SEPARATING THE ADULT FROM ADULTERY

with compassion and acceptance to the mamzer and to both the instigators and victims of adultery has ended up bringing about the annulment of all substantive penalties for adultery within Reform Judaism.

Seen in this light, it becomes rather important to evaluate whether Rabbi Jacob’s response to the question asked of him represents the most cogent position available from the perspective of public policy. After all, when contemplating what might be considered feasible contemporary sanctions for adultery, progressive rabbis would be very hard pressed to rekindle any respect for the mamzer status within the progressive community. Indeed, there is general agreement among liberal halakhic thinkers that the situation of the mamzer is so ethically untenable that the traditional halakhah as well should have deactivated the status. Furthermore, in contemporary society the consequences of divorce are far less serious for couples—and particularly for the economic status of women—than they were in the past. As a result, mandatory separa­tion would nowadays probably be regarded as less of a penalty to a marriage that has been subject to adultery than being asked to stay together in an attempt to save the damaged partnership. Thus, the restraint on adultery that the prospect of forced divorce once represented has lost any real effectiveness, not least because couples that want to try to make their marriages work are apt to be viewed as heroic rather than sinful. As regards the traditional sanctions for adultery, then, the question of granting permission for the Jewish marriage of the adulterer to the paramour remains the only historic penalty that potentially could still be employed gainfully within the contemporary progressive community.