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27 Tammuz 5761 - July 18, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Message to Reform Jewry: Vayikra is Part of the Torah Too
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's heated opposition to the proposed "Federal Marriage Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution is "yet another sad example of how far the Reform movement has distanced itself from the faith of our fathers," a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America noted.

The proposed constitutional amendment, offered in the U.S. Congress as a reaction to the growing militancy of liberal activists, would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The Reform movement's Religious Action Center's Associate Director, Mark J. Pelavin, in a statement released on July 12, asserted that the amendment "would defile the Constitution" and enshrine "intolerance in a document which protects the rights of all Americans." He went on to wonder if "America's families and marriages and communities [are] so fragile and shallow that they are threatened" by contemporary liberal mores.

Mr. Pelavin dressed up his movement's views in religious rhetoric: "We believe as a fundamental tenant [sic] of our faith that all human beings are created in the Divine image, as it says in Genesis 1:27, 'And G-d created humans in G-d's own image, in the image of G-d, G-d created them; male and female G-d created them'."

"That Biblical truth, however, is not at issue," countered Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel's executive vice president for government and public affairs. "What is at issue is the definition of marriage and the morality of certain unions -- a subject on which the Torah is quite explicit, if one only proceeds to Vayikra.

"Therefore, if the Torah and Jewish tradition are to inform the reaction of Jewish groups here, they do so clearly and strongly in support of this constitutional proposal.

"The question here is not one of intolerance of any person," the Agudath Israel leader added, "but rather of intolerance of the redefinition of timeless moral truths. There are numerous relationships that even the Reform movement is presumably unwilling to legitimate at this point."

"Is it sad," he concluded, "that a group purporting to speak in the name of Judaism seems to be more concerned with what it imagines to defile the Constitution than with what unarguably defiles the Torah."

 

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