Misplaced Pages

Forbidden relationships in Judaism

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Newman Luke (talk | contribs) at 12:08, 15 February 2010 (group biblical material together). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 12:08, 15 February 2010 by Newman Luke (talk | contribs) (group biblical material together)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Forbidden relationships in Judaism are those intimate relationships which are forbidden per the various prohibitions in the Torah, as interpreted by the Talmud of Rabbinic Judaism, or by Karaite Judaism, together with a number of other subsequent injunctions.

In the Bible

Bestiality

Bestiality is prohibited by the Covenant Code of the Book of Exodus, and by the Holiness Code of Leviticus; the prohibition occurs in two distinct parts of the latter, both of which emphasise that bestiality is prohibited both for men and for women.

Like the law code of the Hittites, the Covenant Code sets the death penalty as the punishment for the crime, although the Hittites made an exception, not present in the Covenant Code, for sexual intercourse with horses. The second time the Holiness Code forbids bestiality, it goes further than the Covenant Code, insisting that not just the human perpetrators, but also the animal participants, should be killed if bestiality is committed; according to the Talmud, the purpose of also killing the animals involved was to obliterate all physical memory of the crime.

Exogamy

The Biblical position on exogamous marriage is somewhat unspecified, except in relation to intermarriage with a Canaanite, which the majority of the Israelite patriarchs are depicted as criticising. This attitude is formalised in the Deuteronomic Code, which forbids intermarriage with Canaanites.

However, intermarriage to non-Canaanites clearly occurs on several occasions in the Torah, and early parts of the Deuteronomic history, without direct criticism; for example, King David is described as marrying the daughter of the king of Geshur, and Bathsheba as having married Uriah the Hittite. Deuteronomy itself implies that intermarriage to Edomites or Egyptians was acceptable, by permitting the grandchildren of such people to be treated as Israelites

Incest

Main article: Incest in the Bible

As with most religions, incest is forbidden by Jewish religious law. However, the exact definition of incest does not necessarily correspond to the laws which western nations have against incest; in particular, they are not based on degree of relation. The Book of Leviticus outlines the categories of kinship which constitute "incest" according to Jewish religious law. As literally stated in Leviticus, they are:

Adultery

According to the Holiness Code, and the Deuteronomic Code, Adultery is forbidden. In the Priestly Code of the Book of Numbers, it is required that a pregnant woman suspected of adultery be subjected to the Ordeal of Bitter Water, a form of trial by ordeal, if her husband had become fiercely jealous about the pregnancy (literally has the storm-wind of jealousy), and there are not enough witnesses able to confirm the woman's guilt or innocence.

The punishment for wilful adultery, according to the Holiness Code, and the Deuteronomic Code, was essentially the death penalty, for both participants. If the woman was also a slave, the Holiness Code treats adultery more leniently, arguing that neither the woman nor her accomplice should be killed for the crime; instead it would simply have the woman flogged.

Special rules for priests

The Holiness Code of Leviticus, requires that Israelite priests are free from all physical defects. On a related note, it insists that Israelite priests may not marry a divorcee, nor a prostitute (Hebrew: zonah). The masoretic text mentions the term dishonoured (Hebrew:halala; literally profaned) as part of this prohibition, but it is uncertain whether this is merely part of the reference to prostitutes, or whether it refers to a distinct class of person; the septuagint appears only to list two categories of woman, namely those who are both prostitutes and outcasts (Greek gynaika pornin kai bebelomenen), and those who are divorcees (Greek gynaika ekbeblemenen en apo andros autes).

The Holiness Code goes on to demand that the Israelite high priest must only marry a virgin of his own people, spelling out that this excludes marriage to any of the people forbidden to an ordinary Israelite priest, and also forbids marriage to a widow. According to the regulations in the Book of Ezekiel, even ordinary priests should be forbidden to marry widows, unless the previous husband of the widow had also been a priest.

Forbidden sexual acts

Intercourse during menstruation

Sexual intercourse with a menstruating woman is often regarded with disgust; the Torah is no different, as the Holiness Code twice prohibits it. Israelite society is not the only culture with a formal prohibition against intercourse during menstruation; the Dogon, for example, also strictly forbid it.

Male-male sex acts

Main article: LGBT topics and Judaism

In the masoretic text, the Holiness Code of Leviticus uses the phrase the bedding of a woman to refer to a specific act involving a man (Hebrew: ish) and a 'male' (Hebrew: zachar), which it forbids.

Orthodox

Orthodox Judaism inteprets this regulation as forbidding all sexual acts between two (or more) males. Leviticus 18:14 specifically prohibits such relationships with one's father or uncle.

There are three reasons Orthodox rabbis give for men having sex with men being prohibited in Jewish law:

  1. It is a defiance of gender anatomy, which is unlike God's intention of procreation and sexual activity
  2. The sexual arousal involved results in a vain emission of semen
  3. It may lead a man to abandon his family
Reform

Reform Judaisim interprets the regulation as forbidding men from using sex as a form of ownership over men. Reform Jewish authors have revisited the Leviticus text and ask why the text mentions that one should not lie with a man “as with a woman.” If it is to be assumed that the Torah does not waste words, the authors ask why the Torah includes this extra clause. Most Reform Jews suggest that since intercourse involved possession (one of the ways in which a man ‘acquired’ a wife was to have intercourse with her), similar to the Christian theology of using sex to 'consumate' a marriage, it was abhorrent that a man might acquire another man – it is not the act of homosexual intercourse itself which is abhorrent, but using this act to acquire another man and therefore confuse the gender boundary.

In later Judaism

In addition to the intimate relationships forbade by the Torah, both Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism forbid a number of other relationships.

Some of the relationships forbade by the bible are regarded as such a serious sin in Jewish law that that one should be willing to die, rather than commit them; these relationships - incest and menstruating women - are often referred to as arayot (Hebrew: עריות), since the Torah describes with the euphemistic phrase gillui arayot, meaning uncover the nakedness of. The Talmud argues that biblical commandments are not so important that one need commit self-sacrifice, in order to obey them, except for the prohibitions against idolatry, murder, and arayot.

Exogamy

Main article: Interfaith marriage in Judaism

The Deuteronomic law forbade marriage to Canaanites, but the classical rabbis forbade marriage with the other nationalities. According to the Talmud, marriage between a Jew and a convert to Judaism was not regarded as intermarriage. Hence, all the Biblical passages which appear to support intermarriages, such as that of Joseph to Asenath, and that of Ruth, were regarded by the classical rabbis as having occurred only after the foreign spouse had converted to Judaism.

The situation is slightly complicated by the fact that the Talmudic writers viewed Christianity as being at the gate of Judaism, and hence marriages between Christians and Jews were not seen by them as prohibited. Nevertheless, in 1236 Moses of Coucy tried to break up such marriages

Consanguinuity and Incest

Main article: Jewish views of incest

The classical rabbis declared that there were relationships within which marriage constituted incest, in addition to those mentioned by the bible. These additional relationships were termed seconds (Hebrew: sheniyyot), and included the wives of a man's:

Marriages forbidden in the bible were regarded by the rabbis of the middle ages as invalid - as if they had never occurred; any children born to such a couple were regarded as bastards, and the relatives of the spouse were not regarded as forbidden relations for a further marriage. On the other hand, those relationships which were prohibited due to qualifying as seconds, and so forth, were regarded as wicked, but still valid; while they might have pressured such a couple to divorce, any children of the union were still seen as legitimate.

Adultery

In the classical era, the rules about adultery changed somewhat; the death penalty was abolished in 40 AD (as it was for all other crimes). Furthermore, the Talmud forbade conviction if the woman had not been forewarned, in the presence of two witnesses, against committing adultery, or if she had not known the intimate details of the laws against it.

Exclusions from the assembly

Main article: Qahal § Biblical exclusions

The Deuteronomic Code prohibits men from taking part in the qahal of Yahweh, if they are a mamzer, or they have been forcibly emasculated; their descendants, up to the tenth generation, were also prohibited by this law code from taking part in the qahal of Yahweh. The qahal was a subset of the wider 'edah; both these Hebrew terms (and several others) are usually translated into English as congregation or assembly, although in some locations horde and swarm are better renderings of 'edah.

The Talmudic writers interpreted the prohibition against such people joining the qahal as a rule against ordinary Jews marrying such people. No explanation of the phrase mamzer is given in the masoretic text, but the Septuagint translates it as son of a prostitute (Greek:ek pornes); the Talmud argues that it refers to a child born either of incest (as defined by the Bible), or of adultery, though this is complicated by the Jewish definition of these things.

Special rules for priests

Though high priests were regarded, by the classical rabbis, as being subject to the biblical prohibition against marrying widows, there there was a modification to these rules; the Talmud permits a high priest to remain married to a widow, if he had married her while he was merely an ordinary priest. Furthermore, the biblical demand that a high priest should marry a virgin of his own people was interpreted as additionally banning marriage between a high priest and a convert to Judaism..

Agreeing that the bible forbade priests from marrying divorcees and prostitutes, the Talmudic writers interpreted the biblical reference to dishonoured (Hebrew: halala) as a distinct category of women forbade from marrying priests. Thus they forbade marriage between a priest and a widow, if her former brother-in-law had refused to perform a levirate marriage, and she had consequently performed the Halitzah ceremony. On the same basis, the Talmudic writers also forbade marriage between a priest and any women captured during warfare, as they preferred to err on the side of caution, and therefore suspect that these women would have been assaulted by their captors. They did, however, allow marriage to such a woman if witnesses had been with her for the entire period of her capture, and the witnesses confirmed that no such assault took place.

Additionally, the Talmudic rabbis regarded any divorcee or prostitute who married a priest, in defiance of these rules, as becoming a dishonoured woman by doing so; so too were any female children, resulting from such a union, classed among dishonoured women.

Although the first century destruction of the temple in Jerusalem resulted in the priesthood being redundant, the Torah frequently portrays the Israelite priesthood as an hereditary position, and so the rabbis of the middle ages regarded these regulations as applying, still, to all men who claim to be descended from such priests; such claims can often be detected in modern surnames resembling the Hebrew word kohen, the term used in most parts of the masoretic text to mean priest (the cognates in related languages, however, mean soothsayer).

Egyptian practices

The bible's prohibitions on incest and bestiality, along with a prohibition against passing children through the fire MLK, are collectively introduced by a condemnation of the behaviour of the Canaanites and of the Egyptians. Though the text doesn't identify what it means by the activities of Egypt, some Jewish writers, in the middle ages, argued that lesbianism was one of them; hence, Orthodox Judaism prohibits lesbianism.

However, in Orthodox Judaism, female-female sex acts are not regarded as a loss of virginity, and therefore do not prevent the participants from future marriage to someone claiming descent from an Israelite priest. Neither is such activity deemed to constitute adultery; consequently, a lesbian affair is not regarded as appropriate grounds for divorce.

Age

Main article: Marriagable Age in Judaism

The marriageable age, in Judaism, is highly gender-specific. According to the Talmud, it was permissible for an adult male to have sexual intercourse with a 3 year old girl, if she was maritally single; girls could be betrothed (Hebrew: erusin) and married (Hebrew: nissu'in) at this age. By contrast, the earliest point at which a male is permitted to become betrothed (erusin) is the age of majority; for a male, the age of majority, in Judaism, is usually 13 years of age plus one day, but could be as late as 35 years plus one day, in certain circumstances.

A girl younger than the age of majority could be compelled to marry against her will, although she also had the right to an subsequently annul the marriage. However, the Talmud did not allow the marriage to be annulled if it was the girl's first marriage, if it had been arranged by her father; in earlier classical Judaism, one major faction - the House of Shammai - even argued that such annulment rights only existed during the betrothal period (erusin), and not once the actual marriage (nissu'in) had begun. If she exercised this right, a decision known in Hebrew as mi'un (literally meaning refusal/denial/protest), it lead to a true annulment, not a divorce; a divorce document (get) was not necessary, and a girl who did this was not regarded by legal regulations as a divorcee, in relation to the marriage.

Despite the young threshold for marriage, marriages with a large age gap between the spouses (eg. between a young man and an old woman) were thoroughly opposed by the classical rabbis. In the middle ages, many rabbis tried to abolish child marriage altogether; this, however, was due to their distaste for mi'un, rather than due to any concern about paedophilia. Effectively, child marriage became nearly obsolete in Judaism; in modern times, it is an extremely rare event, as most areas with large Jewish communities have national laws against it.

Inability to give consent

Main article: Moral agency in Judaism § Marriage

In the bible, marriage is treated as if it were an act of purchase. It was thus seen in Jewish tradition as a civil transaction, and therefore as requiring the consent of the contracting parties; in the bible these were the groom and the bride's father, but in later Jewish tradition it came to be seen as an arrangement between the bride and groom.

Like many cultures and nations, the insane (Hebrew: shoteh) were not regarded as having moral agency, in Judaism, and therefore were forbidden from getting married. As with many legal systems, insanity has a somewhat nuanced definition; in classical Judaism, insane, as far as it concerns questions of moral agency, refers to:

Classical Judaism required that all testimony be given verbally, and that all witnesses be able to hear; deaf-mutes (Hebrew:heresh) - people who are both deaf and mute - were regarded as having no moral agency at all, as far as ritual and law were concerned. Thus it was the Talmud's opinion that deaf-mutes were prohibited by the bible from getting married, although the Talmud itself insists that deaf-mutes should be allowed to marry if the marriage and betrothal were conducted using some form of sign language. Due to the Talmud's opinion of the bible's intent, any marriage of a deaf-mute was not regarded as having as much validity as normal marriages, leading to a number of complications.

References

  1. ^ Exodus 22:19
  2. Leviticus 18:23
  3. ^ Leviticus 20:15
  4. ^ Leviticus 20:16
  5. ^ Peake's commentary on the Bible, ad. loc.
  6. This article incorporates text from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article "crimes", a publication now in the public domain.
  7. Genesis 24:2–4
  8. Genesis
  9. Deuteronomy 7:3
  10. 2 Samuel 3:3
  11. 2 Samuel 11:3
  12. Deuteronomy 23:4–9
  13. Leviticus 18:20
  14. Leviticus 20:10
  15. Deuteronomy 22:22
  16. Peake's commentary on the Bible ad loc
  17. Numbers 5:11–31
  18. Leviticus 20:10
  19. Deuteronomy 22:22
  20. ^ Leviticus 19:20
  21. Leviticus 21:17
  22. Blue Letter Bible, Lexicon results for zanah (Strong's H2181), incorporating Strong's concordance (1890) and Gesenius's Lexicon (1857)
  23. Leviticus 21:7
  24. for the translation of the latter word as dishonoured, This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "profane", a publication now in the public domain.
  25. translations including the New International Version take this view
  26. translations including the King James Version take this view
  27. literally a woman cast out by her man
  28. Leviticus 21, LXX
  29. Leviticus 21:13
  30. Leviticus 21:14
  31. Leviticus 21:14
  32. Ezekiel 44:22
  33. Paula Weideger, Menstruation and menopause : the physiology and psychology, the myth and the reality, (1975), pages 126-127
  34. Leviticus 18:19
  35. Leviticus 20:18
  36. Beverly Strassmann, Predictors of fecundability and conception waits among the Dogon of Mali in American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1996), volume 105, pages 167-184
  37. Leviticus 18:22
  38. Eisenberg 2005, p. 327.
  39. Eisenberg 2005, p. 325
  40. http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/a-to-z-of-reform-judaism/contemporary-issues/homosexuality.html
  41. Eisenberg 2005, p. 324.
  42. Sanhedrin, 74a
  43. Kiddushin 68b
  44. Berakhot 28a
  45. Kiddushin 5:4 (Tosefta)
  46. Genesis Rabbah, 65
  47. Isaac ben Sheshet, Responsa, No. 119
  48.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Intermarriage". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  49. Moses of Coucy, Sefer Mitzvot ha-Gadol, 112
  50. ^ Shulchan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 16, 1
  51. Yebamot 94b
  52. Sanhedrin 41
  53. Cite error: The named reference Sot12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  54. Cite error: The named reference JewEncAdu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  55. ^ Deuteronomy 23:2–4 (verses 1-3 in some English translations)
  56. Leviticus 4:13–14
  57. ^ This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "assembly", a publication now in the public domain.
  58. for example, in Judges 14:8, 'edah is used to refer to a group of bees
  59. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "marriage laws". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  60. Deuteronomy 23:2-4, LXX
  61.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Mamzer". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  62. Yebamot 77a
  63. Leviticus 21:17 (in the King James Version, it is verse 14 instead)
  64. Yebamot 24a
  65. ^ Ketubot 22a
  66. ^ Ketubot 27a
  67. This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "Priest", a publication now in the public domain.
  68. Leviticus 18:3
  69. Joseph Karo, Shulkhan Arukh, 3:20:2
  70. ^ Beit Sh'muel , ad. loc. based on Maimonidies
  71. Niddah 44b
  72. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Majority". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  73. Kiddushin, 50b
  74. Yebamot 107a
  75. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Mi'un". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  76. Yebamot 107a
  77. Yebamot 108a
  78. Yebamot 44a
  79. Sanhedrin 76a
  80. Yebamot 109a
  81. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "marriage". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  82. ^ This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "marriage", a publication now in the public domain.
  83. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Insanity". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  84. Erubin 65a
  85. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Deaf and Dumb in Jewish Law". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
Halakha (Jewish religious law)
Ethics
Ritual purity
Modesty
Agrarian laws
Halakhic principles
Punishment
Related boxes
Category: