Below are the recordings and prompts to the panels.
Panelists:
1) Rabbi Aryeh Klapper
2) Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld
3) Rabbi Dov Linzer
Recordings:
Panel #1:
Gender Dynamics & Partnership Minyanim: Wave of the Future or Schism?
RECORDING 1
Panel #2
Ethics of Sexuality for Singles in the Orthodox Community
RECORDING 2
Panel # 3
Sexual Diversity in the Orthodox Community
RECORDING 3
Prompts for the Panels
Panel #1: Gender Dynamics & Partnership Minyanim: Wave of the Future or Schism?
As has been discussed throughout the weekend, campus Orthodox communities are a unique breed. They are often isolated from established communities. They usually exist within larger Jewish communities and institutions, and can be tightly and fluidly connected with other movements. These communities stand at threshold of both returns to and abandonments of observance, and their memberships turn over regularly. Do these unique factors offer opportunities for greater flexibility and experimentation, or represent the quintessential slippery slope?
How should student leaders in the Orthodox community go about deciding where to daven, when to schedule such minyanim, and how to encourage participation in such minyanim/encourage people to remain with standard Orthodox minyanim?
I would like to raise three scenarios, and ask you to respond to each:
• At Yale, Minyan Urim offers an opportunity for members of the Conservative and Orthodox communities to daven together within a (on some accounts) halachic framework. Relatedly, Minyan Urim seems to make the orthodox community more attractive to less observant students. Are these values in themselves? Are these grounds for compromising on certain things – like the size of the mechitza?
• On the weeks it meets (every other week), Minyan Urim severely detracts from the numbers and spirit at the standard minyan. How strong a concern should this be?
• Many of the student leaders of such minyanim are preparing to leave campus for traditional communities. Should we hesitate to carry our liberalism off of college campuses into the real world?
Panel #2 Ethics of Sexuality for Singles in the Orthodox Community
a) General college sexual culture is far more open than in any previous generation, and the simple reality of campus life means lots of single men and women living isolated from their families and in close proximity with one another. In this context, simply quoting the Shulchan Aruch seems unhelpful and irrelevant to many observant students.
Very practically, would you share thoughts on how individual students ought to operate and think about their own romantic and sexual lives?
• It seems like lots of my friends and peers in the community seem to be having physical romantic and sexual contact with their significant others. I genuinely get a sense of what/how to practice from what “the community does,” but here it’s at odds with the texts. Must I really be frummer than everyone else?
• All right, I’ve basically decided that almost no one keeps to the strict requirements of halacha in this area anyway. But now I’m totally out to sea on what I should be doing. It seems once I’m ok veering from the Shulchan Aruch, I can’t get any guidance at all. I don’t think all touching and romantic activity is created equal, but I certainly can’t ask my rabbi or parents for advice. I usually know what to do based on what everyone else is doing, but on this everyone seems to do stuff quietly and privately. I guess I’m operating in a b’di eved world, but once I’m here, how do I even begin to draw lines?
• Should I behave differently in public and in private? I feel kind of like a fraud snatching my hand away from my significant other whenever I see someone frum in the distance. Should I be honest with my friends? With anyone?
• I’ve crossed lines I never meant to cross and feel strange and guilty about it. Should I? Should I avoid taking positions of communal leadership? Leading tefillot?
b) Often, it seems like halachot surrounding sexuality (particularly for single and LGBTQ people) are simply an oppressive list of “don’ts.” What’s more, much of what we hear regularly from psychologists, professionals and advocates implies that “health” “happiness” and “freedom” point in opposite directions from normative halacha regarding sexuality. Conceptually and theologically, does halacha have anything positive to tell us? How can halacha still speak meaningfully in the world we inhabit?
Panel # 3 Sexual Diversity in the Orthodox Community
How do you think campus Orthodox campus communities ought to support and interact with LGBTQ members of the observant community? Are there lines that campus orthodox communities should draw even as they try to be accepting and affirming? Bear in mind that we exist within broader (and more liberal) Jewish communities, and are often extremely fluid religiously (for better or worse). We can be fragile and small, or large and intimidating, and that we are always in transition, cycling membership (and often values) completely every four years.
• I’m an individual Orthodox student; should I hesitate to encourage our friends to “come out?” Should I just try to get out of the way and recommend my friend talk to professionals? Can I afford to be anything but fully affirming and loving?
• I’m an individual Orthodox students who is questioning my sexual orientation or thinking of coming out. If he wasn’t my rabbi, I don’t think I’d talk to Rabbi X early on in the process. Would you encourage me to do so anyway? Also, do you think campus Orthodox rabbis should be active about making themselves attractive as early addresses in that process?
• I’m a student leader in the Orthodox community. Should my community think twice about asking openly LGBTQ members to lead tefillot (during the week or on yamim noraim) or adopt positions of communal leadership? I’m an LGBTQ member of the community. Should I think twice about stepping into such roles? Should Orthodox communities (or individual students) hesitate to take part in larger, institutional affirmations of LGBTQ identity? How is any such hesitation anything but childish and hurtful denial.