Hello Rabbi,

The Rabbi already mentioned on the site that the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai.

I didn’t understand what the problem is with his statement, and why not rule in accordance with him.
And I’ll explain:
Rabbi Ilai is not giving legitimacy to sin. He is not saying, ‘Go sin.’
He is only saying that it is worse to sin publicly and cast off the yoke. Therefore, if you are already sinning, do it privately, so as not to desecrate God’s name, so as not to receive a stigma from society, and so on.

He is not ‘permitting’ sin. He is only saying that a public sin is more severe, and therefore why put yourself into a more severe situation if your inclination allows you to sin privately.

What is the problem with that?
Why not rule that way?

The problem is that this assumes determinism. A person has to struggle and not give himself a pass. Everyone knows that a private sin is preferable to a public one. That is not Rabbi Ilai’s novelty. The novelty is the permission to transgress in private when you estimate that you will transgress in public. And about that the Rif and the Rosh wrote in Moed Katan 16 that the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai.

I wonder whether this is really a matter of “giving himself a pass.”
I mean a “supervised” and “idealistic” situation in which a person foresees that he will most likely fail [if one can fit free choice into a model of probabilities, at least externally—perhaps like the human being, the subject, throwing himself upon reality and becoming an object after he has already chosen (in existentialist terms), and then from another point in time (in our case, an earlier one) this falls under the category of probability]. Therefore, since he thinks he will fail in a severe prohibition, he initially, ideologically, causes himself to fail in a lighter prohibition. And that seems to be the story in Sefer Hasidim about a man who asks because he estimates that he will fail with his wife when she is a menstruant or with another man’s wife, and asks whether he should release his urge through manual emission of semen. From an idealistic standpoint, he does not want to give up, but rather to violate a lighter prohibition instead of a more severe one.

And I said, and I repeat, that such a thing means giving himself a pass. He must struggle even if the odds are that he will fail (to the extent that it even makes sense to speak in terms of odds). Beyond that, the very possibility of giving in increases the chance of sin and decreases the chances of coping.

I can understand that this involves giving up some supreme effort. But one must remember that we are dealing here also with a prohibition concerning thought, and ordinary human psychology says that when a person resists thoughts, they come back much more strongly. So that very supreme effort leads to more sinful thoughts in the long run (and beyond that, to the collapse of many areas of life from investing so much energy in the struggle against the inclination, and also sometimes in the end to complete despair from the struggle, and perhaps from other religious struggles too—but that is just in parentheses).
And practically speaking, is the most proper inner movement at a time when the inclination is in force not to redirect the heart from corrupt matters to useful matters (as Maimonides says)? That is, not to activate some kind of “be strong as a lion” or some kind of “fight against,” but to occupy oneself with positive things? (As stated, when one goes against sinful thoughts they mostly intensify—“don’t think about a pink elephant.”) But unfortunately even that does not always help. So what exactly is “giving himself a pass” here? The situation is that the inclination awakens and a person tries to involve himself in positive things until the inclination grows so strong, and the person continues with positive things and does not focus against the inclination, and does not turn the world upside down against the inclination—because that will only inflame it more—so he understands the balance of forces based on struggles he has already gone through in his life with his inclination, and decides. A person has to be honest, and as Christians say, “You have Jewish law that tells you exactly what to do every moment; for us it is much harder because we have to be moral people without Jewish law.” It is a real test for a person to know himself and his strengths.
I’m asking sincerely, and it seems to me from a very genuine place with myself: where exactly is the point of giving up here?

You are talking about an act that leads to sinful thought, not mere sinful thought itself. The giving up is in doing a prohibited act by your own decision. And as I wrote, in my opinion this is forbidden. A person must struggle, and sometimes he will fail. We are repeating ourselves.

In honor of the Rabbi, hello,

I thought about these things and let them sink in.
And I wonder why the Rabbi rules, in his opinion (even though you also presented other views), that the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai regarding “let him go to a distant place and do what his heart desires.”

A. Isn’t that the plain meaning of the Talmudic text? “Rabbi Ilai the Elder said: If a man sees that his inclination is overpowering him, let him go to a place where he is not known, wear black, wrap himself in black, and do what his heart desires, but let him not desecrate the name of Heaven in public. Is that so? But wasn’t it taught: Anyone who has no regard for the honor of his Maker would have been better off not coming into the world. What is this? Rabbah said: This refers to one who looks at the rainbow. Rav Yosef said: This refers to one who commits a transgression in secret. It is not difficult: this case is where he can subdue his inclination, and that case is where he cannot subdue his inclination.” Even the Talmud itself explains another baraita according to Rabbi Ilai in order to align with him.

B. After all, many of the commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh cited Sefer Hasidim, which claims this (at this point I believe you that it argues this specifically in reliance on Rabbi Ilai, because I have not checked all the sources thoroughly).

C. Isn’t it “almost pure logic” that it is preferable to violate a lighter prohibition rather than a more severe one? I understand that one can call this “giving in,” but it is an entirely sensible concession made with cool reason (if we do not bring in emotional aversion to deliberately committing a transgression, and it seems to me that the Oral Torah is learned more by sound reason than by, for example, the aversions of religious OCD—or at least that is how it ought to be when learning).

Thank you very much,

Hello A.,
I don’t know what else I can explain. It may be that we simply disagree, and that is perfectly fine. I will only say that your mathematics assumes an incorrect assumption. You assume that if a person estimates he will not be able to withstand something, then that is indeed what will happen. And I assume that if we permit it to him, then that is what will happen, but if not—there is a chance he will be able to struggle more and succeed. Certainly when he knows מראש that it is permitted (and not only that they permit him when he comes to ask).
Search for the article on the weekly portion Chayei Sarah here on the site:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7IY0xlc1dmYTMweVE

In honor of Rabbi Michael, hello,

I am still thinking and writing about this matter, and I am in contact with other people connected to it.

I ask myself regarding your argument, in which you claim that if we permit (and in my opinion even obligate) a person to commit a lighter emission of semen in order to avoid the risk of a more severe emission of semen (such as with the use of pornography), then we will increase transgressions, because the very knowledge that a person can sin will tempt him to sin more. (If I understood correctly.)

The question I ask myself is: is a halakhic decisor allowed to withhold from the public a specific correct Jewish law, and even rule against it, out of concern lest the public stumble? Especially in matters of desire. (I am talking about a specific Jewish law with practical ramifications, actual practice, for the life of the public as a whole, and not about the “secrets of forbidden sexual relations” in general as a system within the more esoteric halakhic literature.)
If this is a decree, where the Sages are permitted to make a fence around the Torah—then this would be a decree that the public cannot uphold, would it not? And in any case, are rabbis in our generation even allowed to enact decrees? Isn’t that an authority exclusive to the Sanhedrin or the Men of the Great Assembly?
And if this is merely extra distancing without binding halakhic basis—then isn’t that exactly what the story of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge teaches, that one must not add to the word of God—in our case, to Jewish law that includes the commandment “do not turn aside,” in matters of distancing from desire? Isn’t that exactly what the serpent did?
And in general one may wonder whether this distancing or decree is even a good one, since incidentally, if this halakhic ruling is good and correct at root, then by the way it could allow a more natural life for boys and young men (even though its primary purpose would be to prevent falling into pornography), whereas a decree or distancing here would presumably cause very significant reasons for boys to distance themselves from religion and throw off the yoke of the commandments in general (that is, in my opinion already today the prohibition of wasting semen causes boys to distance themselves from religion). And this illustrates how much this could indeed be a decree or distancing that is really parallel to the story of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge (again, if fundamentally the Jewish law is as I claim).

But in your opinion this is basic law and not a decree or distancing. Yet the prohibition in the Talmud is the prohibition of wasting semen, and here it is for the purpose of avoiding a transgression—so how can that be called “in vain”? For example, “one who turns his heart to vanity” means not for the sake of Heaven in general, not some special “operation” of the heart (if we speak in Aristotelian language that attributes purposefulness to everything). And emission of semen has meaning according to the Talmud even in order to test whether one has a crushed urethra, and that is not in vain. And the prohibition of sinful thought is permitted when one is “occupied with his work,” such as a gynecologist (and one who breeds animals), and obviously he will have such thoughts, but it is in the course of his work and for a purpose and not in vain. (And the issue of sinful thought and actual manual emission are not so far apart in severity, and perhaps they are even the same halakhic prohibition, as in “one who holds his organ and urinates” and “whoever says ‘Rahav, Rahav’ immediately has an emission.”)
And in the plain meaning of the Torah, the spiritual idea of the prohibition of wasting semen is mainly from “do not stray,” but if a person emits semen in order not to commit a transgression, then clearly he is not straying after his eyes and his heart, but after the will of God, and his decision is like that of one compelled by a demon. (And that is mainly what I am asking to be ruled—that one should act as one compelled by a demon; therefore I am speaking in this paragraph about basic law. But as for the fact that a person probably will not really be able to do this on such a righteous level—that is what I discussed in the previous paragraph, in asking whether it is permitted to hide the Jewish law from the eyes of the public as a decree or distancing.)
And no one stated this more clearly than Chokhmat Shlomo on Even HaEzer, section 23—that whenever someone emits semen for the sake of a commandment or to prevent a transgression, it is like producing children through the emission of his semen, and it is not in vain at all. And he explained the commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh and the Shulchan Arukh itself in that way.

In summary, I would be glad to know whether the Rabbi argues that this must be forbidden as a distancing measure or decree, or as basic law. And if it is because of distancing or decree, I would be glad if you would answer my questions in the paragraph where I asked about that in three directions.

With blessings and many thanks,

It is hard for me to continue a discussion with such large gaps between messages. I no longer remember what exactly was being discussed. Briefly, I will say that indeed one cannot enact new decrees, and a halakhic decisor has no right to hide Jewish law from the public. This is law, not a distancing measure or decree. Emission of semen for a benefit other than procreation is emission in vain. Otherwise, even emission of semen in order to make money would be permitted.
That’s all.