לקריאת המאמר בעברית במגזין גלויה | Originally published in Hebrew in Gluya
The bible uses the root “to know” to describe the sexual act: “now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived.” This is a knowing that is acquired through action and experience, an entering into the secret chambers of body and soul [and one that is accompanied by an opening of the eyes]. In our world – both the religious and the secular one – the act of sexuality is covered with many concealments and is often considered taboo. The prevalent cultural conception is that sex between people, as opposed to the rest of nature’s creatures, is a private and intimate act. The religious conception, handed down to us by the Torah, is that the sexual act is a holy moment, which should not be defiled by an external eye.
The general feeling is that we are speaking of a secret “locked garden,” in which hidden knowledge and treasures are hidden. This is how many men and women, for whom sexual life has yet to become a part of their daily lives, feel, and to a certain extent this is felt even by those who do live a sexual life. In the Zohar, the sexual realm continues to be a secret even when we experience it, and its luster is not dimmed. Likewise in the world of art, literature and poetry, sexuality has continued to be a topic of fascination throughout history, and is still one that occupies and provides material for artists, scholars and therapists.
Alongside the intimacy enabled by this hiddenness, which creates a safe arena of choice, learning, deciphering, creating of covenant and secret – this concealment also creates a difficulty with obtaining the extensive knowledge that has accumulated throughout the generations of human experience. While it is true that there are ‘stage directions’ in Jewish halakha for performing the commandment of onah: what is permitted and what is forbidden, what is on top and what is on the bottom, there is a deep chasm between the dry instructions and the world of action. In addition to this, things that are said in one source are often contradicted by another source within the sea of Jewish thought and halakha, and it is therefore difficult to say that there is a definitive statement about what is forbidden and permitted in the sexual realm. The arena of stringency is therefore always open to those that seek it, and when the voice of stringency gains in strength, the voice of permission and of the power of choice is weakened.
As mentioned above, the religious world focuses on boundaries, on maintaining distance and on concealment of physical closeness [and, under Christian influence, there is great weight given to avoidance of physical pleasure]. This ethos creates a large vacuum of lack of knowledge and understanding of what is good and desired. Thus, we find ourselves faced with two opposing poles: dignity, secrecy and modesty against the need to understand and know.
Our education in other mitzvot is achieved through experience and participation: This is how a child learns to pray when young, by sitting next to his father or mother in shul, this is how a child sees, learns and internalizes the laws of kashrut and charity. One who would learn all the laws of prayer solely from the Shulkhan Arukh, without even visiting a synagogue, will not know how to pray. But how will a young man or a teenage girl know what is expected of them in the sexual realm after they are married, if observing sex is considered an abomination? Is this indeed an empty space of complete lack of knowledge, or is the lack of knowledge partial, and what is missing is only concrete, detailed knowledge? Is this knowledge indeed unattainable and learnable until one experiences it in their own body, or does the silence around sex also have a role to play in intensifying our lack of knowledge?
Crawling under the Bed
The expression “It is Torah, and I must learn” appears in a string of Talmudic stories that deal with the relationship of teacher and student, between theoretical and practical study. We will look briefly at these stories and listen to the relevant voices that arise from them:
It was taught in a baraita: Rabbi Akiva said: I once entered the bathroom after [my teacher] Rabbi Yehoshua, and I learned three things from him: I learned that one should not defecate while facing east and west, but rather while facing north and south; I learned that one should not uncover himself while standing, but while sitting,; and I learned that one should not wipe with his right hand, but with his left. Ben Azzai said to him: You were impertinent to your teacher to that extent? He replied: It is Torah, and I must learn.
It was taught in a baraita: Ben Azzai said: I once entered a bathroom after Rabbi Akiva, and I learned three things from him: I learned that one should not defecate while facing east and west, but rather while facing north and south; I learned that one should not uncover himself while standing, but while sitting; and I learned that one should not wipe with his right hand, but with his left. Rabbi Yehuda said to him: You were impertinent to your teacher to that extent? He replied: It is Torah, and I must learn.
Rav Kahana entered and lay beneath Rav’s bed. He heard Rav chatting and laughing with his wife, and seeing to his needs [i.e., having relations with her]. Rav Kahana said to Rav: The mouth of Abba, Rav, is like one whom has never eaten a cooked dish! Rav said to him: Kahana, you are here? Leave, as this is an undesirable mode of behavior. Rav Kahana said to him: It is Torah, and I must learn.
(BT, Tractate Berachot 62a)
Concealment and Revealing in the Bathroom and in the Bedroom: An Analysis and Brief Explanation of the Stories
The three stories above deal with physical needs – the first two are identical, with only the characters in them changing: the student follows his teacher into the bathroom in order to learn how he should behave there. The lack of knowledge is supposedly solved by watching the teacher perform the action. While today hygiene education is undertaken through the parents guiding and directing the children at a young age, and not through imitation, one can still understand the need to learn and understand how to carry out this basic activity.
The third story takes place in the bedroom, and appears to be structured in the same way and in the same context, in which the student justifies their nosiness with the words “it is Torah and I must learn it.” In Tractate Hagigah 5b this story appears in a different context – a person comes before God after he dies, and is reminded of all the empty conversations he had throughout his life. Our story is brought there in order to emphasize that talking with a woman while having sexual relations with her is not considered “frivolous speech” that is included in the directive “do not have much conversation with the woman,” since he “must appease her” – a man must appease his wife with words and with joking in order to enable physical closeness.
Rav Kahana, the student, went under his teacher, Rav’s, bed.1 He justifies his action as a desire to learn everything from his teacher, including his bedroom activities. He hides under his teacher’s bed, attempting to maintain a certain amount of modesty, and learns: there is conversation, there is laughter, and only then comes the sexual act. However, he is not a silent student; he allows himself to react, rather rudely, to Rav’s enthusiasm during sex, and compares it to the enthusiasm of a hungry man who gobbles up his food after fasting. Rav recognizes his student’s voice and commands him to comes out from under the bed, since this is not appropriate behavior.
The story does not end with Rav’s reprimand, but rather with Rav Kahana’s response, which justifies his crossing of boundaries with the words “it is Torah, and I must learn”, just as the students who peeked into the bathroom said. Rav Kahana’s behavior reflects a conception according to which Torah life is embodied in daily life, and he views himself as a student who must learn from his teacher in all areas of life, including in the bedroom. Ostensibly, there is something beautiful in the demand to learn Torah through life experience, but the extreme nature of the story raises an ironic question: if everything is Torah and everything must be learned, perhaps there are, in fact, no boundaries when it comes to the sources of knowledge.
Following Rav Kahana
The choice of the Talmud to bring a string of stories that address private, usually concealed and silenced arenas, does not completely remove the screen from these arenas, but rather continues to hold both the embarrassment and the desire to learn, as well as the statement that an external viewing of the individual in these private moments is voyeuristic and is not appropriate behavior. In our day, after a hundred years of developmental psychology and an awareness of the stages of childhood development and learning, we teach children how to operate hygienically in the bathroom under adult supervision and guidance, and not through imitating them.
This kind of solution is not possible in sexual education. Sexual discovery arises in us and is influenced by the echoes of things that have been imprinted on us – through sight, speech, reading and the surrounding culture. And yet, it is an initial discovery. It appears that the gap between sexual knowledge and the convention (and perhaps understanding) that it can only be attained privately, occupied the sages of the Talmud as much as it does us, today.
In this day and age, we are ostensibly flooded and surrounded by available information, but it is not always healthy and sound information. Many times, it is misleading information which creates a distorted vision of reality and internalizes behavior which does not necessarily represent sexual health and respect for ourselves and our partners, and does not lead to growth and to enjoyment of the light of sexuality. These arenas actually suppress our ability to continue to know the “Torah” within sexuality. However, sexual curiosity is a double-edged sword: It can lead to the imbuement of misleading, imprecise or distorted information, such as pornography, and on the other hand, it can lead to a gaining of age-appropriate information and to a deepening of our listening to our bodies, also within our sexual lives.
The ability to see ‘Torah’ in all areas of life, including those viewed as lowly or concealed, testifies not only to the importance of physical health. The ‘Torah’ that Rav Kahana learns from his rabbi is composed of all the stages of a couple getting closer and all the stages of intimacy. This is a radical statement, which goes beyond the concept of “there is no place without His presence” – that God is present in every time and every place. The term ‘Torah’ expresses not just the divine commandment, but everything that is important and holy, including ways of behavior and daily life.
When we relate to sexual life as ‘Torah’, it becomes clear why we should not be ashamed of curiosity in this realm. There is no shame in searching for knowledge – anatomical, physiological, hormonal, psychological, and so on. In a world in which we seek to maintain our personal space and protect the intimate covenant between sexual partners, learning ‘Torah’ in order to improve the meeting between a couple should be a clear, a-priori duty. Not in Rav Kahana’s extreme and inappropriate way, but rather as a demand of us to relate to sexual life, as well, as Torah that requires learning, while maintaining the appropriate boundaries.
If so, we must examine the question of the correct way to learn the Torah of intimate life in a way that will preserve it as ‘Torah’ and its study as ‘appropriate.’ The correct balance between the desire to develop and respect the sanctity of privacy and the desire to know in order to live, is a continuing journey that accompanies the passion to know.
Translated by Sara Tova Brody
