SEPARATING THE ADULT FROM ADULTERY
Nevertheless, though such approval was never previously forthcoming in Jewish history, Rabbi Jacob grants it. To be sure, his assent is given without any suggestion that this relationship should be regarded as a simchah; Jacob’s equivocal reaction to this union is clearly seen in his advice that the ceremony be“simple,” with a“special emphasis on seriousness.” Nevertheless, we should not overlook the revolutionary nature of this zeshuvah. it represents the first time that any rabbinic authority states a Jewish legal position that explicitly acts to remove the paramour prohibition from the traditional adultery provisions. Not only does it circumvent this penalty, but, in its place, it provides a consent for rabbinic officiation at the marriage of the adulterer and the paramour. This consent, of course, could well be construed as rewarding the adulterous parties with the communally sanctioned togetherness and stamp of Judaism ’s official imprimatur that they so fervently desire.
Before turning to Rabbi Jacob’s second teshuvah, it is worth noting that, outside the responsa genre, very few Jews with a liberal orientation have even written en passant on the subject of adultery. Among the several who have done so, one or two have addressed the other traditional relationship prohibition, not at issue in either Jacob teshuvah: the Mishnah’s ruling that the adulteress not only was forbidden from being together with the paramour(asurah levo’alah), but also was primarily forbidden from being together with her husband(asurah le-ba’alah) and ought to be divorced from him. Although in modernity the partners to a marriage in which adultery has occurred are frequently eager to divorce, the question arises as to whether—in the name of penalizing the adulterous party for a sin against God and family— progressive Judaism ought to continue the tradition of insisting on such a divorce if the couple is unwilling to part. Rabbi Eugene Borowitz , a leading progressive
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