I read Ari Shane Weitz’s moving essay, “Is Our Happiness Not Worth A ‘Mazal Tov’?” (Jan. 5), about the hate one finds in the Jewish community, by those who consider themselves lovers of Torah, “chachamim,” scholars.
I have to say that Weitz’s article clearly defined the issue in this case of LGBQT hate, discrimination, a ‘holier than thou’ attitude by some in the Orthodox community. Not that I doubted it, but it was all there, just as Ari Shane Weitz wrote it.
Much change occurred in the Conservative world years ago, making it ‘just another day’ to have a female rabbi or cantor. The condemnation of this practice by the OU points out that the Orthodox world is still riddled and infused with hate for those in their own community. Though I am not a member of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, I have marched with Rabbi Avi Weiss and stood with him at rallies in support of Israel. It is the forward-looking thinking, and the thinking of those who support Yeshivat Maharat [a rabbinical seminary for Orthodox women] and those sage “rabbas” whose wisdom I have heard at lectures, who will save Orthodoxy from itself.
One more mazal tov Ari and Avidan, and to your families; it’s always a pleasure to get another mazal tov for a simcha.
Plainview, L.I.
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