Few subjects in contemporary religious life are as personal, emotionally charged, or easily mishandled as homosexuality and sexual ethics. For many gay and lesbian Jews, discussions of Torah and sexuality have too often been accompanied by rejection, humiliation, political rhetoric, or the suggestion that their sexuality somehow makes them less Jewish. At the same time, those committed to traditional Judaism cannot honestly address these questions by simply pretending that the Torah does not contain sexual commandments or by redefining those commandments whenever they become culturally difficult.
Derekh HaTorah (the Way of Torah), my personal approach to orthodox Judaism, seeks another path: fidelity without cruelty, tradition without hostility, and compassion without dishonesty.
Our starting point is Torah. Traditional Judaism understands the Written Torah and the authoritative Oral Torah, particularly as systematically codified by the Rambam in the Mishneh Torah, as the foundation of Jewish law and practice. We therefore cannot simply dismiss a Torah prohibition because modern society finds it difficult. Yet neither does Torah give us permission to despise, humiliate, exclude, or obsess over another Jew because of one aspect of that person’s life.
There is an important distinction between saying that a particular act is prohibited by Torah and saying that a person is somehow rejected by God or excluded from the Jewish people. Those are not the same statement.
A gay Jew is a Jew. A lesbian Jew is a Jew. A bisexual Jew is a Jew. Their Jewish identity does not disappear because of their sexual orientation, their relationships, their degree of observance, or their disagreement with traditional Jewish teaching. They remain part of Am Yisrael and should be welcomed into Jewish life with the same dignity and compassion owed to every other Jew.
What the Torah Actually Prohibits
The Written Torah speaks directly about sexual relations between men. Leviticus 18:22 prohibits a male from lying sexually with another male “as with a woman,” and Leviticus 20:13 repeats the prohibition while placing it within the Torah’s ancient judicial framework. Whatever modern interpretations have been proposed for these passages, the traditional halakhic reading understood them as prohibiting male-male intercourse. The Rambam likewise codifies this prohibition in Hilchot Issurei Biah as part of the binding laws governing forbidden sexual relationships.
For orthodox Jews, therefore, it would be inconsistent to argue that these verses are merely obsolete cultural taboos that can simply be discarded. Torah commandments do not cease to be commandments because the surrounding culture has changed.
At the same time, it is important to say exactly what Torah is addressing. The Torah speaks about behavior. It does not describe the modern psychological concept of sexual orientation, nor does it identify a category of people called “homosexuals.” Experiencing attraction is therefore not the same thing as committing a prohibited act. A person should not be treated as sinful merely because of feelings or attractions that arise within them.
The Torah itself contains no corresponding explicit prohibition concerning sexual activity between women. The Oral Torah, however, does address such behavior. The Rambam rules in Hilchot Issurei Biah 21:8 that sexual activity between women is forbidden, while also making clear that it does not have the same legal status as the Torah prohibition concerning intercourse between men.
This distinction matters. Traditional Judaism should state the law accurately rather than exaggerating it. Not every prohibited sexual behavior carries the same halakhic category, severity, or consequence.
Nor should the Torah’s ancient judicial penalties be transformed into a modern call for punishment or persecution. Private individuals have no authority to enforce biblical penalties, and orthodox Judaism certainly does not advocate criminalizing, harming, threatening, or persecuting gay or lesbian people. Torah law must never become an excuse for cruelty.
The Person Is More Than the Prohibition
One of the great failures of contemporary religious discussion has been the tendency to reduce gay and lesbian people entirely to sexuality.
We rarely introduce another Jew by cataloguing the commandments with which they struggle. We do not ordinarily ask every person entering a synagogue whether they keep Shabbat perfectly, observe every detail of kashrut, conduct their business according to Torah ethics, avoid lashon hara, fulfill every obligation of prayer, or maintain every aspect of Jewish family law.
Yet homosexuality has sometimes been treated differently, as though this one area of halakhah completely defines a person’s relationship with Judaism.
I categorically reject that approach.
Every Jew stands before God as a complete human being. Every one of us fulfills some commandments more successfully than others. Every one of us has weaknesses, disagreements, struggles, desires, habits, and areas in which our lives fall short of the Torah’s ideals. The proper response to this reality is humility.
A gay Jew who keeps Shabbat is keeping Shabbat. A lesbian Jew who gives tzedakah is performing a mitzvah. A gay man who comes to synagogue to pray should be encouraged to pray. A lesbian woman who wishes to study Torah should be welcomed into Torah study. Their sexuality does not erase the rest of their Jewish lives.
We should encourage mitzvot wherever mitzvot are being practiced rather than adopting an all-or-nothing Judaism in which a person who does not observe one commandment is told there is little point in observing anything else.
That principle applies to heterosexual Jews as well. Torah observance is a lifelong process of learning, discipline, growth, failure, return, and renewed effort.
Love, Relationships, and Halakhah
We should also be willing to acknowledge something that religious discourse sometimes avoids: genuine love can exist between two people of the same sex.
A same-sex relationship may contain loyalty, affection, sacrifice, companionship, patience, generosity, and sincere devotion. Recognizing those qualities does not require us to change the halakhic definition of marriage or declare every possible sexual act permissible.
Orthodox Jews can therefore recognize the humanity and genuine emotional bonds found within a same-sex relationship while remaining honest about the limits established by traditional halakhah.
Jewish marriage—kiddushin—is defined within Torah law as a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman. The Rambam’s laws of marriage begin from precisely this framework, describing kiddushin as the process through which a man and woman enter the legally recognized Jewish marital relationship. Orthodox Judaism therefore cannot redefine same-sex relationships as kiddushin in the traditional halakhic sense.
But that conclusion should be stated with humility rather than triumphalism. It does not require us to mock someone’s relationship, dismiss the love within it, break apart families, or tell people that their lives contain nothing sacred or worthwhile. Religious conviction does not require personal cruelty.
Sometimes pastoral life requires us to live with tension. There will be Jews whose lives do not conform completely to traditional halakhah who nevertheless wish to remain deeply connected to Judaism. Our responsibility is not to chase them away. It is to keep the doors of Torah and Jewish community open.
Sexual Ethics Apply to Everyone
It is also important that homosexuality not be discussed as though Torah sexual ethics apply only to gay people.
They do not.
Torah places significant boundaries around heterosexual sexuality as well. Adultery is forbidden. Incestuous relationships are forbidden. Relations during niddah are forbidden. Exploitation and sexual coercion are incompatible with Jewish ethics. Marriage itself creates serious responsibilities involving fidelity, dignity, provision, companionship, and sexual responsibility.
Orthodox Judaism also cannot adopt the position that any sexual relationship becomes permissible merely because it is consensual.
Under the Rambam’s codification, sexual relations are properly situated within the framework of kiddushin and marriage. In Hilchot Ishut, the Rambam explicitly distinguishes Jewish marriage from casual sexual relations and regards intercourse undertaken outside kiddushin for the purpose of sexual gratification as prohibited.
This means that the traditional Jewish sexual ethic asks something of everyone.
The unmarried heterosexual couple faces halakhic boundaries. The married person attracted to someone other than a spouse faces boundaries. The person struggling with pornography or sexual compulsiveness faces boundaries. The gay or lesbian Jew faces boundaries. Torah does not promise that every desire we experience can necessarily be expressed sexually.
That may be difficult teaching, but difficulty alone does not make it hateful.
What becomes unjust is when religious communities obsess over the sexual behavior of gay people while quietly ignoring violations committed by heterosexual members of the same community. Torah cannot be applied selectively according to which sins a community finds socially uncomfortable.
If we are going to speak about sexual holiness, we must speak about it honestly and consistently.
Conscience, Torah, and Personal Responsibility
Conscience is essential to Jewish life. No authentic relationship with God can exist without moral awareness, personal responsibility, and sincere inner reflection. At the same time, conscience does not stand in place of Torah.
A Jewish conscience must be shaped and guided by Torah.
There will always be complex questions, exceptional circumstances, and areas in which sincere Jews may struggle to understand how Torah applies in practice. In such moments, rabbis and teachers serve as guides who help illuminate the tradition. Yet in the end, every adult Jew must take responsibility for how they choose to live before God.
That freedom of conscience, however, is not the same as redefining Torah to mean whatever we personally prefer it to mean.
Derekh HaTorah therefore seeks to present halakhah with honesty and clarity, while responding to each person with dignity, patience, and compassion.
A rabbi is a teacher and shepherd, not an enforcer or gatekeeper. My role is to convey Torah as faithfully as I understand it, to help Jews grow in mitzvot, to support them through struggle, to answer questions with integrity, and to remain present even when people make choices different from those I would make myself.
No Jew should feel that disagreement with a rabbi places their place in the Jewish people at risk.
A Place in the Jewish Community
Gay and lesbian Jews have too often been made to feel that there is no place for them within traditional Judaism. Some have experienced rejection from families, synagogues, schools, or religious leaders. Others have concluded that because they cannot reconcile their sexuality with traditional teachings, Judaism itself must have no place for them.
An authentic traditional Judaism should, no it must, offer something better.
You do not have to become heterosexual to walk into a synagogue.
You do not have to solve every theological question before beginning to study Torah.
You do not need a perfect record of observance before lighting Shabbat candles, putting on tefillin, keeping kosher, giving tzedakah, saying the Shema, celebrating the festivals, or reconnecting with the Jewish people.
Come as a Jew.
Study Torah. Pray. Celebrate Shabbat. Learn Hebrew. Keep the mitzvot you can keep. Wrestle honestly with those you find difficult. Ask hard questions. Disagree respectfully. Grow at your own pace.
That invitation should be extended to every Jew.
Our synagogues should not become places where people are publicly investigated regarding their private sexual lives. Nor should homosexual Jews be subjected to humiliation, ridicule, gossip, attempts at coercive “conversion,” or constant questioning about matters we would consider private when speaking with heterosexual members of the community.
The laws of lashon hara, human dignity, compassion, and love of one’s fellow do not disappear when the subject is homosexuality.
Torah Without Hatred
The challenge before traditional Judaism is therefore not to choose between Torah and compassion.
That is a false choice.
We can affirm that Torah contains real boundaries governing human sexuality. We can affirm the traditional definition of Jewish marriage. We can acknowledge that certain same-sex sexual acts are prohibited within the Written and Oral Torah. We can encourage Jews toward greater observance without pretending that every choice is equally compatible with halakhah.
And at exactly the same time, we can insist that gay and lesbian Jews are our brothers and sisters.
They should not be shamed.
They should not be driven from Judaism.
They should not be treated as though sexuality were the entirety of their identity.
They should not be political symbols in someone else’s ideological battle.
They should be treated as Jews.
That is the open traditional approach of authentic orthodox Judasim. Openness does not require abandoning Torah, and faithfulness to Torah does not require abandoning compassion.
Conclusion
Jewish sexual ethics ask us to live disciplined lives in which desire is not the only measure of what is right. That principle applies to heterosexual and homosexual Jews alike. Torah sometimes asks difficult things of human beings, and no honest religious tradition should pretend otherwise.
But Torah also demands that we remember the human being standing before us.
Orthodox Judaism therefore refuses both extremes. We will not rewrite Torah simply to make traditional Judaism conform to contemporary culture. But neither will we turn Torah into a weapon with which to humiliate, exclude, or condemn another Jew.
The gay Jew remains a Jew. The lesbian Jew remains a Jew. The less-observant Jew remains a Jew. The Jew who wrestles with Torah remains a Jew.
Our responsibility is to teach without hatred, to disagree without rejection, to encourage without coercion, and to build Jewish communities in which a person can struggle honestly with Torah without being driven away from the Jewish people.
We hold Torah firmly.
And we extend our hand just as firmly.
There should always be a place at the Jewish table for every Jew.
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