Thank God for Rabbi Noson Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency.
I am frustrated by Protestant ministers, like Pastor Luke
Robinson of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, MD, who see storms such as
hurricane Sandy as God’s judgment on those who promote LGBT rights. Sandy hit
New York, Pastor Robinson said, because Mayor Bloomberg donated money to
support same sex marriage in Maryland. Given that Sandy devastated New Jersey
as well, I can only assume that NJ Governor Chris Christy also supports the
LGBT community. Either that, or God needs to work on His aim.
Anyway, what frustrates me about these climate theologians
isn’t what they say, but that they alone say it. Where are the Jews on this
issue? Why is it that only Protestants see the hand of God in the weather?
Enter Rabbi Noson Leiter.
Sandy, Rabbi Leiter said, was an act of “divine justice”
triggered by society’s support of same sex marriage. And it wasn’t the first
time. According to Rabbi Leiter the flood that took the lives of almost
everything on the planet in the time of Noah was triggered by “the recognition
of same-gender marriages” as well. I had no idea. As far as I know there was no
state authority recognizing marriages in Noah’s day. The only authority
regarding marriage was God. So if God murdered millions because God recognized
same–sex marriage, this was a huge act of misplaced anger.
6 comments:
When hurricanes strike unpopulated areas like barrier islands, I wonder who God is punishing then? Gay sand crabs? Lesbian sea oats?
Last week a friend posted a quote on Facebook. I haven’t seen the TV program, but this is apparently a quote from writer Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom: “I’m not a liberal, I’m a registered Republican—I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by intense low pressure areas that form over the ocean waters in summer and early fall, and not by gay marriage.”
Everything that comes from G-d is good! For those of us who explain the tragedy of natural disaster in a manner which conforms to our own personal moral code, we miss the mark.
Natural disasters and the horror that they cause is no different from any other deprivation that we face such as the loss of a loved one. Does G-d kill a man prematurely because he us gay? Does he lengthen the life of another because he is "devout"?
Natural disasters cause us to suffer for the pain of others even though we may be thousands of miles away from the site of the disaster and know no person afflicted by it.
Natural disasters are an opportunity to cleave to G-dliness in our nature and to make us more than human.
I have experienced so great and to me, undeserved, tragedies in my life. But I am no different from other people who are similarly afflicted. I perceive that this is a test for humankind. It is an opportunity for us to spiritually ascend or descend.
I do not believe that the rabbi passed the test by seeing the storm as divine retribution. I wonder how he would explain the Holocaust. Would he say that it was a punishment to Jews who fell away from belief? Was it to punish Judaism for the relatively new developments of Reform or COnservative movements that departed from orthodoxy?
MORDECHAI BEN NATHAN
I love that you are such a silly.
-g-
G-d, if she exists, is clearly a Keynesian.
Yes: lesbian sea oats! Mares eat oats and does eat oats and there must be something gay about that! Which pisses off the little Lamb to no end.
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