Progressive Halakhah and Homosexual M larriage 155

not incidental, as we see in the next verse, which presents God 's first commandment of procreation to those created in the Divine image:“And God blessed them and said to them:‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it"”(Gen. 1:28) This com­mandment applies only to heterosexual couples.

Almost all descriptions of the family unit in the Bible include a reference to parents of both sexes. Thus we find in the Deca­ logue ,“Honor your father and your mother” and in the Holi­ness Code:“One must revere one’s mother and father.” 10

The normative family in Jewish tradition consists of a hetero­sexual couple with children, from Adam and Eve through matri­archs and patriarchs, Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob with Sarah, and Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. This is also the recorded tradition in the talmudic, gaonic, medieval and modern literature. Hetero­sexuality is the rule in the entire Jewish tradition.

Procreation

The first commandment of God , the Creator, to his human crea­

tures is to imitate him by engaging in creation or, more specifi­cally in procreation. This form of imitateo Dei is obviously meant exclusively as a mitzvah for a heterosexual couple. The fulfill­ment of this first commandment serves as a precedent for other mitzvot of the Torah . The rabbis claim that those who fulfill these commandments“are crowned by Scripture as partners with God

in the work of creation.”

Furthermore, the Torah spells out the passage of the couple from the nuclear family to their new family:“Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh”(Gen. 2:24). Rashi interprets“one flesh” to refer to“the child created by both of them in whom their flesh becomes one.”"2

Procreation by these human creatures is an essential aspect of creation. A couple becomes united in the conception of their offspring in which both share. Man and wife cling together emo­tionally and physically and spiritually. This is not merely a sex­ual act, but the continuity from one generation to another by bringing into life their offspring. The couple leaves the parental home and establishes its own family.