Last week, Rabbi Shmueli Boteach’s World Values Network presented Caitlyn Jenner with its Champion of Israel and Human Rights Award. Jenner is the former 1976 Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner who now identifies as a woman and has chosen to go by “Caitlyn.” Over a period of years, Jenner has become a prominent media personality appearing in the TV reality shows “Keeping Up with the Kardasians” and “I Am Cait.”
According to Rabbi Boteach, Jenner, a leading advocate for LGBTQ rights, is “a great friend of the Jewish people and a great friend of Israel [who has had] the courage to get up and boldly proclaim that Israel is a bastion of human rights that should be emulated, that should be copied in the Middle East.”
Rabbi Boteach said he was “unnerved at the strong criticism for choosing to honor Jenner “who has made a lifestyle choice that makes many people uncomfortable, and clashes with the beliefs of some faith communities.”
“But,” he said, “our point was always that every human life must be viewed as sacred and worthy of protection. The highest Jewish value is the infinite worth of every human being, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or gender. The focus of our organization is to use universal Jewish values to defend human rights and highlight Israel’s role as a light unto the nations. Choosing to honor Jenner was consistent with our mission.”
The World Values Network was founded by Rabbi Boteach to promote Jewish values but, as we see it, has now morphed into a group devoted to spread his teachings. And therein lies an important tale. Over the centuries, observant Jews have typically adhered to what is referred to as the mesorah, the collected wisdom of the greatest Talmudic and halachic scholars who spanned the many centuries of Jewish life. Jews have traditionally deferred to these authorities for direction on critical matters affecting their lives. Indeed, Pirke Avos places a great premium on the well-known adage, Aseh Lecha Rav (“choose a guide for yourself ”). That is, Jewish life is properly informed by the views and thinking of the greatest scholars that have lived over the centuries.
And this should be particularly so with respect to the question at hand: Can one honor Caitlyn Jenner because of her support for Israel, and human rights generally, if, at the same time, one is also according a measure of legitimacy to a lifestyle that is anathema to the Torah? Where is the balance – if there is to be one at all? And who is to strike it? What will be the message to our children?
While hardly untutored in the ways of the Torah, Rabbi Boteach is also hardly, in our opinion, one of its leading scholars. So what authority did he consult? Or did Rabbi Boteach take it upon himself to address this momentous question?
Some years ago Rabbi Boteach wrote a book entitled Kosher Jesus in which he argued, as we read it, that Jews throughout the centuries have gotten the notion of the historical Jesus all wrong; really, there is a way of understanding him in a manner that is consistent with the Torah. He was widely excoriated at the time for providing a possible lure for some Jews to Christianity. Did he worry about that possibility then? Is he worried now about some coming away from the Jenner episode thinking that homosexuality is not such a bad idea?