RELIGION / JOHN DART : Jewish Pastoral Letter Is Delayed

Rabbis in the Conservative wing of Judaism have postponed final approval of a groundbreaking pastoral letter that says “a measure of morality” is attainable in mature, committed sexual relations between unmarried men and women.

The consensus statement would be the first public document by a major religious body, Jewish or Christian, to establish standards for sexual relations between single people, instead of condemning them.

The executive council of the Rabbinical Assembly decided Oct. 25 at its meeting in New York City to have its Jewish law committee review the seventh and latest draft of the “Jewish Pastoral Letter on Sexual Intimacy.” After any revisions its members make, the executive council will vote on it at its Jan. 24 meeting.

“This is more a matter of process than substantive change,” said the letter’s author, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector of the University of Judaism in Bel-Air in the Sepulveda Pass. Dorff is a member of both the law committee and the executive council.

“We’ve already started working on educational materials for adults and teen-agers that would accompany this letter,” Dorff said. “The idea is to publish it in pamphlet form so that it can be widely used in Conservative synagogues and institutions,” he said.

The draft, which is 68 manuscript pages, states that loving, committed relationships “can embody a measure of morality” in sexual intimacy when couples follow ethical norms expected of married Jewish partners.

Consensual sex, fidelity, attention to birth control and healthy practices are among the considerations cited for men and women who have decided they won’t or can’t live up to the Jewish ideal of married love, according to the letter.

Several mainline Christian denominations have tried to fashion broad statements on human sexuality that encountered controversy and rejection when early drafts attempted to soften traditional opposition to homosexual relations and unmarried heterosexual intimacy. Most religious bodies concluded that endorsing anything other than married male-female sex would be untrue to their religious understanding.

Dorff said the Rabbinical Assembly’s letter on intimacy has succeeded where others have stalled because the rabbis are speaking to those matters on which there is consensus and leaving the most difficult questions, such as gay and lesbian union rites and ordination to the rabbinate, to be handled by the Jewish law committee.

Top officials of the United Synagogue, the umbrella organization for Conservative congregations, have informally indicated their approval of the pastoral letter, said Rabbi Joel Meyers of New York, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly.

Meyers and Rabbi Alan Silverstein, Rabbinical Assembly president, discussed the document with United Synagogue board members in August. “Most of them were very supportive and wanted to know what we were going to do with it,” Meyers said.