcasm, and satire. One day everyone is yelling at Heshy for being too right wing and the next day he’s too left wing. Satire allows him to freely move between views because he rarely writes personal views.
orthodoxy is not, and will never be, a “safe heaven” to justify or “kosherize” bigotry, discrimination, misogyny, racism, or any other type of inequality, regardless of how hard those who identify as such futilely try.
lol
I’ll tell you what it will never be. It will never be a place for you to kosherize your own childish moral code that you pulled out of your tuches.
Your juvenile reply only reflects the sad truth that some of us jews haven’t learned the pernicious ramifications of ridiculing fundamental Jewish and human values such as equality and justice. I truly feel sorry for you…
I’d be glad to give you a childish reply again, if you would just write your comment in something closely resembling English, instead of pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo.
This is great news. I had been thinking of becoming a Chassidic Lesbian Rabbi. Now I can sit around all day and learn while my girlfriend works to support us. Us and our 8 kids.
This is wonderful news! I had been considering coming out as a Chassidic Lesbian Orthodox Rabbi. Now I can sit around and learn all day while my girlfriend goes out to work to support us. Us and our eight children.
Liberals may present gay “rights” as progress, but anyone who has studied history knows that homosexuality has been accepted before in other times and cultures, ones devoid of morality, in which women were treated horribly, and that eventually self-destructed. We are not looking at the dawn of a new era of equality; we are facing a new stage of immorality in this country, and it will have dire consequences, as it always has. On a more personal note, these kinds of “Orthodox” Rabbis really anger me for one specific reason. As a convert, I disagree with the very limited number of Rabbis able to perform conversions deemed valid by Israel (BH, I was converted by R Aaron Felder), and these Open Orthodox Rabbis are the root of the problem. They should be stripped of their Orthodox smicha and sent over to Conservative Judaism, which has been watering itself down for 50 years and will welcome their watered down approach.
Your article makes a great point, but you are so wrong for going after the clean shaven rabbis.
There are many clean shaven rabbis that have more yiras shamayim than rabbis with the long beards.
Rabbi Herzefeld in maine also supports gay marriage,
http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/at-hanukkah-rejoicing-over-peaceful-victory-for-same-sex-marriage_2012-12-12.html
“Just because you call yourself orthodox, doesn’t mean that you are.” Never was a truer sentence said. You are naming a rabbi in your article, isn’t that called Lashon Harah? I don’t know the man, but you have besmirched his name to me and others, so that we cannot even give him the benefit of the doubt. There is more hypocrisy in your so called “Orthodox, frum,” world than I have hair on my head. I rather not judge other people, do my thing, and most of all not spread bad words about others. “Hamalbin et pnei chaveiro brabim, eyn lo chalek b’olam haba! It would behoove you to remember that!