When you and your lover are feeling frisky, the I-can-hardly-wait-to-take-my-clothes-off frisky, three is usually a crowd, so the roommate gets the boot. But what happens when your rabbi wants in on the action?

The Conservative Movement has been peeping, behind the doors, under the covers, and into its congregants’ sex lives, apparently very concerned about anal sex.

For a movement that defines itself as based on Jewish text, the verse from Leviticus, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination,” has been causing problems. In 1992, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of The Rabbinical Assembly affirmed by a 19-3 vote that the Conservative Movement would not knowingly admit homosexuals to rabbinical or cantorial schools along with other guidelines. Maybe they envisioned a little checkbox on the application, next to the one about GPA and above the one about hometown, asking “check sexual orientation below.”

Nearly 15 years later the CJLS convened again on December 5, 2006 to discuss the issue of homosexuality, under pressure from the community for an updated and more definitive policy. The committee spent long hours in the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City discussing the issue, breaking only for prayer, food and sleep. They were up against a self-imposed deadline— a news conference to be held at 2 p.m. on December 6 for the committee to announce their decision.

Rabbi Vernon Kurtz, a member of the CJLS who attended the conference,describes the mood as intense. “There were some very different positions on both sides, strongly held,” he says.

Aaron Weininger, 22, also attended the CJLS conference, as part of the “Day of Learning,” intending to bring some diversity to a committee made up of mostly men, all of them straight, and put a human face on homosexuality for the deliberating rabbis.

Weininger grew up keeping kosher, observing Shabbat, and attending Jewish day school, even when it meant an ungodly long commute. At age 15 he knew he wanted to be a rabbi and a few years later he knew he was gay. Obviously the issues being argued by the CJLS were of personal importance.

“I was very hopeful,” he says. “There was just so much positive energy.”

But even a press conference deadline couldn’t get a room full of Jews to agree. The committee announced that they had passed two contradictory policies. How predictable. One of those policies, by Rabbi Joel Roth, prohibits the ordination of gay rabbis. The other accepted opinion, presented by Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisner, states, “There is to be no discrimination against gay and lesbian Jews. Should they exhibit the other criteria needed for ordination as clergy, they shall be qualified to serve as rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators.”

Hearing these words, Weininger knew change was imminent.

Why all the fuss?

The issue of homosexuality pulls at two cornerstones of the Conservative movement: halakhah, or traditional Jewish law, and contemporary social justice.

For Kurtz, the head rabbi of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park, Ill., certain things are just not acceptable, like gay marriage. He argues that religious institutions are different than the general public and entitled to hold different standards.

“My standards are those of traditional Judaism: heterosexuality and the importance of family,” he says. “We still uphold that part of the concept.”

Still, in looking at the same text that others claim makes homosexuality an uncontested sin, Matthew Yalowitz, 22, a gay Northwestern University graduate, finds the possibility for reinterpretation.

“The text itself has become politicized in such a way that can oppress sexual minorities,” he says.

Yalowitz grew up in a Conservative home and was “inculcated with a strong sense of Jewish identity from an early age,” but he never felt like his Jewish identity conflicted with his homosexuality.

Sarah Freidson, 25, a third year student at The Jewish Theological Seminary sees the whole controversy as a justice issue. As an undergrad Freidson had several mentors, many of whom happened to be gay. From these relationships, Freidson developed a passion for gay rights issues.

She describes her graduation where one gay professor pulled her aside, saying, “‘We really need people like you in the clergy.’”

“I felt charged from that,” Freidson says. “I felt like I was an insider and could fight for change in a way that my mentors and gay friends couldn’t.”

Once at JTS, she immediately became involved in the university’s gay rights organization, Keshet. Last year she served as co-chair for the group that strives to make JTS a more inclusive environment for Jews of all sexual orientations.

Fresh faces among JTS freshman

Back in December, the faculty and students at JTS had been holding their breath in anticipation of the CJLS decision. Freidson describes the campus as buzzing with excitement. The Chancellor-elect, Albert Eisen, had made it clear that if the CJLS ruled in a way that permitted the ordination of gay and lesbian students, the school would begin looking into its own policy, which at the time prohibited the ordination of openly gay students.

While the CJLS had the luxury of passing totally contradictory policies, JTS needed to make a definite decision. Eisen oversaw an extensive decision-making process that involved open forums, surveys, and a faculty-only committee. On March 26, 2007, JTS announced its decision to accept gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools.

In Eisen’s letter to the community announcing this decision he writes, “We believe that the law can be modified, and therefore should be modified, in accord with our society’s changed knowledge about and moral attitudes toward homosexuality.”

Weininger understands the struggle within the conservative movement over this issue, but in the end he says, the Torah teaches values of justice and mercy and the exclusion of gays from the conservative rabbinate would undermine the strong ethical component of the Jewish community.

While he has found a warm and welcoming Jewish community throughout his life, he says, “There was a lot of frustration involved.”

But these frustrations never drove him away from his faith.

“Part of being involved in institutional change is being involved in those institutions,” he says.

And so Weininger applied to JTS and became the first openly gay student to be admitted to its rabbinical school.

Admissions and Withdrawals

When Eisen announced the new policy, he also announced an extension of the deadline for JTS applications. The extension was intended to give people who previously would not have considered JTS the opportunity to apply.

Rabbi Charles Savenor, the Associate Dean and Director of Admissions for the JTS Rabbinical School felt that the deadline extension was a way to show prospective gay and lesbian students that JTS really was committed to creating a welcoming community.

“We felt out of principle that people had been patient with us and once the decision was made we really wanted to give gay and lesbian students the opportunity to begin in the fall [2007],” Savenor says.

During his senior year at Washington University, Weininger applied to rabbinical schools where gay students were welcomed, but continued to hope that he would have the chance to apply to JTS.

Prior to the policy change, Savenor says, “It was known what our policy was and we would engage in a discussion about sexuality if it came up.”

Savenor hopes that as the university adjusts to the policy change, “that discussion of personal sexuality won’t be an issue anymore.”

After the announcement, Savenor says the admissions office saw a real increase in interest.

“It wasn’t just students that were GLBT, but it was also students who were supportive of our decision and felt like they couldn’t go to JTS and Conservative conservatories that did not accept GLBT students,” he says.

But like the premier rabbis, rabbis-in-training weren’t all on the same page. Just as some students scrambled to submit their applications, others pulled theirs out of the stack. According to Savenor three applicants, who were traditional conservative Jews, withdrew from the admissions process following the decision.

“When an institution takes a step forward and further defines itself, it will attract people and it may also discourage others,” he says.

In mid-May JTS had accepted two gay students to the rabbinical school and was already discussing the admissions process with 5-10 gay prospective students for the 2008-2009 school year.

Looking Ahead

Freidson is thrilled by the additions.

“We’ve lost a lot of really gifted, talented people because of this policy that was discriminatory,” she says. “I really think the Conservative movement will be strengthened by this decision”

At their first formal meeting following the decision, Keshet talked about concrete things JTS can do to make the community more welcoming, Freidson says.

Jay Michaelson, 36, has been involved as a Jewish gay rights activist for many years and is confident that JTS will work with these changes in a thoughtful manner.

“I think JTS can handle it,” he says. “I actually have a lot of faith in that community.”

Weininger shares this confidence and actually says his biggest concern upon receiving his acceptance letter was finding an apartment in Manhattan.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t realize the importance of this opportunity.

“I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while,” he says.

While the JTS community struggled with its decision to allow students just like Weininger into their classrooms, he doesn’t see himself having a problem.

“I would hope that in rabbinical school people are really taking the time to focus on the calling,” he says. “My presence shouldn’t get in the way of that.”

-Jennifer Bronson