I thought to add a few comments about homosexuality just for the sake of clarity. However I have to repeat that I really learned these issues long ago and I have forgotten almost everything. Even when I started looking at the Talmud again, it was with David Bronson and we were doing Nezikim [Civil Damages] not Nashim [Women].
So just to be clear, any and all homosexual acts come under the set of Idolatry, Murder, and Forbidden relations in Leviticus 18 and 20. [When threatened with the choice of transgressing one of them or being killed one has to choose being killed.]
The things that people can get mixed up about these things are many.
One thing is a homosexual act with a minor under three is also gets the death penalty. The reason is sex with a minor is also sex.
Also I wanted to add that not all sexual relations in the Torah get the death penalty. The reason is there are plenty of things that are brought down in Exodus and Deuteronomy that are simply prohibitions. --Not prohibitions with death attached to them. [The general rule is in Torah if it does not say any particular punishment then it is just a prohibition. For it to be anything more severe, it has to say so.]
And in fact there is one exception in the forbidden relations in Leviticus that does not get death that is sex with a nida [menstruating woman who has not gone to the ocean or a river after seven days]. [She needs to check also! If after 7 days she bleeds up to three days then she needs 7 clean days. But that is rare. The three days in a row thing I think goes up to the 18th day of the cycle. If she sees on day 19 that is the start of a new nida cycle and is not related to the previous cycle.]
I really have no idea why these things are unclear to people. The only reason I can possibly think of is that perhaps people do not learn enough Gemara. Or perhaps if they are learning Gemara maybe they do not spend enough time of the tractates that are from Seder Nashim like Ketuboth or Yevamoth.
I admit I also have not leaned these either for along time. But I am grateful to Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv that the few years I was in his great Lithuanian yeshiva, the yeshiva was learning these tractates (those years).
So perhaps that is the answer to all these modern day problems? Everybody ought to sit down and learn Ketuboth and Yevamoth. Then all the confusion will disappear!
In answer to the issue of faith-I can only say that I go with the idea of Leonard Nelson of Immediate Non Intuitive Knowledge (Faith). This is the only way that see that knowledge about moral values is possible. But once you accept the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, then these facts are provable and can be derived rigorously from the verses.
So just to be clear, any and all homosexual acts come under the set of Idolatry, Murder, and Forbidden relations in Leviticus 18 and 20. [When threatened with the choice of transgressing one of them or being killed one has to choose being killed.]
The things that people can get mixed up about these things are many.
One thing is a homosexual act with a minor under three is also gets the death penalty. The reason is sex with a minor is also sex.
Also I wanted to add that not all sexual relations in the Torah get the death penalty. The reason is there are plenty of things that are brought down in Exodus and Deuteronomy that are simply prohibitions. --Not prohibitions with death attached to them. [The general rule is in Torah if it does not say any particular punishment then it is just a prohibition. For it to be anything more severe, it has to say so.]
And in fact there is one exception in the forbidden relations in Leviticus that does not get death that is sex with a nida [menstruating woman who has not gone to the ocean or a river after seven days]. [She needs to check also! If after 7 days she bleeds up to three days then she needs 7 clean days. But that is rare. The three days in a row thing I think goes up to the 18th day of the cycle. If she sees on day 19 that is the start of a new nida cycle and is not related to the previous cycle.]
I really have no idea why these things are unclear to people. The only reason I can possibly think of is that perhaps people do not learn enough Gemara. Or perhaps if they are learning Gemara maybe they do not spend enough time of the tractates that are from Seder Nashim like Ketuboth or Yevamoth.
I admit I also have not leaned these either for along time. But I am grateful to Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv that the few years I was in his great Lithuanian yeshiva, the yeshiva was learning these tractates (those years).
So perhaps that is the answer to all these modern day problems? Everybody ought to sit down and learn Ketuboth and Yevamoth. Then all the confusion will disappear!
In answer to the issue of faith-I can only say that I go with the idea of Leonard Nelson of Immediate Non Intuitive Knowledge (Faith). This is the only way that see that knowledge about moral values is possible. But once you accept the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, then these facts are provable and can be derived rigorously from the verses.
