Seudat mitzvah is similar to that of Maimonides. Seudat mitzvah A seudat mitzvah (, "commanded meal"), in Judaism, is an obligatory festive meal, usually referring to the celebratory meal following the fulfillment of a "mitzvah" (commandment), such as a bar mitzvah, a wedding, a "brit milah" (ritual circumcision), or a "siyum" (completing a tractate of Talmud or Mishnah). "Seudot" fixed in the calendar (i.e., for holidays and fasts) are also considered "seudot mitzvah", but many have their own, more commonly used, names. Attendance at a "brit milah" (circumcision) and its subsequent "seudah" is of such great significance that Rabbi Moshe Isserles ("the
Homosexuality and Judaism Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote the foreword to Rabbi Chaim Rapoport's book "Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View". In the foreword, Rabbi Sacks has written: "Compassion, sympathy, empathy, understanding - these are essential elements of Judaism. They are what homosexual Jews who care about Judaism need from us today." Modern Orthodox leader Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein is reported to have said that the intensity of Orthodox community's condemnation of homosexuality goes beyond what its status as a religious transgression warrants, and that he feels toward homosexual people "criticism, disapproval, but tempered with an element of sympathy". In both the United States