The first aliya in this week's portion and, in particular, the Etz Hayim commentary to one verse in that section led me to reflect on the status of the kohen in our community. Since I myself am a kohen, these reflections have a personal cast.

The specific verse is in chapter 21, verse 7. The verse instructs us that kohanim shall not marry "a woman defiled by harlotry, nor shall they marry one divorced from her husband. For [the kohanim] are holy to their God…." The kohen was "holy" to God because his function was to officiate in the service of worship in the Temple.

The Etz Hayim commentary notes that based on this verse, traditional Jewish law prohibits a kohen from marrying a divorcee or a convert (because non-Jewish women were assumed to be promiscuous). However, if such a marriage has taken place, the marriage is considered valid and the children legitimate, although they do not inherit their father's priestly status.

The commentary then adds: "Because we no longer consider divorced women as impaired, CJLS [the Conservative movement's Commission on Jewish Law and Standards] has ruled to allow such marriages ab initio without loss of priestly status for the man or his children." The same ruling was extended to a kohen's marriage to a convert.

The thinking that led the commission to overrule the Torah's prohibition is exposed in the claim that "we no longer consider divorced women as impaired." Nor do we assume that non-Jewish women have been promiscuous. A second, though unrecorded assumption, is that in our day, kohanim have none of the functions their ancestors had in antiquity when Jews worshiped in a Temple. I, although a kohen, surely do not consider myself "holy" to God.

In other words, times have changed. We live in a vastly different culture that is informed by very different values. A kohen today no longer functions as a kohen used to function, and a divorcee or a convert today is no longer viewed as they used to be viewed. We are also very much interested in encouraging our people to marry and/or reconstitute their families. Changes in values should lead to changes in Jewish practice.

The Etz Hayim Humash is the work of the Conservative movement and reflects its beliefs. Orthodox communities, of course, disagree. They believe that Jewish practice is determined by divine revelation, which supersedes cultural changes. Torah is binding on all Jews at all times. As a result, Orthodox rabbis continue to prohibit the marriage of a kohen and a divorcee or convert.

The ultimate issue then is theological. What is the source of the authority of Torah? If Torah is the explicitly revealed word of God, then every word is sacred and eternally binding. If Torah is also in some way the creation of a human community, then its precepts will inevitably reflect the culture in which it was composed. Again, changes in human values should legitimately lead to changes in practice.

All of these issues have received renewed attention because of the recent CJLS rulings on whether gays and lesbians can become rabbis and cantors. As in the case of the kohen's marriage to a divorcee or convert, the status of the gay-lesbian community rests on how we understand a passage in the Torah.

The rulings issued by the members of the commission reflect different understandings of that passage, and, more broadly, different views on the authority of Torah. In each case, the ultimate issue is theological. That the commission issued widely varying decisions reflects the range of theological views among the commission members and, more broadly, within Conservative Judaism.

Both of these issues, regarding the status of the kohen and that of the gay or lesbian Jew, may rest on theological convictions, but both also affect the lives of real men and women among us, many of whom are close to us. Very few decisions are more central to our lives than whom we marry and what careers we pursue. So much for the popular belief that theology is an intellectual pursuit of rabbis and academicians alone!