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July 22, 2011
How does Judaism see sex?
The Jewish faith doesn’t encourage asceticism or abstinence.
EUGENE KAELLIS
Some years ago, I taught a course on sexuality. My opening remark was to pose an apparently unrelated question: “Why do people go to church?” It was a question meant to get at the often-baffling issue of motivation.
Attributing reasons to oneself and to others is always highly problematic. While people often don’t even know their own motives, they are usually pleased to make them “noble.” But, there is always another motive lurking behind the one already identified, in what mathematicians call an “infinite sequence,” so it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine one’s “real,” or at least, “basic” motivation.
The first answers by students were predictable: to be reminded of their religious obligations, to raise their children properly, to praise God, to express gratitude. When I insisted on more, the answers became increasingly self-serving: they prayed because they wanted God to provide special benefits; to avoid inflicting pain and suffering on them and, instead, to be merciful for their transgressions. Gradually, the reasons devolved still further: to meet people, including potential mates; to sell insurance, acquire clients, use the occasion to dress up, all reasons increasingly less “exalted,” more mundane and, perhaps, more truthful. When I was attending school in Paris, I often went to churches – to view their architecture, hear an organ recital or, most frequently, simply to take shelter from the rain.
Having set the stage for examining people’s stated motives, my next question was: “Why do people have sex?” Again, the students began with the usual types of replies: to express love, have children, relieve stress, enjoy pleasure. Again, as I insisted on more reasons, they devolved: to prove their attractiveness, keep up with the national average, because there was nothing worth watching on television or simply to prove that they were capable of “performing.”
Sex has become such a prominent feature of our culture that one could assume that we are obsessed with it. Perhaps we are. In any case, it regularly attracts attention and its flagrant use in TV ads is unavoidable. Sex sells, or, at least, is assumed to. In any case, it’s a good way to attract attention, especially that of men, whose influence is often important in buying big-ticket items, like “sexy” cars, i.e., those capable of speed and power. Even the vocabulary of sex is spreading. When something, anything, is attractive, we say it’s “sexy,” as if sex has become the barometer by which we measure the attractiveness of any person, place, idea or thing.
This type of language evokes not just attractiveness, however, but an edginess, a closeness to that which is prohibited, making the object so described more enticing and exciting for some people. Of course, there exists sexually deviant behavior, such as child abuse, which can never be condoned but, as concerns sex in general and its association with sin, that goes back millennia.
It was sex, not knowledge per se, that became “sinful” behavior, the real fruit of the tree in Genesis, with Eve the wicked temptress. There are more salubrious ways of interpreting the events of Chapter 3 of Genesis, but one rarely finds them in the exegetical literature.
In Christianity, St. Paul, it seems, “compromised” on having any sex at all. With “better to marry than to burn,” (1 Corinthians 7:9) he finally relented, perhaps understanding that his best efforts were bound to fail and that universal chastity, while presumably pleasing to God, would mean universal extinction, including the newly formed Christian communities of the eastern Mediterranean.
Is the near-saturation sexuality we experience in our contemporary culture a long-delayed backlash to the centuries-long derogation of sex, making it something furtive and shameful, or is it simply the way people “normally” behave when social constraints are relaxed? Some people believe that it’s time to tone down sexuality a little, even a lot. There is now a small, perhaps growing, modesty cult and a probably smaller virginity cult, particularly associated with Christian evangelical sects and other fundamentalist religious groups.
Jewish attitudes toward sex differ remarkably from those of Christianity. Although Judaism has ascetic sects in its history (the Nazirites and later the Essenes), the tenure of its adherents living outside the “secular” community was limited in both time and commitments: an ascetic life was considered a temporary reprieve from the burdens of secularism. Abstinence also never became an issue among Jews, although there was objection to sexual behavior considered beyond propriety. Nathan, for example, railed against David for his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and his successful plot to have her husband, Uriah, killed in battle.
Some rabbis had problems canonizing the Song of Songs because of its evident eroticism; nonetheless, it was included in the sacred text. Licit pleasure, including sex between spouses, is not only condoned in Judaism, it is encouraged, but always within the concept of instilling sacredness. Jewish tradition not only approves, it advocates. Abstention from sexual activity by a married couple, even if by mutual consent, is not acceptable in Judaism. (See Talmud Seder Nashim, Kiddushin.) In fact, inability to fulfil sexual obligations constitutes grounds for divorce, while wilful neglect is designated as “rebellion” and punishable by a fine paid to the neglected party.
For post-biblical approaches, we can turn, initially, to Maimonides (Rambam) (1135-1204), considered one of Judaism’s greatest and most authoritative commentators and halachic codifiers. Rambam wrote a book devoted exclusively to intercourse. As a personal believer in abstinence, he nonetheless considered sex a purely physiological function. Later, Nachmanides (Ramban) asserted, “The act of sexual union of a man and his wife is holy and pure when done properly, in the proper time and with the proper intention. No one should think that sexual intercourse is ugly and loathsome. G-d forbid!” He even criticized Rambam for stating, “There must be an absence of the lower desires and appetites, of the seeking after pleasure in eating, drinking and cohabitation.”
As well, the Zohar states, “Where there is no union of male and female, men are not worthy to behold the Divine presence,” and the Talmud even suggests a frequency of intercourse for different occupations.
Centuries before Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the “pursuit of happiness” as a natural right, the Talmud went one step further: “A man will have to give an account in the Judgment Day of every good thing he might have enjoyed but did not enjoy.” Evidently, that would include sex.
Eugene Kaellis has written Making Jews on the theme of the current basic problem of Diaspora Jewry, which is available from lulu.com.
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