Gay Rabbis and Newsweek's Best

Two things that just happened today.

1. JTS and Gay Rabbis

JTS will now ordain gay rabbis. I'm not sure what ramifications this will have. One thought is that the
right-wing of JTS will split off, a la UTJ (Halivni etc). Conservative already broke from d'oryta Judaism when - in 1950! - they allowed driving on Shabbat. You'd think that the tumult in the early 80s about ordaining women would be less controversial than sublimating michalelei Shabbas b'farhesia, but you'd be wrong.

Is ordaining homosexuals worse than driving on Shabbas? I'd say no: because halakha does not recognize homosexuality as an identity - it's an act not an ontology - there's no problem with a gay rabbi, per se. Gay marriage is even less of an issue because, at worst, it's just a problem of sheim shav, and that happens all the time in their movement. Driving on Shabbas is worse, therefore, because it basically gave a blanket heter to violate the basics of Shabbat (creating fiery explosions) and thus removed the sanctity of Shabbat fully.

On the other hand, it does not say so completely explicitly that you can't drive on Shabbat in the Torah (it's close to explicit, though) - while homosexuality is pretty durn explicitly forbidden in the strongest terms. So looking at the issue in a broad sense, while driving on Shabbat violates the Day of Rest, and a Shabbat-violator, according to Chazal, is the equivalent of someone who denies God (because God rested on Shabbat, there's a logic there), allowing gay marriage basically states that there's no divinity to the Torah.

Thus stated, is denying God's Creation worse than denying the validity and sanctity of the written Torah? That's a true lifeboat question.

The Best Newsweek Rabbis

Newsweek, in its wisdom, created a list of the top 50 most influential
American rabbis. Yes, there's the head of Chabad (#2) and Satmar (#15) but
the list, naturally, is ignorant of the wider frum community (e.g. Rabbi Lamm
is #44 but no Rosh Yeshiva of YU, like Rav Schachter, is on the list - even though Schachter is the true head of the institution, and halakhic head of the OU to boot).

However, I think the list reflects what I've described as the 'Wexner
Fellowship' (or UJA, Federation) frame of reference for the Orthodox community. I mean, Shmuely Boteach (#9) and Marc Schneier (#33) but not Rav Malkiel Kutler (head of Lakewood), or Rav Aaron Schechter (head of Chaim Berlin) etc. I'm not
denying that the 50 people on the list have influence but Newsweek (surprise
surprise) lacks effective insight into a not insignificant part of the
Jewish world.