CHAPTER II

SEXUALITY IN JEWISH LAW AND TRADITION Moshe Zemer

Fee centuries ago, Maimonides declared that, for most people of Israel , there is nothing more difficult in the entire Torah than to abstain from forbidden sexual relations.! He based this claim on the reaction of the people of Israel to the revelation of the Torah , with its many negative precepts about sex. They received these prohibitions with crying and anger, as it is written:“Moses heard the people crying, every family apart, everyone at the entrance of his tent.” Rashi used hermeneutical exegesis to interpret the verse to mean that the Israelites lamented and protested about family affairs, which here, refer to sexual prohibitions.’ This appears to be no less true in our day, with the deepening chasm between religiously established modes of sexual behavior on the one hand and prevailing practices on the other. This conflict is a major cause of moral confusion today, as it was in the ancient past. At the root of this conflict is the(yetzer hara, literally, the evil inclination) implanted in man by God at his creation. Among the various evil impulses of man, in our context, this refers to the sexual urge. This is present in the child from infancy, Antoninus and Rabbi agreed, but questioned whether it began with the formation of the embryo or at the moment of birth. The patriarch accepts Antoninus ’ reasoning that the sexual impulse begins at birth.*

CONTROL OF SEXUAL URGES

The Sages made many attempts to find prophylactic measures to control the yetzer hara or to defend oneself against its power.

1) R. II’ai, a second generation amora, says: If one sees that his yetzer is gaining control over him, let him go where he is not known; let him put on black clothes and don a black wrap, and do the deed that he desires, rather than profane the name of Heaven