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By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, April 9, 2005
Newton—The reading of the Torah ended, and Cantor Charles D. Osborne led the congregation at Temple Emanuel in Newton in a poignant prayer for renewal.
It was time for the sermon.
Rabbi Michelle Robinson rose and delivered the most stirring sermon of her young career - an impassioned demand that the Conservative movement in Judaism sanction same-sex unions and other Jewish rituals for gays and lesbians. If movement leaders, who are in the midst of a deep debate over these issues, disagree, Emanuel, one of the wealthiest and most influential Conservative synagogues in New England, should sanctify such unions anyway, she said.
''While we debate and hold fast to the literal words of the Torah, people are hurting," Robinson said. ''People are being read out of our tradition and shut off from the Jewish love of God. . . .[W]e must not allow the weight of tradition to stop us from supporting new textual interpretations" that provide gay people with full participation in Jewish life.
But as applause from the crowd of more than 500 worshipers faded, Cantor Osborne shocked the congregation. Instead of resuming the prayer service, he said he so disagreed with the rabbi that he could not continue, and walked out.
It was a dramatic demonstration of the deep divisions that have opened among Conservative Jews over gay rights, divisions that threaten to further hobble a movement that once was the strongest stream of Judaism in the United States but is now struggling to define itself and stem a loss of members.
The movement's law committee has grappled with gay rights issues for years. The longtime chancellor of the leading Conservative seminary is warning rabbis that the changes sought by gay-rights proponents will make Conservatism indistinguishable from the less traditional, more popular Reform movement. But the clamor from the pews in favor of de-stigmatizing gays is growing louder.
Within days of the Temple Emanuel incident, the cantor, a renowned tenor who has appeared at Carnegie Hall and many other national venues, had vanished from the temple where he had led services for more than 18 years. His name and photograph were removed from the Temple Emanuel website, and word raced through the community of 1,200 families that he had been given a choice of resigning or being fired.
Leaders of the community deny that Osborne's resignation was forced. ''It was timed after that service, but his leaving had to do with more than that," said incoming temple president Michael S. Benjamin of Newton, who said he was ''one of the leaders involved in the process."
He said Osborne has had health problems: ''The demands of the job are rigorous, and he had been having trouble balancing it all."
Osborne did not return calls seeking comment. In a letter to Temple Emanuel families with students at Prozdor, the high school of Hebrew College in Newton, Osborne said he was unable for health reasons to continue as cantor but would continue to teach at the high school. The letter, a copy of which was provided to the Globe, does not refer to the gay-rights debate.
Benjamin and other lay leaders, scholars, and rabbis in Greater Boston said that whether to sanction gay marriages is now the central issue in Conservative Judaism nationally, and that Robinson's sermon has galvanized support locally for the change. The issue poses a broader problem for the movement, which strives to embrace both Orthodox Jewry's reverence for Torah-based lawmaking and the Reform Movement's liberal, modernizing orientation.
Temple Emanuel's members include New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, mega-developer Norman Leventhal, and former Democratic Party national chairman Steven Grossman. If such congregations begin deciding social policy on their own, departing from the movement's lawmaking machinery, scholars and rabbis say, it could further undermine the distinction between the Conservative and Reform movements.
The law committee has been considering for three years whether it can sanction same-sex marriages and gay clergy, and was expected by many to make a decision at its meeting in New Jersey last month. But the committee was unable to come to a decision and sent four proposals on the issue back to their authors for revision. Further committee consideration of the subject is scheduled for December.
Two of the four proposals would continue to base the movement's policy on the command of God in the Biblical Book of Leviticus that states, ''Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination."
Another would leave in place the prohibition on lying with man as with woman but would permit and support all other expressions of monogamous homosexual relationships. Under this proposal, there would be no barrier to same-sex unions, according to a member of the committee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The fourth proposal would set aside as irrelevant in modern times the language stating that lying with man as with woman is an abomination. The member said the committee of 25 rabbis and six laymen did not get anywhere near agreement at its March session.
Robinson, who is the associate rabbi of Emanuel, said in an interview last week that she and senior Rabbi Wesley R. Gardenswartz had been discussing the issue for a long time. The law committee's delay, coupled with the rabbis' heartfelt, shared desire for change, led her to deliver the sermon. ''I believe strongly that unless the movement acts to allow us to be welcoming and inclusive . . . it becomes irrelevant," she said.
Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com.
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