ABSTRACT
What follows started with a phone call from Rabbi Jonathan Stein. I had barely finished complimenting him on the excellent and daring work he and the Ad Hoc Committee on Human Sexuality had done in the Symposium on Human Sexuality,1 resulting in “Toward a Taxonomy for Reform Jews to Evaluate Sexual Behavior,”2 when he asked if I would do a follow-up chapter on t’shuvah.3 As consultant to the Ethics Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR),4 I had some experience trying to help that committee establish ways of ascertaining if a violator of CCAR norms
had done t’shuvah and could be allowed back among the employable. Flattered at being asked, I agreed to undertake the challenge. I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. I thought I had been presented with a simple question: If we accept a taxonomy of sexual behavior, similar to that put forth by Rabbi Stein, and we stand in a tradition of being “rachmanim b’nei rachmanim,”5 whose mandate allows for t’shuvah, and violations of the taxonomy have taken place, how do we know when one has accomplished t’shuvah?
