Steve Greenburg, an Orthodox Rabbi and a senior educator at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York, spoke Monday at the College of Charleston on homosexuality in the Jewish tradition.
The “Charleston Post & Courier” ran an article about the lecture, and here is a few paragraphs where Greenburg tells an ancient Jewish

That two-way street illustrates a distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish faith: “God so loved us, He gave us Torah,” he said. He gave Jews the Book, and it is up to man to read it, learn it, interpret its meanings and apply its lessons.
“There is no such thing as (biblical) literalism,” Greenberg said. “Language is simply too slippery. Of course, that was understood from the beginning.”
To illustrate the point, Greenberg recounts an old Jewish proverb:
Three rabbis are arguing about the best method to purify an oven. One insists it’s already pure, the others – a majority – say it’s impure. But the dissenting rabbi is undeterred. In an attempt to prove he’s right, he calls on God for help.
The oven is pure as the aqueduct flows backward, he declares. And with a rumble, the aqueduct flows backward.
That’s no proof, say the other two, ignoring God’s intervention.
The oven is pure just as this tree uproots itself! Sure enough, the tree tears itself from the ground.
That’s no proof, say the other two.
So the dissenting rabbi calls on God one last time: “Send down a voice from heaven to tell my brethren the truth!”
And God, in a booming voice, speaks of the purified oven.
Even this is insufficient to appease the two rabbis, for purification is addressed clearly in the Torah: Divine revelation, then, is accomplished in the house of study, with an eye bent on the book, not turned to heaven.
When the dissenting rabbi tells God what has transpired, God laughs. “My children have defeated me!”
With this anecdote, Greenberg argues for the “rich possibilities” of sacred texts. Nothing is black and white, he said, nothing so austere that mankind can afford to forgo argument and exploration.

I truly desire to better understand the way Jews approach, interact with, understand, and apply the Torah (and all the Law and the Prophets). This will, or should, speak volumes to us as Christians as we approach, interact with, understand, and apply the Old Testament and all of the Bible.
via: Titusonenine