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Correspondence

July 1966

Exchange with Saul Bernstein about "A Hedge of Roses" (1966)

Marriage & Sexuality

1. Saul Bernstein to R. Lamm

1. Saul Bernstein to R. Lamm (July 14, 1966)

1. Saul Bernstein to R. Lamm (July 14, 1966)

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Article

A Hedge of Roses: Book Review (1966)

This little volume endeavors to explain the profound significance of the Jewish laws of family purity. Extremely well-written, it should be made required reading for all those who ignore or belittle these crucial teachings of the Torah. The author does not preach – he explains his subject in terms intelligible and meaningful to contemporary minds; in language simple and effective.Among many important points made by the author, this reviewer would single out his emphasis that, in enquiring into the explanations of mitzvos, “we want to know not why G-d commanded them but what He wanted us to learn from them” (p. 49). He warns that the observance of “the law must contain independent of and unconditioned by the values, reasons, and pur-poses we believe we have found in it.” (p. 50)Needless to say, the effort to cover large areas of thought in limited space is bound to lead to some over-simplifications (thus the reader may conclude that worn-en are excused by the Torah from all time-oriented positive precepts; or will fail to find in the author’s / definition of Tumoh any clue to Tumas Sheretz.) Also a few formulations could perhaps be improved upon (the Mikvoh is not “an ancient institution,” p. 35, but a Divine one, and the Kohen is not forbidden to be in the same ‘room’ with a corpse, p.80, but in the same house.)These are, however, mere minutiae. There is only one suggestion of more basic importance that this reviewer would like to offer: an elimination of the remarks on page 59 that can be read as an acceptanceof the concept of the honeymoon. This concept is so foreign to us in its essence, and in practice it is such an utter obstacle to the observance of Taharas Hamish-pocho, that it deserves the same clear and complete rejection that the author has accorded to other aspects of our contemporary mores.While offering this suggestion, the reviewer wants to express at the same time his hope that this fine work will succeed in reaching all those within our American Jew…
Marriage & Sexuality

Article

A Hedge of Roses: Jewish Insights Into Sex and Marriage, Part 2 (1969)

In order to appreciate the implications of Family Purity, it is important to understand, as well, what it is not.For one thing, it is not the kind of superstition that, in other cultures, has stigmatized the menstruant as repulsive, placed upon her mysterious and stringent taboos, and banished her from the community for the duration of her menses. Maimonides, the eminent twelfth-century Talmudist, philosopher, and physician, forcefully rejected the superstitious beliefs and practices of the Sabeans, Magi, and other Eastern peoples concerning menstruation, and emphasized the spiritual content of Judaism’s teachings.״ The Torah’s legislation is simply not of one piece with, for instance, the primitive customs recorded in Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Unfortunately, such identification of the Torah’s laws with primitive pagan and mythological cultures often does take place in the mind of the contemporary Jew or Jewess who is uninitiated into the world of Torah and the Jewish Tradition and who cannot, therefore, view Jewish Family Purity from a broader perspective and greater knowledgeability. A terminological confusion is largely responsible for this unhappy distortion of the Torah’s larger purposes and the intrinsic meaning of its commandments. Tuharah and tum’ah (and the corresponding adjectives tahor and tamei) are usually translated as “pure” and “impure.” It is this deceptive semantic delinquency that leads to the interpretation of these categories as denoting some kind of intrinsic mysterious abhorrence that possesses the person of the menstruant and that must be purged by some magical incantation.But this is clearly not so. According to Jewish teaching, nothing whatever happens to or changes in the person or character or value of the individual, man or woman, designated as “impure.” No special quality makes such an individual inferior in any way to any other person re-fen־ed to as “pure.” The terms ta-harah and tum’ah signify halakhic or legal categories…
Marriage & Sexuality

Correspondence

Exchange with R. Rackman about "A Hedge of Roses" and the Jewish Concept of Time (1966)

Dear Norman, Thanks very much for sending me a copy of your A Hedge of Roses. It is beautifully done. However, I was really intrigued by your chapter on the sanctity of time. Beginning with page 75 you make a point which I had made in my first essay in Tradition. I thought it was original and I had offered it with tongue in cheek. Are there Gedolim who have advanced this thought? If so, I would be gratified to know. I, too, came upon the same conclusion almost twenty years ago. Best wishes from house to house for a Chag Kasher ve-Someach, Yours as ever, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman
Marriage & Sexuality