A basic Torah Hashkafa unknown to some.

Hashem also despises someone who speaks lashon hara.
Do you feel this strongly towards someone who speaks lashon hara?

Haimy, what you’re saying is chiddush in the sense that Mesillas Yesharim is chiddush – it’s something everyone knows, but pays no attention to. You’ve said it exactly as it is, and exactly as it needs to be said. Yasher koach.

Haimy

“I’m I saying a chiddush?”

No but you are selectively applying it. The Torah also calls Those who cheat An abomination Devarim 25:13 כִּ֧י תוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ כָּל־עֹ֣שֵׂה אֵ֑לֶּה כֹּ֖ל עֹ֥שֵׂה עָֽוֶל.

I dont mean you personally, but in my experience our community has not been intolerant of financial frauds, in fact IVe often found the opposite.
SO What upsets us is not really what “Hashem says he hates” Its what YOU (again not you personally )hate, and your just cloaking it in righteousness

Misheli 6:7 lists seven aveiros Hashem finds an abomination

Haimy:

Your OP is great, on the bottom and 100% correct.

Yasher Koach

Haimy,
I am jealous.
I wish I was on your level in avodas Hashem!

While i don’t agree with Haimy’s style or approach (and am choshed that it was written like that for that reason), i find the responses embarrassing.

I completely agree with the responses, but you have sadly strengthened his point. Had someone written an overdramatic post on lashon hora or fraud you never would have asked if he feels the same about mishkav zachor. The appropriate response would probably be to add it to the offenses, not to use it as a counter argument.

I spent too many years working in a very very liberal environment where straight conservatives were the minority. I respect my coworkers but was apalled by their lifestyles. But it wears off. And i left because of the effect it was having on my spiritual level.
Do i think Haimy’s approach is effective? No. And i doubt he does either. But the responses, though accurate in content, were inadequate in context.

Joseph, you seem to be confusing hating a behavior and hating a person.

Syag: The Torah tells us to hate a willful sinner who unabashedly sins in public and isn’t embarrassed by his sins but is rather proud and loud about his sins.

Redleg

” LY’s use of the term “homophobia” is one of my pet peeves.”

Meh Is “Anti-semitism ” one of your pet peeves too, as it does not include being “anti” all semites (eg Arabs) but is limited to Jews?

Syag: Hating an open, blatant, public, willful, proud sinner isn’t an optional mitzvah. It is an obligatory mitzvah on all.

You’re avoiding the point.

Thank you. That I’ll say for the sincere mussar, since it is sincere though misplaced.

But walking away isn’t an option.

Syag lachochma,

I didnt mean that doing any sin is ever okay. I’m just questioning if the disgust towards it is leshem shamayim or rather preference. Besides, if the person isn’t asking me for a heter, then why is it my business?

TLIK- it depends, if he’s someone who’s proud of it and tries to normalize it to society and force it on society then I would have to agree with Joseph to hate him for it but if it’s someone who has the struggle and is trying not then even if he messes up you shouldn’t hate him at most feel sorry and try to be supportive in any way you can.

The questions raised by TheLittleIKnow are good ones that really should be addressed by a halachic authority; however, I will hazard a few guesses.
Does despising someone mean…
…attacking them violently?
Probably not.
…feeling nausea in their presence?
Probably. If someone were to smack your parents in the face, would you not feel nausea in their presence?
…ignoring them, not conversing with them, refusing to work in their proximity?
Conversing with them should be kept to a minimum.

Yiddishekup: You make a very valid point; thank you for bringing that up. If someone struggles in a certain area, wants to do the right thing and tries hard, but sometimes messes up, such a person should not be called a rasha. There’s no mitzva to hate such a person.
However, the vast majority of people being discusses here do not fall into that category.

Even better question. If a mishkav zochornik would come to you to help him get a pair of tefillin, what would you do?

Som1,

I just used that example because it’s an extremely common sin that unfortunately we are all guilty of and many of us barely care enough to work on it, but that Hashem despises it.
I didnt mean to suggest anything about the OP.

You should view him with pity, not hate, aside from the fact that he is a tinok sheishba, even complete sinners that don’t go into the character of tinok shenishba you are not supposed to hate rather have pity on them (aside for select cases as is explained in tanya i forget the exact place now), and additionally this specific problem of mishlav zochor is basically sort of like an illness, a urge for something forbidden that is unnatural

Avi, that would bother me very much. I would certainly make every effort to look for a new job, for fear of being influenced by my companions.
If finding a new job were impossible, I hope I would feel real disgust at the though of spending time with people who think it’s cool to lie, cheat and gossip.
As to your concern that someone may “cancel” me? Well, for one, I don’t think it’s cool to do avairos. Secondly, if someone would avoid my company out of a genuine concern that my middos are not up to their standard, well, good for them!

Haimy, you wrote it yourself. We should feel revulsion at the sin but not the person. This was Beruria’s answer to Rabbi Meir – and it came out like her (Berachot 10a). I have a feeling that you will have to work alone with you. People who do aveirot never say that they are evil. They always have excuses. People who cheat the government say that other ethnic groups do it. People who cheat on exams and have others do term papers for them say that they need a good grade. People who talk during davening say that shul is the only place where they meet their friends. The list goes on and on.

That’s false. The people who talk during davening do not claim interrupting davening is okay to do. The people who steal from the government do not claim stealing is okay to do. The people who cheat on exams do not claim cheating is okay to do.

They all know and will acknowledge if asked that cheating, stealing and interrupting is wrong.

The toeivaniks not only sin in private, they proudly parade about their sin. They create symbols like rainbows to advertise their sinning and promote it.

And if asked if that activity is wrongful and shouldn’t be done, virtually every one of them will tell you there’s nothing wrong with doing it.

Syag, do you know of any group of toeivaniks who are active in the sin that if asked will readily concede that their private activity is wrong and they shouldn’t be doing it?

I will assert that if such people exist, I’m not sure if one hand would be enough to count them or if you’d need fingers from your second hand to complete the count of them.

Syag, it’s a metzius that adultery is more prevalent than homosexuality. The only real difference between the two in contemporary times is that the former is widely acknowledged by virtually all as wrong whereas the latter was also so acknowledged until relatively very recently in history when through great political and media effort society was brainwashed into changing its views towards accepting its normalization. Something that has yet to occur with the former. (Give it some more time.)

Given that the former is far more prevalent, perhaps you can explain to us how that it is that you’re somehow able to “attest” that the latter is a “large group” when I think you’ll admit (correct me please if otherwise) that you don’t know of a “large group” of the former, despite that sin being far more prevalent than the latter.

You’re being unaware of any large group of adulterers isn’t because they don’t exist. It is because they don’t make themselves known to you. Which is far better than it they had made their sinful nature known to others. Yet the existence of the “regretful” homosexuals, you attest, are made known to you in a quantity consisting of being (even just from what you know and can attest to) a “large group”.

I acknowledge that you indicate that this “large group” of homosexuals that you attest to do admit that their sinful activities may not and should not be engaged in by themselves, despite their continually doing so, to their regret. But I do severely question how it came to be that they made their sin known to outsiders (such as yourself), whereas other sinners (such as adulterers, which as a much larger group would be better known had they made themselves known) tend to not do so; and appropriately not.

In Parshas Mishpatim (23:4), the Torah introduces the Mitzvah of Hashavas Aveida by characterizing the owner of the lost animal as “אויבך”, your enemy. Similarly, in the next Pasuk, the Mitzvah of P’rika (unloading), the owner is referred to as “שונאך”, someone you hate.

The Gemara famously explains that the “hated / enemy” must be a sinner whom we are permitted to hate.

It should be obvious that this must be a deliberate sinner, not a Tinok Shenishbah, or a Shogeg, or even a Chotei L’teiavon. We may only hate someone who is חוטא להכעיס. Nobody else can be described as משנאיך השם.

In Parshas Ki Seitzei (22:1-4), in the repetition of these Mitzvos, the owners are both referred to as “אחיך”, your brother.

The Meshech Chochma asks, how did my “hated / enemy” become my “brother”?

He says that permission to hate others on account of their sins is granted only to someone whose own record is without blemish. Parshas Mishpatim addresses Klal Yisrael prior to the Chet HaEigel, and so refers to the “hated / enemy”. Parshas Ki Seitzei addresses us after the Chet HaEigel, and so we may recognize only our “brother”.

So according to the Meshech Chochma, only an unblemished Tzadik may fulfill משנאיך השם אשנא. To the rest of us, ALL Jews are “brothers”.

After all, by what right do I consider myself superior to him? Do I in fact know that my own failings are of any less gravity than his? I don’t know what he’s done, or what mitigating factors may be considered on his behalf. But I am familiar enough with my own record…