June 8, 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.

This exchange focuses on her new book, Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say About You-Know-What. Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here.

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Dear Maggie, 

In your previous response you told us that even though the Talmud contains a lot of dated, bogus views on important questions, there is still a lot of wisdom and inspiration there and that this is true when it comes to sex as it is on any other subject.

It seems fitting to end this exchange with a couple of examples of “sex segments” from the Talmud that you find wise and illuminating. Your book contains a lot of curious little facts and stories – which ones do you personally feel have the most substance? 

I’d like to thank you again for participating in this exchange.

Yours,

Shmuel.

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Dear Shmuel,

In the order in which they appear in “Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know-What,” here are the ones I find particularly wise, illuminating, and/or substantial:

According to what most people, myself included, thought happened in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did not have sex until after they ate the Forbidden Fruit. But that is not what the Talmud says. Here is how the Rabbis envisioned the sixth day scenario: God gathered the dust that would become Adam in the first hour and formed this into a shapeless mass in the second. In the third hour Adam’s limbs were fashioned, in the fourth his soul entered, and in the fifth he stood upright. Adam named the animals in the sixth hour, and Eve became his mate in the seventh. Now things get interesting. In the eighth hour, the two went up onto the bed and came down as four (Adam, Eve, and two children–Cain and his twin sister). In the ninth hour Adam was commanded not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, in the tenth he sinned by eating it anyway, and in the eleventh he was judged guilty of sinning. As punishment, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden in the twelfth hour. For those not paying careful attention, note that Adam and Eve were intimate before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge and sinned. Also, by giving Cain and his brothers twin sisters, this scenario explains where their wives came from. Obviously the Talmudic rabbis knew the twelve hours in the Garden of Eden, like the six days of Creation, were a great deal longer than the hours and days we experience today.

Speaking of Adam and Eve, while the Torah clearly uses the plural to command them to “be fruitful and multiply,” the Rabbis ruled that while a man was obligated to procreate, a woman was not. You might think this is merely one more example of the Talmud’s androcentric worldview, but keep in mind that while procreation is pleasurable for a man, childbirth is not only painful for a woman but could be deadly, especially back then. Thus, wanting to avoid having a woman commanded to do something that might kill her, the Sages not only let her off the hook, but also recommended various contraceptives (some of which apparently worked). Most important, a woman’s freedom to prevent pregnancy is still halacha today.

I always thought it unfair, and sexist, that while the Torah obligates both men (after a seminal discharge) and women (after they finish menstruating) to immerse in a mikvah, the Talmud grants men the leniency of washing with water while making women wait an additional seven clean days before immersing. At least the Rabbis recognized the inequity and provided an apologetic: “Why did the Torah ordain that menstrual impurity lasts seven days? Because being in frequent contact with his wife, a husband might lose his desire for her. The Torah therefore ordained that she be unclean and forbidden to her husband for seven days so (when they are permitted to resume marital relations) she will be as beloved by him as in their bridal chamber.” In other words, absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

Many people question the Torah’s disparity between the seven days a new mother is unclean after bearing a son, as opposed to her fourteen days of impurity after having a girl. Clearly the Rabbis did too, because they provided another benign explanation. “Why does a couple wait seven days after a son’s birth to resume marital relations (as a mother, I would think the answer was obvious)? And “Why does the Torah ordain that with a male child the mother is clean after seven days and that we circumcise him on the eighth day? So that the guests shall not enjoy themselves while his father and mother are sad.” In plain English, if the mother were still unclean when her son was circumcised, everyone else would be partying at the banquet in his honor, yet she and her husband would be forbidden to each other and thus not even allowed to touch.

There is a tradition that Torah/Talmud study should not end with an unhappy or derogatory text. In that spirit, I concluded in Section 50 that there may be sex after death. For the Rabbis teach that “Three things (in this world) are a semblance of the World to Come: Shabbat, sunshine, and using the bed.” Now if using the bed, which means pretty much the same thing as going to bed with in English, is merely a semblance of Paradise, just imagine what pleasures must await us there.

Thanks for inviting me to be interviewed,

Maggie