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1968

The New Morality under Religious Auspices (1968)

Marriage & Sexuality
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A Jewish Response to the New Morality (1968)

I. Israel: am, goy. But at beginning: mishpahah. Stability Jewish family (despite silly jokes). Now: divorce, alcoholism, delinquency, and inter-marriage. Story: Who needs a home? Now have to add: New morality. Two versions or components: a) Hugh Heffner – Playboy – “bunnies”; b) Sex community – personalistic and anti-tradition. II. Heffner: bachelor morality – “cool,” impersonal, woman inferior: depersonalized to “thing.”III. Morality: based on home, family, marriage. Talmud: every successful marriage a triangle – Shechinah ish and ishah – esh and Name of God. Kiddushin – holy and Nisuin – elevated.Purposes Marriage: 2 accounts of creation: perpetuation, companionship. a) Peru u’revu – Hillel & Shammai. Need for J. pop. explosion. b) Lo tov heyot ha-adam levado. Raavad: Sex and sexuality. Y. Z. Mecklenburg tov. Also: animals created with mates, man must yearn for one, earn her love. (Talmud – always realistic and unprudish – yet delicate, sensitive. HAKOL YODIN KALLAH LAMAH NIKHNESAM LE’CHUPPAH)IV. Approach to Sex as such: Two extreme views sex – both based on common source. Gnosticism – duality worlds, contempt this world. Hence against strongest involvement, which is sexual love. So: anti-sexual.This antagonism expressed 2 opposite ways: abuse or non-use, libertinism or asceticism, pagan-orgiastic or Christian-monastic.Modern variants: pagan–Hafner; ascetic–celibacy. Judaism: opposed paganism. Giluy arayot. Yehareg v’al yaavor. Reading on Yom Kippur: Perishah me’arayot.Also opposed: Christian – “Better marry than burn.” Jesus and Paul bachelors. We: Kiddushin – Humans sanctify, can desecrate. Judaism’s Sex Theory: no contradiction betw. morality and sexuality.V. Hence: Judaism unequivocally opposed to Heffner’s “New Morality.” Remarkably, J. opposition to Playboy not only because latter exploitative – but: latter too anti-sexual!Second version: sex community. Ag[ain]st Heffner: discard trad. moral restraints. But diametrically opposed on depersonalization. E…
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Article

New Morality (1969)

In "The Lessons of History," Will and Arial Durant, two somewhat older students of morality, past and present, declare: "Out of every 100 new ideas 99 or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. "No man, however brilliant or well informed, can come in one life­time to such fullness or understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history."A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to con- surae in chaos both the individual and the group.”Dr. Ralph R. Greenson, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA's school of medicine, speaks of that same river of fire:"The 'cool' set is accustomed to quick and easy gratifications. Instant warmth and instant sex makes for puny love, cool sex and a turning to pot and LSD. The emphasis on security as the goal of life makes for peace of mindlessness and emotional uninvolvement."Love is risk-taking. It implies daring to be vulnerable and hurt. The search for security is the enemy of loving."
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The New Morality and the Tradition of Periodic Abstinence (1969)

Let me begin by acquainting you with my bias. I am an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and a teacher of Jewish philosophy. But while my frame of reference is quite particular, it is not, at least for the purposes of this lecture, going to be particularistic. Our problem, in this first lecture on the New Morality, is one of universal concern and especially the concern of those whose consciences and professional commitments inspire in them a feeling of responsibility towards society and its future. I will, therefore, attempt to keep theological issues to a minimum, whereas the same will not necessarily be true for the second lecture. In talking about my bias, I would like, meanwhile, to explain why I am late.Leaving on the American Airlines jet from LaGuardia, we were delayed 15 minutes because radar failed. Coming into Chicago, we had to wait ten minutes because the Delta plane before us blew its tires and had to be towed away. As a pulpit Rabbi, I naturally thought, in these two events, a symbol of a sort. The first one indicated that if you don’t have a fixed point by which to measure other events that are in flux, if you have no absolute values by which to judge the transient moves and ephemeral fashions of the day, you are in trouble, and you are open to disaster. The second delay meant to me that if you’re so rigid that there is no “give,” no feel, no flexibility, no air in your tires, then you have to be towed away because you cannot compete in life. These are the limits or poles of my bias and with this I begin.Bachelor moralityThe term, New Morality, generally covers two attitudes. The first one is identified with the name of the High Priest of this particular movement, Hugh Hefner — with his bible, Playboy, his new dispensation, his temples and priestesses and all the rest. It is fundamentally an exploitative view, one which regards women as essentially sexual objects. It demands of its communicants that they be “cool,” form no profound relationships, no involvements.…
Marriage & Sexuality