Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses the prohibition of creating business partnerships with a pagan gentile:

“It is prohibited for a person to enter into a partnership with a gentile lest their joint ventures lead them to quarrel and his gentile partner will be obligated to take an oath to him and he will take an oath in the name of his object of idol worship; and the Torah states: ‘Neither let it be heard out of your mouth’ (Exodus 23:13), which includes causing a gentile to take an oath in the name of an idol.”

Partnership with a pagan is not just a technical legal matter, but is also seen as a metaphorical spiritual matter. That is, the need for caution that we avoid co-opting (“partnering”) with alien values and sentiments that are not aligned with Torah morality. Magen Avraham (46:10) quotes the Arizal that the morning blessing to God for “having not made me a gentile” is not merely about physically being a gentile or a Jew. It is thanking God for allowing, exposing, and imbuing within us attitudes that are not strangers to the ways of the Torah.

When one lives in a culture that is hostile as many of our ancestors did, it is easier to reject the culture. In the modern Western modern world, even though there is ugly antisemitism, the principles and credos of the modern world are embracing and friendly. A focus on civil liberties and individual rights, as well as the pursuit of science and knowledge, are appropriately of interest and worthy of respect. And yet there are seductive and distorting elements within that same culture which, as Jewish people who have long-standing and deep-rooted morality and ethics, we must be on guard against, so that we are not fooled and do not trade away our birthright for the lentil soup of wokeness.

Just one example among many that I find disturbing is that when I speak to young people of a particular generation, say age thirty and younger, they take it for granted that homosexuality is intrinsic and that a person is born that way. Even observant and yeshiva-oriented people treat it as a fact, though they might still maintain loyalty to the Torah principles, saying how unfortunate it is for that person, or finding ways to show compassion while maintaining that it is a prohibited lifestyle. All of that is fine and good, and still there is absolutely no conclusive evidence about being born a particular way. It is undebatable that for some people, as with many sexual preferences, they can be deeply rooted and difficult to change. However, it is unscientific and militant political propaganda to maintain that a person is “born that way,” or for that matter born any particular way. This notion has been almost completely lost because of powerful special interests that have pushed a particular agenda. When you state a person is born that way, it reduces moral accountability, which, for whatever reason, is a trend today that is highly destructive. It’s a shame, because it closes off avenues for repair and exploration and makes something that is already difficult and challenging into an absolute fact, when in reality it may be difficult to change but not conclusively immutable. The power of suggestion and culture in the dynamics of psychosocial internality cannot be underestimated. One generation suffers from anorexia, another from gender dysphoria, and in a different generation there will be something else.(In medieval and Talmudic times people truly suffered from love sickness, to the point of danger to their life, (see Sanhedrin 75a.) Culture generates and reinforces psychological defenses and perceptions, and to some degree none of us can help that.

Similarly, there is an insanity in believing that men and women are essentially the same. It is contrary to human nature, and our tradition reinforces the opposite. True, in the wrong hands, differences in power and role can be used to abuse people. That is unacceptable. But the answer isn’t propaganda and rejecting gender roles. The answer is humility, negotiation and openness to the complexities of human nature that though eternal, are manifested and managed differently by different cultures and religious systems. When you have a religious system that has developed over thousands of years, it is worth understanding how it preserves and holds people through life’s processes (as we saw in Psychology of the Daf, Chulin 141), and not seeing them as irrelevant, antiquated laws and rituals.

I am not claiming that we have all the answers, because though the Torah is divine, how we interpret and enact it is certainly subject to human foibles and biases. As a young idealistic yeshiva bochur, quoting one of my rebbeim, I said to my father, “Chazal were great psychologists.” My father, Z”L (whose yahrzeit is actually today, at the time that I am writing this post; may his soul be elevated), responded to me, “True. However, you have to be a great psychologist to properly understand Chazal.” We certainly must challenge our beliefs when confronted by new ideas, and consider them for their value. As the Rambam famously said (introduction to Shemonah Perakim), “One should hear the truth from whoever says it, regardless of who the person is.” Yet the gift that we have in a system of ethics and beliefs that come from millennia of exploration and accumulated wisdom and tradition can give us the perspective to challenge unhelpful and false notions, and unscientific propaganda that distort and damage the institutions of life, such as family, love, peace, and personal fulfillment.