I Am Very Disturbed by This Gemara

SpottedBanana

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 7:22 pm

Forte wrote:

Marina, I don't know where you've seen the idea that 5ex according to the Torah is supposed to be special and exclusive. It seems pretty consistent in the view of 5ex as merely a process of baby making and no more. The Torah does value life, hence the prohibition on zera lvatala and tumas niddah, etc. Another thing the Torah values is keeping the purity of the nation I.e. ensuring that siblings do not marry, this is why women must be monogamous (for fear that we may otherwise not know who the father is). And it's also why men generally cannot have 1 night stands even with single women and why 5ex must be within the context of a committed relationship.

I agree mostly, but it's not quite that bad -- it does say v'hayu l'basar echad. Some say the basar is the baby, but some say it's the couple becoming like one person. That is meaningful, even if it doesn't make intimacy this extremely emotional, spiritual experience that it couldn't be for most people until they grew to love each other. Chassidish people and very yeshivish people also don't love each other until a while after the wedding too, am I wrong on that? But presumably they're intimate anyway and not a single puppy dies Smile

mommy3b2c

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 7:49 pm

marina wrote:

This is literally the most depressing thing I read today.

As an aside, zera levatala & niddah have nothing to do with life - sperm die even if not released and women aren't tomei unless they bleed.

I find it depressing as well. But it isn't true. G-d put intimacy in the world as something pleasurable and enjoyable for both men and women. It is considered a mitzvah even if one can't have children. So obviously, it was not only put on this world to have children.

BSD1

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 8:29 pm

A comment on chabad.org at http://www.chabad.org/library/.....y.htm

indicates that in those times, important visitors were offered various pleasures, often prostitution. As such, Rabbis would make it a point to pretend they were getting married that day. This way the city leader would know not to offer such pleasures as they had just gotten married.

This comment is in reference to this Gemara.

pnina

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 9:33 pm

BTW The Gemara does expect intimacy to be primarily an emotional love experience. The men are given obligations to make their wives feel emotionally loved. This disproves the idea that one day affairs are at all a value. Not sure about this particular gemara but since I have my own shalom bayis issues and my husband had to learn things from the ground up...I know this. And this is coming from a chassidish Rov

octopus

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 9:39 pm

Interesting that someone posted an article from a chabad website saying that polygamy was never an ideal state. According to the rambam neither was animal sacrifice or slavery. someone mentioned slavery upthread, that's why I'm bringing it up. Rambam holds that the Torah never outright forbade slavery or animal sacrifice because it was too cemented into society at the time. And the Torah was trying to wean b'y away from it. So torah created many, many laws to regulate it.

mommy3b2c

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 9:45 pm

octopus wrote:

I've mentioned many times on here that polygamy was never considered ideal. Most people in the Torah had only one wife. Yitzchak, moshe, Yosef, mordechai, amram, Aharon, etc...

penguin

Wed, Aug 09 2017, 11:26 pm

I'm getting disturbed reading the conversation.

I was okay at

Quote:

First of all, tosfos says the majority of times these marriages were never consummated.

It seems that this was done more as a reassurance that if a Rabbi was in the town, there was a woman available to him. Generally, the knowledge itself was good enough, and the acting on it wasn't necessary.

as I was mechaven to that.

However, I'd strongly suggest listening to Rabbi YY Jacobson on the Torah view of Love here. I believe you can also watch if you sign up. From him you will see that the people in those time did value relationships.

So maybe it was a moshol. Maybe it was just an idea to have someone to marry as pas besalo. There could be any number of explanations. In fact, Marina, why don't you listen to the shiur and then email Rabbi YY and see if he can explain the Gemara in a way that will undisturb you. yyjacobson@theyeshiva.net

As someone noted earlier, as a frum woman I know there are things I don't understand. I try to focus on the good in my life as a frum woman, and that's enough for me.

marina

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 12:16 am

sparkle18 wrote:

Unfortunately this explanation does not make sense in light of the gemara which is talking about the importance of knowing who the father is.

marina

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 12:22 am

penguin wrote:

I'm getting disturbed reading the conversation.

I was okay at

Quote:

This explanation does not make sense in light of the gemara which discusses how we know who the father is. If there was never consummation or it was all a moshol, why are they discussing whether the women will know who the father is?

But I will try to listen to the shiur.

penguin

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 2:47 am

Quote:

Maybe as a theoretical case, which is what much of the Gemara talks about.

Sometimes I'll hear DH talking about, if Shimon did X and then Reuven did Y and I'll say, why on earth would they do that? The point is to explore the halachic ramifications which may be applied later to more likely cases.

ora_43

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 6:50 am

I think you're making this too black and white.

Either s-x should only ever be a sacred, loving expression of loving monogamous love,

or we should see no problem with people having s-x with whoever they want, whenever they want.

Why would those be the only two logical positions?

The Gemara doesn't portray s-x as primarily an expression of love. This is not a secret. If I had to describe it, I'd say that from what I've learned (which I should state up front is only a very small fraction of the Gemara), the human s-x drive is seen as an animal urge that is necessary for human life, and that can be used as an expression of love. Or in a whole bunch of other ways.

If this Gemara is literal (and they weren't trying to avoid the temptation for s-x, or avoid being solicited by harlots, etc) - the situation seems to be, they had s-xual urges, they weren't going to satisfy them through pleasuring (sin!) or one-night stands with women who hadn't used the mikveh (also sin!) or with s-x with a single woman (need I mention, sin!). So they found a kosher way to channel their urges, by having s-x with a woman who had been to the mikvah, and who would be given all the rights of a full wife - ketubah + rights to claim the man as a resulting baby's father no questions asked. This would have been a mistake if they weren't famous, but because they were it was OK.

Message - s-x doesn't always have to be "meaningful" in the sense of being an experience that's mostly about a deep, loving relationship. But it also can't be a random, unplanned encounter with no thought given to the consequences. And if a man wants to have s-x with a woman, he should be willing to marry her, even if only for a day.

Norms have changed because 1. polygamy is assur now 2. frum society is more uptight about s-x in some ways. Possibly because of changes in lifestyle, probably at least somewhat in response to the changing s-xual mores of Western society.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 7:46 am

ora_43 wrote:

Thanks for this post. It actually clarified a lot confusing thoughts I was having.

marina

Thu, Aug 10 2017, 9:53 am

ora_43 wrote:

If this Gemara is literal (and they weren't trying to avoid the temptation for s-x, or avoid being solicited by harlots, etc) - the situation seems to be, they had s-xual urges, they weren't going to satisfy them through pleasuring (sin!) or one-night stands with women who hadn't used the mikveh (also sin!) or with s-x with a single woman (need I mention, sin!). So they found a kosher way to channel their urges, by having s-x with a woman who had been to the mikvah, and who would be given all the rights of a full wife - ketubah + rights to claim the man as a resulting baby's father no questions asked. This would have been a mistake if they weren't famous, but because they were it was OK.

Marrying a woman just to divorce her after one day and give her the ketubah settlement is... prostitution. She's basically having 5ex for money with you. Maybe she'll get pregnant and maybe not.

In any case, the intercourse is not meaningful at all. The Talmid Chachom's preparations are just precautions to avoid complicated consequences like aveirot and illegitimate children.

Kind of like a guy using a condom- just good planning ahead of time, but still meaningless.

Using a woman this way is presented as better than self-pleasuring - also a meaningless activity. It's just about avoiding a technical sin, not any connection with the woman.

Last edited by marina on Thu, Aug 10 2017, 9:57 am; edited 1 time in total