Reply To: Bennet and Toaiva Pride

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Joseph
Participant

R. Norman Lamm (Homosexuality):

It may be, however, that the very variety of interpretations of to’evah points to a far more fundamental meaning, namely, that it is an act characterized as an “abomination” is prima facie disgusting and cannot be further defined or explained. Certain acts are considered to’evah by the Torah, and there the matters rests. It is, as it were, a visceral reaction, an intuitive disqualification of the act, and we run the risk of distorting the Biblical judgment if we rationalize it. To’evh constitutes a category of objectionableness sui generis: it is a primary phenomenon. (This lends additional force to Rabbi David Z. Hoffmann’s contention that to’evah is used by the Torah to indicate the repulsiveness of a proscribed act, no matter how much it may be in vogue among advance and sophisticated cultures: see his Sefer Va-yikra, II, p. 54).