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The Talmudic Sex exchange, part 1: What can the sages teach us about sex?

[additional-authors]
May 25, 2016

Maggie Anton is the award-winning author of “Rashi's Daughters,” historical novels set in the household of the great medieval Jewish scholar, whose daughters studied Talmud when these sacred texts were forbidden to women. The first book of her new series, “Rav Hisda's Daughter: A Novel of Love, The Talmud and Sorcery,” which takes place in 3rd-century Babylonia as the Talmud is being created, was selected for 2012 National Jewish Book Award in Fiction and Library Journal's choice for Best 2012 Historical Fiction.

The following exchange will focus on her new book, Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say About You-Know-What.

***

Dear Maggie,

Your book examines the amusing world of sex in the Talmud. My first (and perhaps inevitably obvious) question: a couple of millennia, the enlightenment, the women's rights movement, the advent of feminism, and the sexual revolution separate us from the times of the Talmud. Is there anything we can still learn from the Talmudic sages about sex, or is your interest in the subject more a matter of historical/cultural curiosity? Whom did you write the book for, and what do you expect your reader to get from the reading experience?

Shmuel.

***

Dear Shmuel,

I think there is a lot we can learn from the Talmudic sages about sex, although I doubt I thought this when I first started studying Talmud almost 25 years ago. My initial interest in the subject was to ensure that in my trilogy of novels about Rashi's daughters I only showed them having sex that didn't violate halacha. Which meant I had to know what was halachic sex in Rashi's time, and that led me to learn what the Talmud said about it.

One of the first things I found is that the Sages believed that the quality of a child was determined by the quality of the sex act that conceived that child. In other words, the better the sex — the more pleasure for the man and the woman — the better their children. The opposite was also true; that “bad” sex produced “bad” children. Having said this, the Rabbis were obligated to define what constituted “bad” sex.

I consider their definition very much applicable today because they didn't say “bad” sex had anything to do with improper positions or types of foreplay. Rather, it included problematic situations such as: the woman feared the man, he forced her, one of them hated the other, one of them wanted a divorce or they were drunk. It seems to me that if a couple is having sex under those conditions, their poor relationship can't help but be a bad influence on their children.

We can also learn from our Sages that a woman, even a wife with her husband, must affirmatively consent to sex, and that silence is not consent. And should he force her, he must pay monetary damages beyond what the Torah demands of a man who rapes a virgin. This comes from one of the most important and well-studied pieces of Talmud, where the Rabbis perform an amazing piece of exegesis on Exodus 21:24 by interpreting “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” to mean, not that you get to knock out someone’s tooth if he knocks out yours, but that he must pay you monetary damages. These payments are for your healing, lost time from work, pain and suffering, plus extra for any permanent injury or shame.

This applies to anyone who injures another person, whether on purpose or by accident. A woman raped is treated like any other assault victim; the rapist pays for her healing, pain and suffering, shame, etc. Unlike what often happens today, the Rabbis did not blame her by questioning how she was dressed, where she was walking, or why she was out alone. She was sexually assaulted and therefore the rapist must compensate her.

I also think it is important to know that the Talmudic sages understood that sexual relations served two purposes: to procreate (be fruitful and multiply) and to pleasurably satisfy our yetzer hara (often translated as the Evil Inclination). They recognized that both men and women felt this sexual urge, which God created in us, and taught that a man was obligated to sexually satisfy his wife. It still amazes me that way back in the fourth century the Rabbis not only knew that women experienced orgasm, they knew how men could ensure that their wives did so.

Regarding whom I wrote the book for:

The twin purposes of all my books are that readers should both enjoy and learn from them. In addition, I have the goal of encouraging more women and liberal Jews to study Talmud. For too long Talmud has been the monopoly of grey-bearded men in black coats sitting around a table from which the rest of us are excluded, either because of the convoluted arguments in Aramaic or because no one would teach us.

Today we can no longer claim these excuses for not studying the holy text that, more than the Torah, has been the source of Jewish Law and traditions for over fifteen hundred years. We have excellent Talmud translations in English and modern Hebrew, yeshivas for women and non-Orthodox men, even online Talmud learning.

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