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Back to Question of the Week Q: Dear Rabbi, I understand that sex outside of marriage is forbidden. I can understand this applying in the past because people got married at a younger age but what about for modern times when people get married at the age of 25 or older. Is it still forbidden to have sex outside of marriage for observant jews even if they are in a loving monogamous relationship? Or is it even an issue at all? thanks a lot, pino |
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A: Dear Pino: Well, one of the things that most human beings love to talk about is sex, that's for sure, but for your humble Reb on the Web, it's a difficult issue, because there is no one simple answer. The Torah tells us early on that sex within marriage is a primary value: God built the rib that he took from the man into a woman, and God brought her to the man. The man said, 'Now this is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She shall be called Woman (Ishah) because she was taken from man (ish).' A man shall therefore leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not embarrassed by one another. (Genesis 2:22-25) Obviously, this story raises profound questions about gender relations in the Torah, but let's discuss those another time. For today, let's just note that these verses portray sexuality as normal and natural within marriage. A violation of the marriage covenant is condemned in the strongest terms: Do not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, since this will defile her. (Leviticus 18:20) Again, we note the unequal gender relations of this verse, but for our purposes this is but one example where adultery or other forbidden sexual relations is prohibited by the Torah. The later rabbinic tradition also condemned acts of lust or non-marital sexuality; these are discussed at length in an interesting Reform rabbinic responsa on the subject. Marriage and family are understood as holy obligations; making a covenant with another human being is part of fulfilling our covenant with God. Now, it's possible that in their time, a strong ethic of sexuality in marriage was actually protective of women and children, since it may have served as a deterrent to men fathering children and then not supporting them. This could have been very problematic in the nomadic, clan-based society of our Biblical ancestors, and of course, single mothers who are not receiving child support might argue it's a big problem today, too. However, that's not really the situation we're in today, as your question points out. People wait longer to start careers, they have access to birth control, and they can have long, caring, committed monogamous (but non-marital) relationships- something which would have been unheard of in premodern society. Not being married is no longer considered shameful, even if there is a great deal of social pressure to do so. So what should a serious liberal Jew do? Well, although there is no document (at least, none that I'm aware of) from a liberal Jewish denomination which actually endorses non-marital (hetero)sexuality, there are other approaches to evaluating how "bad" it is. A beautiful ethical framework for understanding sexual relationships is articulated by (my teacher) R. Elliott Dorff, in A Rabbinic Letter on Intimate Relations, published by the Rabbinical Assembly. R. Dorff describes eight values that should affect Jewish sexual decision-making: 1) Seeing oneself and one's partner as the creations of God 2) Respect for others 3) Modesty 4) Honesty 5) Fidelity 6) Health and safety (including emotional safety) 7) The possibility of a child 8) The Jewish quality of a relationship Thus, while R. Dorff, and, I would suspect, the vast majority of Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative rabbis, would not explicitly say that premarital sex is the Jewish ideal, some premarital sex is better than other kinds. If a relationship is characterized by honesty, respect, commitment, mutuality, discretion, and so on, it is much preferable to a "one-night stand," where the two (or more!) people involved are only trying to satisfy physical desires without much respect for the soul of their partner. Sometimes our actions may fall short of an abstract ideal, yet there is often no simple definition of right and wrong when two people are not hurting each other in any obvious way. There are a variety of Jewish values at work in many kinds of life-decisions, and thinking about all of those values helps us to make our choices within a broader system of Jewish ethics. NJL |
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