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2001

Hedges, Roses, and Thorns: Sex and Sexuality in the Mesorah (Yom Iyun: Sexuality

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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…
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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

Correspondence

Exchange with Yisrael Kashkin about "A Hedge of Roses" and the Purpose of Mitzvot (2005)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Several months ago we got together at your office to discuss Modern Orthodoxy and some related issues. This followed my epistolary request to meet you in person and your gracious offer for the same. I wanted to follow up by saying thank you again and by sending you two items of interest. The first is a photo of the first page of the Rav’s letter to the secretary at the Maimonides School. Seth Faber didn’t have a photocopy of this page so I snapped a copy using my Palm device. The image isn’t the best but it shows the Rav, the Rav’s salutation and subject, and the early part of the text. The second item is a photocopy of the piece from Hedge of Roses that I had commented on. My difficulty with the piece is twofold. Firstly, the piece says that the woman’s sense of the holiness of her time far exceeds that of a man. I don’t know how such a thing can be known. But I also don’t know why it is necessary to create a context out of the matter. It should say that I do recognize the era in which this was written and the temptation to address the cries of feminism in such a manner – not that I agree with the approach. Secondly, and most importantly, the piece suggests that the purpose of mitzvahs is to counter our deficiencies. Mitzvahs do function in part in this way (Rav Hirsch on Vayikra). But mitzvahs also engage a pre-existing kedushah. We see this principle in Yevamos 5a where the Gemara discusses the presence of a specific commandment obligating Cohanim to shave their heads if they are struck with leprosy. The Gemara says that the extra push is needed because Cohanim have extra kedushah. We see in general that spiritual growth obligates a person in additional mitzvah related activities, not less. Indeed, the Zies Ra’anan (Magen Avraham) says that men are obligated in positive time-bound commandments because they have a stronger yetzer tov than women do (Commentary on Yalkut Shemoni, Shmuel 1:1). The practical ramification of all this is twofold. Firs…
Marriage & Sexuality