On Polyamory and Other Animals – Another Look at Moral Values (Column 201)
With God's help
This column was written as an article for the Shabbat supplement of Makor Rishon, following my reading of Rabbi Dr. Ehud Nahir’s article this past Sabbath. Reading some of what follows requires a strong stomach and intellectual composure, but it is Torah, and we must study it (it is Torah, and we must study it). This is part of the reason why that supplement was not interested in publishing these remarks, beyond the fact that they saw nothing novel in them. They are brought here for the convenience of readers, who can review what everyone has long known.
Rabbi Dr. Ehud Nahir, in his article “Back to Wild Nature” (Shabbat supplement, Parashat Terumah 5779), discusses polyamory and sees it as another point on the axis of recognizing LGBT relationships, one that will eventually also lead to legitimizing incestuous acts. Against the secular deterioration supposedly called for by human nature, he sets the couple’s commitment in the Jewish religious outlook, which runs counter to nature. It seems to me that this discussion really does require a deeper look at moral values, their meaning, and their source. But I will begin with a comment about polyamory itself.
Another Look at Polyamory
In my view there is nothing at all special about polyamory, and I do not really understand the hysteria that has arisen around this phenomenon and around the conference in question at Bar-Ilan last week. Let me say at the outset that, in my opinion, infidelity in marriage is an offense both on the moral plane and on the religious plane, since ordinary marriage is a contract based on fidelity, and betrayal (by either side) is a breach of that contract. It is therefore hard for me to understand how general society treats such breaches almost with indifference and a wink, to the point that many see them as, at most, “a problem for religious people.” By contrast, polyamory is certainly not betrayal in the moral sense, since it is done with the prior consent of all parties concerned.
Beyond that, in most cases the religious dimension of this violation is not especially severe either. I do not understand the difference between life as a couple without marriage, or simply casual swapping of partners as is common today among many, and polyamory. After all, betrothal entered into on that understanding is not valid betrothal from the standpoint of Jewish law (since the partners do not intend to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel, which requires exclusivity). So what we really have here are adults who want to have sexual relations without formalizing them in halakhic form. How is this different from any other casual sex life? What does it have to do with adultery in the halakhic sense?
My assessment is that the difficult feelings and deep indignation stirred by polyamory stem from the fact that, on the social plane, people do see in it the establishment of a family unit, only a multi-sided one. People feel that a family unit must be pair-based, a man and a woman, and that any deviation from this is an offense, both on the religious plane and on the moral plane. But I wonder what the basis of that feeling is. This brings me to a discussion of the nature and source of moral values.
On Moral Values and Feelings of Disgust
Jonathan Haidt is an American psychologist of Russian Jewish origin, who wrote an interesting psychological-philosophical book on morality.[1] At its beginning he presents the following two examples:
The neighbors’ family dog was run over and killed in the middle of the night in front of their house. They had heard that dog meat is very tasty, so they cut up its body, cooked it, and ate the dog’s meat. No one saw them doing it…
Every week A. goes to the supermarket and buys a slaughtered chicken. Before cooking it, he has sex with the dead bird. Afterwards he cooks the chicken and eats it.
Is there a moral problem with what the neighbors did, or with what A. did? Most people will feel that there is a moral wrong here, although it is hard to say what exactly the problem is in these acts. It seems to me more accurate to say that there is a feeling of rejection, or disgust, but not necessarily a moral wrong. In many cases we identify our feelings of disgust toward a particular act with an ethical claim that it is an immoral act. But that identification is far from clear. Why should an act that harms no one count, in our eyes, as immoral? What is the difference between eating chicken and eating a dog that was run over? On the contrary, we kill the chicken in order to eat its meat, whereas the dog was merely run over and we eat its meat. Even the sexual act with the chicken does not seem to me different from masturbation, and after all many in our world regard that as a normative act that is not immoral (even though it is of course forbidden by Jewish law). I do not deny, of course, that we feel disgust and revulsion toward these acts, but the leap to the conclusion that they are immoral is not at all clear to me.
There are many other examples of acts that arouse such feelings. A person who eats his own excrement or that of others (forgive the bluntness), or other things included in the prohibition of “do not make yourselves detestable” (revolting things). Do feelings of disgust there as well necessarily express immorality? A few days ago I saw a film about two Israeli visitors in a small tribe in South America. In one scene we see the women of the tribe fermenting the fruit of some plant and turning it into an alcoholic drink. They do so by taking it into their mouths, saturating it with saliva, and returning it to a large communal vessel. After they spit the material into the communal vessel, they all repeatedly take more into their mouths and spit it back until the drink produced there has fermented significantly. The guests from Israel, who heard they were about to taste this “delicacy,” nearly lost it (and in the end did taste it). I could not even look at it. But the fact is that the members of that tribe all drink this beverage with great relish. It seems to me that here many readers will agree that this is a feeling of disgust that does not express a prohibition or a moral wrong. Are the two cases Haidt presents necessarily different?!
At first glance, these matters also depend on the question of the source of morality. Is it rooted in emotion or in reason; is its source evolutionary, cultural, humanistic, utilitarian, or religious? I am personally a Kantian on this matter, but for our purposes here there is no need to go into all that. It is enough for me that, for most of us, not every feeling of disgust necessarily translates into an ethical determination that the act is immoral. That is enough to understand that even when we feel disgust, there is still room to discuss whether it expresses immorality or merely rejection belonging to emotional-cultural planes.
Conventions and Rational Truths
In this context one may mention Maimonides’ distinction (Guide of the Perplexed Part I, chapter 2 and elsewhere) between conventions and rational truths. Conventions are rules accepted in society, from table manners, through forms of polite speech, and all the way to walking down the street in reasonable dress. These are rules founded on social agreement, and their validity derives from it. Hence, if and when the agreement changes, the force of these rules changes as well. By contrast, the prohibition against murder or theft does not depend on social agreement. These are absolute ethical prohibitions, and therefore he calls them rational truths. Conventions are more aesthetic than ethical values. Social taste rejects such behaviors, and there may perhaps be those who regard someone who departs from these rules as a person who behaves in an inferior human way. But there is nothing bad about them in themselves. That exists only by force of the social agreement.
Just to prevent misunderstandings, given the social agreement Maimonides would certainly hold that there is an obligation to behave this way (for example, not to walk naked in the street), and one might perhaps even see this as an ethical duty. But it is a conditional (ethical) duty. It exists only when there is a convention, and by force of that convention. An interesting question is whether even in private there is an obligation to observe these conventions. I think that, at least morally, it is hard to explain why there should be such an obligation in the private domain. If no one is harmed by it, why should I not do an act that is not problematic in itself?! But perhaps there is room for the claim that in a given society this is the proper human behavior even in private. I do not know.
If we return to our issue, it seems to me that all the cases brought above fall into the category of conventions. Indeed there are such social conventions, but I do not see what is wrong with these acts in themselves. It harms no one, and in a society with different norms there is certainly room to see them as legitimate behavior. If you do this in full public view, you do harm people (you repel them and cause them feelings of disgust), and then it is certainly not fitting to do it. But when no one sees, I see no reason to observe them. There is nothing wrong with it, and it harms no one. And if the norms change, then these prohibitions evaporate in the public sphere as well.
Back to the Couple Unit
It seems to me that if we apply this distinction to our subject, we will understand that with respect to polyamory too there is room to ask whether this is an immoral act, or whether it is more a feeling of rejection and disgust than an ethical judgment. Polyamory is essentially bilateral polygamy (from the men’s side as well and not only from the women’s side), but polygamy too is a kind of social taboo that I do not understand. If all parties are adults and they freely decide that they want this, then what is the problem? In our society there is a convention that this is bad, but that places it, at most, in the realm of conventions and not of rational truths.
At this point, of course, the reader raises the expected claim: what about incest, that is, sexual relations within the family? That too is a decision of adults, made of their own free will. Is that too merely a matter of cultural feelings of disgust (conventions), whose force is conditional rather than absolute? In my opinion, there is definitely room for the claim that here too we are dealing with feelings of disgust more than with moral wrong. The same is true of LGBT relations, the wonders of the new gender with its thirty-odd shades, and all the other new family units being formed before our astonished eyes. All these are breaks with conventions, that is, with the existing social norms, and as noted, when conventions change, their moral force lapses. As long as no one is harmed by this, there is no necessity to see in it a moral defect.
Harms
One can of course discuss various harms that may be caused by such acts. There are claims about harm to children who grow up with LGBT parents, as well as psychological harm to partners in relationships within the family, or mental and physical defects in children who may be born from such relations. But such claims, even if they are correct (and that is not clear, certainly not in every case), are not essential claims. Suppose there is a treatment or a pill that solves the problems that arise among the children, or among the partners. In such a case, does the act become morally permitted? When we relate to such an act as immoral, we mean the act itself and not its consequences. Many years ago a series of articles by Gadi Taub was published in Haaretz about various harms caused by incest. He tried to explain in this way the meaning of the moral prohibition and the social taboo on such relations. In a response I sent to the paper, I asked what he would say in a situation in which a preventive treatment were found for all these harms. A person takes a pill and has sexual relations with his sister or his mother? The child who is born will be treated with a pill whose physical and psychological success is assured and will grow up to be healthy in mind and body. Would such acts in that case become permitted?
Usually these are questions whose purpose is to show that the basis of the prohibition does not lie in future harms, but rather that this is an intrinsic prohibition. The act is in itself forbidden regardless of its consequences. But here I use these arguments in the opposite direction. I want to argue that there is in fact no necessity that these acts, extreme as they may be, involve an intrinsic prohibition. There is the problem of harms, which can be discussed and perhaps also treated, but beyond that it may be that we are dealing with conventions and not rational truths, that is, feelings of disgust and not ethical claims.
On Nature and Morality
Many raise, against relations between same-sex partners or against incest (and also against polyamory), the claim that this is unnatural. I have always thought these are baseless claims, for two reasons: the first is on the factual plane. For those people, it is apparently natural. Is being a statistical outlier unnatural? I am 1.95 meters tall; is that unnatural? In nature there is a distribution, and all its extremes are equally natural. Each person and his own nature. The second reason belongs to the normative plane. Why should naturalness determine what is moral and what is not? Speaking slander is very natural, and yet it is forbidden by Jewish law and morally reprehensible.
It is important to understand that many of those who support such relations also raise the claim that this is something natural, and of course here too I do not understand the relevance of that claim to the discussion, for the same reason. It seems that both sides agree that the natural is the measure of the moral. Ehud Nahir points this out, and rightly so: the rules of morality often require us to overcome nature. In his view these phenomena are in fact natural, and it is the prohibition that stands against nature and requires us to overcome it.
Overcoming Nature: Conventions and Rational Truths
There is certainly room to demand that a person overcome nature when that is required. Nature is not sacred (nor is it invalid) by virtue of being such. It justifies no behavior and disqualifies none (this is basically a version of the naturalistic fallacy, which derives norms from facts). But such overcoming is required only where there is a value that demands it. A person in whom a desire awakens to murder or harm another is required to overcome his nature. A person is required to overcome that impulse and not speak slander. But there is no logic or justification for demanding that people overcome nature where this is unnecessary and their behavior is not ethically flawed. Such a demand is unjustified; it burdens people and restricts them without justification.
This brings me to the question: what about conventions? Does even a conditional value justify our demanding that people overcome their nature? Here the situation is more complex. In a case where X’s act causes a feeling of disgust in Y, it really is fitting that X refrain from it. But if X is in distress, then it is more reasonable that Y precisely be required to overcome his feeling of disgust. A value justifies our overcoming our nature, but a feeling of disgust—not necessarily.
It seems to me that this is the meaning of the taboo-breaking that is taking place in this generation. If indeed these acts are not prohibited but at most arouse in many of us a feeling of revulsion and disgust, that is, if they are conventions, then there is no justification for prohibiting them coercively for people who are in distress. It is no less reasonable to expect the rest of people to overcome their feeling of revulsion and change their conventions. In these generations people have decided to change their taste, and with it their feelings of disgust and rejection, and not to let those feelings dictate their values, and certainly not to impose distress on others in their name. It seems to me that this is the reason these taboos are being broken one after another.
I think every honest person should admit that our feelings toward homosexuality today are not what they were ten years ago. This is an expression of the fact that conventions are subject to change, and indeed they are changing in practice. If this is not a value but merely a convention and mere feelings, there is nothing to prevent changing them for the sake of easing the distress of individuals and atypical groups. In this sense, not only is there no moral deterioration here, one can even see in it a moral advance of society. In Maimonides’ terminology in that same chapter 2 of Guide of the Perplexed, we are returning to the state of Adam and Eve before the sin, when only rational truths ruled them and not conventions.
The Relation Between Religious Prohibition and Moral Prohibition
Standing against this process are religious norms. Ehud Nahir himself points out that only religious thought can justify opposition to such actions and relations, and it is no wonder that the religious position is not successful in the struggle over the character of society. This brings me to a brief discussion of the moral character of religious and halakhic prohibitions.
I will not enter here into the question of the relation between morality and Jewish law, and whether every halakhic prohibition expresses a moral principle (in my opinion, certainly not. See in Column 15 and much else). Be that as it may, many in the religious community identify the religious prohibition on homosexuality or polyamory (insofar as there is one. See my remarks above) with a moral prohibition. But to the same extent it is true that most of us do not feel similar feelings with regard to Sabbath desecrators or people who eat meat with milk. A Sabbath desecrator is, in our eyes, a religious transgressor but not an immoral one, whereas a homosexual or someone who lives a polyamorous life is, in the eyes of many of us, flawed on the moral plane as well.
What is the difference? It does not seem to concern differences in the severity of the prohibition, since Sabbath desecration is among the gravest prohibitions in the Torah, and one who desecrates the Sabbath is considered an apostate with respect to the entire Torah. And yet there is broad opposition in the religious community to adoption and surrogacy for homosexual couples, but no similar opposition to adoption and surrogacy for couples who desecrate the Sabbath. Note that this contradicts even religious and halakhic logic. After all, a child who grows up in a home with homosexual parents does not thereby become homosexual himself, but a child who grows up with Sabbath-desecrating parents will certainly grow up that way as well. Moreover, homosexuals act this way out of genuine distress, whereas Sabbath desecrators are simply transgressors, not people acting from distress. And yet the opposition is precisely to surrogacy and adoption by homosexual parents and not by Sabbath desecrators. Why indeed is this so?
It seems to me that this returns us to the feelings of revulsion discussed above, and to the confusion between them and ethical prohibitions. In relation to homosexuality or polyamory, and certainly in relation to incest, many people do have feelings of revulsion. By contrast, in relation to Sabbath desecration or eating meat with milk, they do not. It seems to me that the feelings of revulsion join the religious prohibition (which may itself be part of the reason they arose in the past), and together they create the feeling that this is a moral prohibition. That is why homosexuality in particular is perceived by many as a moral prohibition, whereas Sabbath desecration is not. My impression is that over the years there has been a softening of the feelings of revulsion toward homosexuality (and in my view the same is to be expected with regard to polyamory. Nahir cites Yair Caspi, who expressed deep shock at statements by students who spoke about a dulling of feelings regarding incest) because of the prevalence of the phenomenon and because of the public and social legitimacy it is receiving. Along with this, to my impression, the approach that sees homosexual relations as an immoral act is also softening and diminishing. The halakhic prohibition remains in place, of course, but changing social conventions cause the “conventional” transgressions no longer to be perceived as moral transgressions but only as religious ones. This is further evidence for my claim that at times we mix feelings of revulsion with ethical judgments. Sometimes the feelings of revulsion are what lead us to see certain halakhic transgressions as moral prohibitions, but if these are indeed conventions, there is no justification for that. The halakhic prohibition remains in place, but a feeling of disgust does not necessarily indicate a moral wrong within it. Sometimes this is the result of social construction, that is, of conventions, and when they change, the immoral dimension of the matter dissipates.[2]
Is This Not Surrender to the Spirit of the Times?
Many claim that this is a loosening of commitment to Jewish law and Torah, and a fashionable surrender to the spirit of the times. In their eyes this is a contemptible “lite” religiosity. But in light of what I have said here, this conclusion is not necessary. We have seen that regarding the conventional transgressions, the real basis is social agreement, and when it changes our relation to these acts really can change, and perhaps should change. This is not to say that there is no halakhic prohibition here, of course, but the view that these are immoral acts is not necessary, and I very much doubt that it is correct. This is not necessarily a weakening of Torah commitment, but a more complex view that does not automatically identify a halakhic prohibition with a moral prohibition, and that is willing to distinguish between feelings of disgust and social conventions on the one hand and moral wrong on the other. Those who remain with the old conceptions do not necessarily thereby express deeper Torah and halakhic commitment. Sometimes this is mere conservatism, and as for me, I do not see conservatism as a value.
A Final Remark
My remarks here are mainly questions and not a systematic and fully developed doctrine. In principle there is room to speak of moral values and moral prohibitions that do not directly harm anyone. I do not deny this categorically. If one assumes that there are mental structures and personal modes of conduct that are good or bad in themselves (that is, irrespective of harm to others), then there is room to speak of moral values grounded simply in conduct on a degraded human level (without harm to others). My claim here raises questions on three planes: 1. I am not sure that such values do in fact exist. 2. Beyond that, I do not know what the criterion is for identifying them. 3. My feeling is that in many cases emotions of rejection and disgust dictate our moral attitude and the ethical diagnosis of such acts as moral offenses, but such feelings are transient and subject to change. Therefore I doubt how far clear and decisive ethical conclusions can be drawn from them.
[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Vintage, New York, 2012. See a review in Tomer Persico’s article, “The Six Tablets of the Covenant – Jonathan Haidt on Different Shades of Morality,” on the blog Lula'at HaEl, dated 29.2.2016.
[2] At times one can bring evidence from the language of Scripture that certain prohibitions are also moral prohibitions and not merely halakhic transgressions. For example, Scripture speaks of male-male intercourse using the term abomination (“abomination”). But most, if not all, of these proofs can be rejected (for example, regarding abomination, see Nedarim 51a: “abomination” — “you go astray through it”). This is not the place to go into that in detail.
Discussion
Maimonides’ distinction between “conventionally accepted things” and “intelligibles” is indeed well known, but at least to me it is not at all clear. Is the prohibition against stealing among the “conventionally accepted things” or among the “intelligibles”? If the prohibition against theft stems from the harm it causes the victim of the theft – is it permissible to steal from someone who has perfect insurance (with no deductible)? And if you say that damage is still caused to the insurance company – what if it has reinsurance? And in general, were it not for thieves, insurance companies would never manage to sell insurance policies at all…
What I am trying to say is that it is very difficult to separate an act from its consequences. The fact that there is a cure for a disease does not necessarily mean that there is no moral flaw in infecting a person with that disease. Even if there is an effective treatment for the psychological problems that may develop in children raised in LGBT families – that would not necessarily eliminate the moral flaw in setting up such a family (according to the one who says it is immoral and not merely socially unacceptable).
Likewise, the claim that morality changes along with changing social norms stems from moral relativism. If morality is relative, why is it important at all? Every person has a name, and every person has his own private morality. And if so, arguments about morality are equivalent to arguments about taste and smell. Is that really so?
1. There is indeed room to speak of a pair-bond among Noachides, but in my opinion that too belongs to contract law and not to morality. Beyond that, what you think is forced, I think is correct. Even among Noachides, living together as boyfriend and girlfriend is not marriage, and one who does not establish exclusivity is not married.
2. Noachides have no commandment to live in marriage. There is halakhic recognition of their marriages and a prohibition against violating them (adultery). See my previous comment.
3. In the plain sense of his words in that chapter of the Guide, he is not talking about morality but about manners and conduct (= conventions). The examples he brings are walking around naked. It seems that murder belongs to the intelligibles. See on this in post 177 and the discussions that followed it.
See post 177 and the discussions that followed it.
Regarding theft, in the end someone is always harmed. Are you arguing that even if no harm is caused, there is still a moral prohibition here? I do not think so.
I definitely distinguish between the act and the result. That is what is being discussed here.
I am not claiming that morality changes with social norms; I am claiming exactly the opposite: that it does not change. And precisely because of that I argue that what does change is not morality (= intelligibles) but conventionally accepted things (= manners and aesthetics).
What we need now is not “intellectual cool-headedness,” but a war for normality, at least for anyone who is not planning for his children and grandchildren to grow up in a world where, say, people walk down the street without clothes, and/or have sex there.
Anyone who reads needs intellectual cool-headedness. A person may choose not to read and to think whatever he likes about what we need at this time. That is another matter.
In my opinion, whoever flouts conventions of the kind of marriage – which it is easy to see have a necessary role in organizing society – indirectly harms society as a whole, and also weakens the values that those conventions help us realize.
I certainly agree that these conventions are changing before our eyes, and still, the question of whether a world in which the family structure is different allows us to realize in our lives the same values we realized before remains open. I think not. It may indeed be that no suffering will be caused to anyone, but such a life seems less worthy to me. And therefore polyamory is not moral. But because my concern is damage to conventions, the moral problem in my eyes is mainly with those who openly defy the institution of the family, and not with those who do so privately for themselves.
The problem is not disgust, or the question of what private individuals do in their own homes
but rather the desire to destroy the traditional family, on the principle that if everything is family then nothing is family. And why should we care about the traditional family? That is another question.
Reason can justify anything, but sometimes one should listen to intuition, which is more than emotion or disgust.
Even rationally – the lifestyles you mentioned turn the world into a place where there is no empty space free from opportunities for sexual situations – in a group of friends, within the family. MeToo will look small compared to what awaits.
Specifically apart from LGBT – these are ways of life that harm most women in the world. As it is, it is already hard nowadays to get a man to commit. So with all options open. Yes, I know, most women are as liberated as men and it does not harm their souls. Sure.
Harm to children who live in a less stable and secure environment
Suppose one could give a pill that would solve all the problems and damages. But what for?
I don’t know whether the problem is morality or manners and conduct. At the national level this is damage to humanity.
And of course morality changes. Slaves? Women’s suffrage? Vegetarianism?
I would be glad to know where the mistake is in the following claim:
Polyamory is not moral because it harms the existence of the institution of the family, which is necessary for society.
1. I do not know what you call “as boyfriend and girlfriend”; it is quite clear that we are talking about people who come to a woman for the sake of marriage, in the simple sense that if you ask the husband whether this is his wife he will certainly say yes. More than that – many of the progressives’ struggles are precisely for recognition that all sorts of pairings count as marriage.
The claim that the prohibition of a married woman stems from contract law is very far from obvious – the basic question here is: if so, do Noachides also have a prohibition of a married man/husband (a prohibition concerning a married man)? Why not? From contract law there is no reason that the woman should be more restricted than the husband.
2. I did not claim that they have a commandment to live in marriage, but that they live in marriage – I think most of them would say that themselves. You are trying to argue on their behalf. If you like, I can start pulling representative quotes from the web to show that this is how they perceive themselves. Your claim is that the prohibition of a married woman applies only to couples who decided that the prohibition of a married woman applies to them, meaning that halakhah recognizes their desire for the prohibition of a married woman as the factor that creates the prohibition; I do not know from where you get that.
3. It is true that the example Maimonides is speaking about is walking naked, but he states: “Likewise in our language one says of the true and the null – true and false, and of the fine and the disgraceful – good and evil,” meaning that knowledge of good and evil is aesthetic knowledge and not knowledge of truth.
For anyone interested, there is an interesting episode about polyamory in the series “Sorry for Asking” on Kan 11:
In addition, there is a short video about a cousin couple today and society’s attitude toward them, also from Kan 11:
The way of thinking you bring here is sort of smart, but it misses everything.
I’ll start with a short story from reserve duty.
I’m innocently standing guard at a post facing Palestinian houses, and for a long time I hear the howling of a miserable dog.
At some point I notice from a distance a large group of children, say ages 4 to 12, simply abusing their dog for hours. Throwing stones, hanging it, dragging it, and what not.
And I’m sitting far away and there isn’t really anything I can do. What can you do, the dog got unlucky – it isn’t a human being.
And I’m incredibly angry but there’s really nothing to do.
And now let’s be cool-headed for a moment and examine the situation from a few angles.
Let’s begin with our basic moral assumption as human beings, namely: children’s lives are of supreme value.
Wait a second, but… why?
Because they were created in the image of God? What is that?
Because their personality is more developed than that of animals? But it turns out it is more developed in both directions…
Because death is suffering? Wait, but once you die you don’t feel anything…
So forgive me for my coldness, but as a rationalist I should have put a few Xs on the weapon and set the dog free. Happy ending.
Wait, but then what will the dog do? Most likely it will have serious trauma, be very aggressive, and all living things will hate the world or fear it, maybe it will also be very hungry, because who says it will find food, and maybe it will also be sick, until it languishes in some corner in the sun day and night and its flesh slowly decays in the mouths of the ravens…
And if they kill it – then all that suffering will be spared from it!
So what is the conclusion? Add another X!
But if I’m going to kill the dog anyway, who knows, maybe when the children grow up they’ll repent?
And then what will be – most likely, like everyone else, they’ll look forward every day to the next day. Tomorrow al-Aqsa will be liberated. Tomorrow I’ll have a great job. Tomorrow I’ll get married. Tomorrow I’ll marry off my child.
And what do we do today? Obviously! We work for tomorrow! So today is worth nothing, only tomorrow, but every day is only for tomorrow…
So maybe there are a few peak moments when not, but between us… it’s not likely they’ll really repent, and it’s not likely there will be many such peak moments truly worth the rest…
But who are we to take lives? After all, they themselves very much want to live!
Has anyone here ever stepped on an ant?
?
That concludes the deconstruction, similar in principle to the article above, except that here I wonder: what actually is that morality, if not a true voice with vitality of its own bursting forth from within me, and from where does that voice come?
If there is not some more inward fabric of life connecting everything, calling to it in different voices and speaking to conscious creatures,
it planted within us revulsion at death, wickedness, and abomination, and gave us a sense for truth, justice, and the pursuit of the sublime. It gave us intellect. It also turns to us and teaches us what life really is.
Only I can stand on the side and chatter, and maybe it’s all an illusion? Who says the solidity of emotion has any meaning? Maybe I can be like God, knowing good and evil?
It seems to me that you tend to remain at the stage of deconstruction and avoid the next necessary step: that the deep revulsions and deep loves really should be identified with a greater fabric of life woven into us and into existence. Please forgive me, Michi, but the world you suggest between the lines, and in the coolness with which you
write, though not explicitly, is a nightmarish, cold world of intellect, a complete embodiment of the verse “He that increases knowledge increases pain,” and “her feet go down to death.” And that in truth there is immense wrong in betrayal and in the destruction of the family, which is the deep foundation of the fabric of our lives, even if it is done under a pretense of consent, in surrender to a flesh-devouring nature.
I can go on playing God’s game and say – what is wrong? what is family? what is betrayal? what is the self? After all, they are all definitions we invented for ourselves, and I can deconstruct everything into factors devoid of all meaning, but unless it is a springboard to the next stage of recognizing the One, it is meaningless
Regarding comment 2: this is indeed also implied – the Gemara in Nedarim reinforces your view by taking the word to’evah out of its simple context and interpreting it as a mistake (only)
2. Yes, you did claim it. If it is not a commandment incumbent upon them, then what is the connection between recognizing a marital bond between them and the question whether violating it is immoral. Your argument was that the Noahide obligations are moral obligations, but a marital bond is not an obligation. A partnership contract between Noachides is also valid; is there a moral duty to make such a contract?
3. I referred you to post 177.
That is a consequentialist question. If they succeed in building society in another way, is there any prohibition in that? The prohibition of murder, for example, is a non-consequentialist moral prohibition. Even if they give a pill to all the relatives and there is no pain or suffering in it – murder is forbidden.
That really is a consequentialist question.
But still, the real dispute is about morality.
I think that someone who is willing to give up the institution of the family simply does not hold the values that institution serves, (non-consequentialist values), and that is my argument with him.
Of course it may be a purely consequentialist question, but it is hard for me to understand how one can fail to see that giving up the traditional family harms those values.
Regarding the rabbi’s morality-of-intentions:
If there were a “pill” that easily revived the dead, why would murder still be morally objectionable?
To my mind there is an intrinsic value specifically in couplehood, in which each person has one soul bound to him (I cannot justify the value, but I also see no need to do so).
Violation of that value seems evil to me (not because of aesthetic revulsion).
With regard to conventionally accepted things, I would like to open up another avenue:
What is the reason? Why were conventionally accepted things prohibited? Why should the agreement of the many about something lacking logic and purpose obligate me?
I would like to suggest that conventionally accepted things parallel rabbinic decrees, since the world has declined/advanced/changed, there is a need to enact or prohibit new things in order to preserve the intelligibles. According to this, human agreement is not arbitrary but stems from an existential need. And if we disturb the balance that has been created over the years, it will harm essential things.
For example, let us imagine a world in which all human beings walk naked as on the day they were born; it seems to me that desire leading to love would no longer have value. It may be that in an earlier world in which norms were different, love would come about in another way, but in the world we live in now that is not so.
I will conclude by saying that it is true that at some point the situation will return to its former state, but how will we know that we are already ready? Until then, out of doubt, one should not change. And if you say that social change indicates that it is time to change? A. From where do you know that? B. The fierce opposition also testifies to the contrary.
This whole argument works excellently within a Kantian ethical framework, but collapses, or at the very least is fundamentally undermined, within an Aristotelian and neo-scholastic ethical framework.
You are writing a contradiction. If the institution of the family is, in your view, a value regardless of the additional values it serves, then this is not consequentialism. In any case, as I wrote in the post, it is possible that our attitude toward the institution of the family is itself among the conventionally accepted things, and therefore the feeling of rejection toward someone who undermines it should be carefully examined: does it express a moral reservation, or merely a feeling of rejection as such? Would a society built on a basis different from the current family (or at least not only on it) be a more corrupted society? I do not see it that way.
Beyond that, it seems to me that polyamory should be examined against the alternative. For today, in any case, the institution of the family no longer really exists as it once did. There are quite a few alternative families, and the option of the traditional family no longer really exists. Many people do not marry at all. Sexual relations are not dependent on formalization. Single-parent families. Same-sex families. Common-law spouses, and so on. In this framework, the attack on polyamory in the name of family values seems to me an anachronism.
See my reply to q1 above
See my reply to q1 above.
My question is precisely whether this is intuition or merely a feeling of disgust.
Your sentence about sexual opportunities is detached from reality. Polyamory is a tiny fraction of those opportunities, which already exist today in abundance with it and without it. Therefore the attack on it is an anachronism.
I do not see why there is any harm to women here. Whoever does not want to should not enter into such a contract.
As for harm to children, this requires research. These slogans come up all the time from both sides. Those who object morally also point out that the children are harmed, and those who support it explain that the children are not harmed. So who is right? It seems to me that resorting to catastrophic consequences is more wishful thinking than facts. It is, after all, just an expression of those same feelings of disgust and conservatism that I mentioned.
If one can give a pill that solves all the problems and damages, that would allow people to do what they want and what is good for them. That is what for. If it is possible to cook tasty food, what for? If it is possible to build a comfortable house, what for?
As for the declaration about harm to humanity, I do not know what to do with such declarations. I also do not understand what “harm to humanity at the national level” means. It sounds to me like a hysterical and contentless declaration expressing distress, but not any cognitive content.
The examples you brought at the end point to the world’s progress toward morality, not to a change in morality itself. But I did not understand their connection to the discussion.
Well, that is exactly what I said. That is why I brought that Gemara.
If there were a pill that prevented death, it would not be murder.
That is certainly possible. But by the same token one can say the same about LGBT, and the fact is that for many people, when their emotions change, their ethical attitude changes too. So I wonder whether here too it is the same thing or not.
That is a technical argument and not a substantive one. It seems to me that even in a world where people walk around naked there is desire and love. But I do not know how to judge a world foreign to me. Considerations of doubt can of course be valid, but I am dealing with the principled issue.
Nadav wrote:
I would be glad if you would expand a bit, because unfortunately I have no idea about either of these.
Avi, you are taking a classic logical step here of reduction to absurdity, but you are missing the point.
In my remarks I claimed nothing whatsoever against moral feelings, nor even against rejection that reflects a moral stance. I also did not write that moral principles need to be explained and grounded in something more fundamental. On the contrary, I have already written here and elsewhere several times that morality is valid even though no rationalization can be offered for it and it has no consequentialist explanation.
But precisely from that point of view there is room to ask about feelings of rejection whether they necessarily reflect a moral position (conscience, moral intuition), or whether this is merely emotion. Precisely because there is no identity between a moral position and feelings, I wonder whether the attitude toward polyamory is one or the other.
In my remarks I pointed out that regarding homosexuality and perhaps also eating the dog, we have feelings of rejection that many would classify at first glance as a moral stance, but after I set out the question and the two alternatives, quite a few of them would admit that this is merely a feeling and does not reflect a moral stance.
Therefore I ask whether this is also the case with regard to polyamory. I am calling on each person to examine himself as to whether his attitude toward polyamory is a feeling of rejection or a moral stance. That is all. I am certainly not claiming that if there is no explanation then it is necessarily mere emotion; rather, I am only setting these two possibilities alongside one another. I am convinced that when a person seriously examines both, quite a few of us will discover that we have mixed up conservative feelings of rejection with an ethical stance.
Notice that arguments like yours actually exempt a person from giving an account of his principles. Whenever someone challenges them, he will say that this is a moral postulate and that’s that. Of course it is true that there is no necessity for reducing moral values to various explanations (and indeed such a reduction cannot be made), but precisely because of that one must be careful not to see every emotion as a moral principle. Let each person examine himself whether it is emotion or an ethical stance.
The analogy is to a pill that prevents the pain of those around them at the death of their loved one.
If so, the very distinction between a moral feeling and a mere feeling of disgust is the root of the matter.
Well then, that distinction cannot be sharp, because it is not really morality and not really disgust; rather, these are the foundations of the soul shuddering when they encounter things that unsettle them, things bound up with their delicate and fundamental structures.
You cannot compare intercourse with a dead chicken (leaving aside that one should ask whether this is included under crossbreeding with an animal and thus under the forbidden sexual relations that the Torah itself at least tries to present as abominations) to adultery, just as you cannot compare putting a child to sleep for a long night to putting many children to sleep in a gas chamber for a very long night. It is exactly the same practice, only here in the area of forbidden sexual relations and there in the area of bloodshed. It is a game with the fundamental emotions and dismissing them as vanity.
And as for the substance of the matter: will most people, when they think deeply, admit that their morality would justify a social worker suggesting to a struggling woman who has been married for ten years and is going through a busy period and sees less of her husband that she go celebrate a night with her boss, perhaps with a little persuasion of the husband by one means or another (a raise in salary?), and presumably the worker will sometimes suggest himself too, because after all family is a changing sociological definition? For that is the meaning of the conference in question at Bar-Ilan – the legitimacy of using adultery in social-work cases.
Personally I think family is the sweetest and most delicate thing that exists. The justification for socially encouraging the (sexual) dismantling of its boundaries, under the excuse that sleeping with dead chickens is also good and fine, or at least certainly not morally bad, is horrifying; I don’t know if there is another word for it.
And think deeply about all sorts of sweet couples, maybe a bit less religious, whom you know, and imagine the social worker trained at Bar-Ilan coming to them at a moment of crisis; this is ignoring the delicacy of the family fabric and equating it with the ordinary promiscuous life of the Western world, placing emphasis on a passing trend as though it indicates a general emptiness
You are putting words in my mouth instead of dealing with the claim – I argued that they live in marriage, according to their own claim. And what I noted regarding morality is that there is more room to identify a violation of a Noahide prohibition with a moral problem than with ordinary halakhah; nowhere did I claim that there is an obligation to live in marriage.
I did not even argue that there is marital status for the purposes of the prohibition of a married woman among Noachides in a case where they do not want marriage at all, and certainly I did not argue that they have a duty to marry. The simple fact is that most of what I have read speaks plainly about “the husband” and the “other friends/partners,” so the claim that this is not a married woman seems strange to me.
Your new claim, at least as far as I am concerned, is that this is a matter of contract law – you did not answer my question: would you execute a Noachide who cheated on his wife? If this is contract law, then even if in the time of the Gemara the contract was one-sided, surely today it is not.
Why is it that “a Noachide is not liable for his fellow’s wife until he has intercourse with her in the usual manner after she has had intercourse with her husband”? Why is the act that creates liability intercourse rather than the parties’ agreement? Why is the prohibition only with intercourse in the usual manner – is it part of the contract between them that she should be permitted by intercourse in an unusual manner?
Why is a Noachide who designated a woman for his slave executed on account of her? And why is it that “he is not liable for her until the matter is publicly known and the people say of her, ‘This is the mate of so-and-so’s slave’”? If this is contract law, why is the status of common-law spouses relevant?
Do you have a source that the law of a married woman among Noachides is from contract law?
That is true of all moral values: when emotions change, and the heart becomes coarse, the value itself too may disappear from sight. That is true of values “between man and his fellow” no less than of other values. But there is nothing to do beyond examining with the fullest honesty possible whether it is a value in your eyes or not.
I would be glad if this could be left within the bounds of the “a little,” but I fear that such an expansion requires criticism of several accepted views that in the consciousness of some of the agenda-setters of the 20th century became supposedly primary intelligibles not open to challenge, such as: the modern reduction of the concept of teleological causality, Kant’s categorical imperative, the “naturalistic fallacy,” as well as grounding concepts such as good, evil, and happiness as descriptions of states within objective natural reality, and how one derives from the above analysis and similar matters that a relationship outside the framework of a marriage covenant is immoral. In other words, at least twice as many words as the post itself..
I don’t know how to place the comment in the right spot. You wrote in the wording of an answer/rejection of the question: “But most of all these proofs can be rejected.” You should use that as evidence for your claim, even proactively bring that Gemara and not wait for people to ask you about it. If that is what you intended, then it is only a matter of wording.
With God’s help, 7 Adar 5779
“Polyamory” is not “multiple love,” but “auto-amory,” self-love. Whoever lives with several partners mainly loves himself. He exploits the desperate love of the partner, who is forced to come to terms with his infidelities out of fear of losing entirely the person he loves. A shocking description of such enslavement to an unfaithful lover appears in Natan Alterman’s poem “The Song of the Three Questions.”
There is no such thing as “polyamory by consent.” Any consent to this comes out of compulsion and terrible emotional distress, which the unfaithful partner exploits in order to enjoy himself without commitment. Such hedonism is not “amory” at all; it is not “love.” A true lover sees the one he loves as part of himself, cares for his well-being as he cares for his own, and even more so, in the sense of “he loves her as himself and honors her more than himself.” Devotion to giving to another, with absolute fidelity and commitment, and with the consciousness that “If I am only for myself, what am I?” – makes the lover into a human being, a whole human being in the fullest sense of the word.
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
Is taking someone’s heart out during surgery murder?
Two difficult points in my view:
1) The claim that there is no surrender here to the spirit of the times is puzzling.
Because even if one looks at the social taboo separately from the halakhic prohibition, the social taboo derived from the halakhic prohibition, and therefore it is clear that breaking the taboo because of the view that anything that does not harm another does not fall into the category of moral wrong and is therefore justified to break, points to a weakening of the halakhic prohibition that made possible the separation between the social taboo and the moral prohibition.
You may perhaps argue that this is justified, but the very viewing of the two as separate points to a decline in the force of the halakhic prohibition.
2) Does your proof from the change in feeling toward homosexuality not fall into the same fallacy as those who try to prove damages?
I will explain:
On the one hand you argued that every sensible person will admit that there has been a change in feeling toward the prohibition on such relations, and from here that the feeling is a social taboo and therefore there is nothing moral here.
On the other hand one could say that as a feeling it still exists, as common curses testify, as well as many stories of deprivation and harsh reactions that still occur.
So on the one hand one can say that the change is still in full swing, but on the other hand one can argue that there is very strong social pressure against a strong moral feeling, so one gets mixed results.
Therefore it seems to me that the attempt to derive support from this for the claim that this is only a social taboo is similar to one who tries to argue about damages from this lifestyle. The whole discussion of feelings is in some sense a discussion of something secondary rather than essential, because we are dealing with something fluid where people often shoot the arrow and then draw the target.
The essential discussion, of course, is the matter of morality and values. But that is for another expansion elsewhere.
As someone who had several openly homosexual friends, I do not remember a feeling of disgust. Most likely, if I saw a homosexual couple making out in front of my eyes I would feel disgust, but that is also true for a heterosexual couple. Sexual relations, to my mind, belong not to the public sphere but to the private one. Nor do I hold that a male couple or a female couple cannot raise children (and there is no importance to the question of what makes them a couple, family ties, sexual relations, and so on). The historical claim that raising children was always done within a biological family is ridiculous.
And still there is in me a strong moral protest against LGBT sexuality or the talk of polyamory. For me, a sexual bond is a moral covenant between a man and a woman for bringing children into the world, one that cannot be bypassed or harmed. I am not here to judge anyone. Given my own struggles and failings, I am the last person to judge others, and still in my opinion this belongs to the intelligibles and not to the conventionally accepted.
One further note. Usually I am against the Christians, but on this point of monogamy and regulation of the couple relationship I think they were right. And not by chance did the Ashkenazic communities follow them. Even if this belongs to the conventionally accepted, the social utility of monogamy is still greater than that of polygamy, and certainly greater than the social chaos of the kind the rabbi is thinking of.
There is some disingenuousness here.
The issue is not whether there is a moral sin in consensual polygamy in the private sphere.
The burning issue is the level of legitimacy for these phenomena on the public-social plane, to what extent society accepts (encourages? restrains?) the polygamous/polyamorous/whatever family unit as a legitimate family unit. On the last Family Day, an officer refused to hang a picture of a same-sex family and stirred up a fierce controversy. That is what the struggle is about. That is why they hold conferences, parades, and generally make noise.
My guess is that there are very few people who actually live a polyamorous/objectumsexual/shoe-sexual lifestyle in practice, and many more who hate the institution of the family and really want to see it collapse. And the way to dismantle the family is by presenting other models as equivalent, and that starts with conferences of this sort.
The morality in question is the morality of the weak.
Naturally, women are attracted to strong/ruling men. This created a situation in which the weak were left without women (beautiful women), so the idle priests, the nerdy religious sages, sat and thought and advised what to do, until the foolish idea of one woman for one man came into their minds. In this way they destroyed natural attraction, natural sexual selection, and natural development. The result is that were it not for social-religious pressure, 80-90 percent of couples would divorce (today women initiate 80% of divorces). And men are debating whether polygamy is moral…
I have nothing to do with slogans. I explained my position.
And I argued that they do not live in marriage, because what they call marriage is only a sharing of the name. And since that is so, there is no obligation on a Noachide to live in marriage, and therefore there is also no prohibition on polyamory. If that seems strange to you – all the best. But I do not see the point of this argument..
As far as I am concerned, all marriage is contract law. Even among Jews. The Torah determines what the contract includes. The Torah’s prohibition applies to what it defines as intercourse, and intercourse in an unusual manner is not intercourse. I see no need for a source. It is self-evident. There is a contract here made between the couple to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel. The content of the contract is determined by the Torah.
1) I did not understand this casuistry. The social taboo may stem also from the halakhic prohibition and from other things (evolution). But even if it did stem from the prohibition, that is a psychological derivation, and therefore there is no impediment to the prohibition remaining in force while the rejection subsides.
2) I did not understand this casuistry either. It is possible that the decline in emotion is a result of social pressure. But the question about the social pressure itself is: what does it stem from? Why did people suddenly stop getting worked up about it? The results are not mixed, but show a clear and unequivocal trend. True, in the middle of the process there is still a mixture, because it does not happen all at once. What are you trying to prove from this?
And what does this have to do with the question of damages?
Guesses are nice. But you can’t take them to the grocery store. And if the act as such is not wrong, then the public legitimacy it receives is not wrong either.
The whole Book of Genesis is a hymn to polyamory. The 12 tribes were born from multiple wives. Nobody claimed that our forefather Jacob dismantled the delicate fabric of the sacred family unit. And more than that, the family unit of our forefathers (the holy ones) often seems rather coarse and not delicate at all (see various stories in Genesis that are difficult and embarrassing to explain to children), and still the world continued to exist. This is just classic conservatism that has no connection, in my opinion, to morality or to the spirit of Judaism. The world changes all the time, and the spirit of the age is not always a bad thing – assuming there is someone directing history.
“If the act as such is not wrong, then the public legitimacy it receives is not wrong either” – that is a misleading sentence. The act may be moral (because it is done by consent between two people), and yet a bad act for those same two people. Given that they already think it is good for them, the principle of free choice may perhaps override the problematic nature of the act.
But how do people arrive at the conclusion that something is good for them? Surely part of the matter is the degree of social legitimacy. Therefore I would not want to grant broad social legitimacy (say, to present such a family unit as equivalent to a regular family unit) to bad choices.
To Rabbi Michael, שלום!
I would like to try to explain the feeling of rejection people have toward the phenomena under discussion. I will write briefly, although to obtain a coherent view on the matter one would need to elaborate further. In addition, I too am not offering a systematic doctrine, only a certain idea whose direction seems right to me.
First, I support the conservative view which claims that the very fact that there is a feeling of rejection toward something means that there is a need to look closely and try to understand it and the reasons that caused it. One should not accept an easy solution claiming that this feeling belongs to what you call conventionally accepted things and that it depends on temporary local culture, especially when this feeling of rejection cuts across cultures over thousands of years. For such a feeling of rejection toward a given thing did not develop for nothing, and not every temporary conventional norm develops a feeling of disgust toward one who deviates from it. Therefore, when there is broad opposition among many cultures to certain acts, a serious person will not shatter this convention with a flick of the hand, but must examine very, very carefully before smashing this social convention to pieces. [Even the feeling of disgust regarding the example you brought from the South American tribe should be understood, not casually attributed to cultural agreement, for cultural agreement does not develop for nothing. It is quite possible that people’s feeling of disgust toward their fellows’ bodily fluids is rooted in hygienic discernment, since human experience has proved that distancing oneself from another’s bodily fluids preserves health and hygiene, and therefore society developed a feeling of disgust. Or perhaps there is another reason].
Now to the substance of the matter: in order to explain the feeling of rejection toward the issue under discussion, I would like to change the terminology somewhat, and instead of using the term “moral,” I want to use the term “human.”
Man, as a creature who feels himself superior to the animals (in religious language this is called “the image of God”), developed various forms of behavior that appear to him “human,” meaning that by behaving in this way he gives his actions an expression that these acts are not animalistic but human, and thereby places himself on a higher level than the rest of the animals [and indeed humanity regards human behavior as a moral value; this view probably stems from the belief that the Creator gave man evaluative superiority over the other animals, and one who does not believe in this fundamental assumption has no reason to see this as a moral value].
Sexual relations are something that exists throughout the biological species; in order to elevate this act so that it has human qualities, civilized man developed certain conventions that, in his view, raise the sexual act into a human act. [For example, what the Sages said, that one should learn proper conduct from the rooster, “who first appeases and then mates” – meaning that even among animals a certain level of humanity sometimes appears, and surely man must learn not to be less than they].
The relation of covenant-making to the sexual act is the basic relation that man developed to elevate this act and turn it into a human act rather than an animal act. Likewise the relation called love is a human development that serves to elevate the act into a human one. I do not pretend to explain in purely logical terms which traits or acts are called human, and I agree that this concept is elusive; however, one must accept that insofar as the convention includes many cultures and much time, one should assume that it belongs to this realm, so long as there is no other sufficient explanation.
In addition, it is highly plausible that this way of marriage through covenant-making preserves many other human qualities, such as family feeling that includes love and devotion to family members and responsibility for future generations.
In summary: the feeling of deep shock many have toward the phenomenon of polyamory [and likewise homosexuality] is rooted in the heavy weight they give to the trait called “humanity,” which distinguishes us human beings from the rest of the animals and gives man’s actions an elevated feeling that he is not merely an animal.
Ploni, “The whole Book of Genesis is a hymn to polyamory”? You’re joking, right? Half the book deals with the troubles and disasters that came as a result of multiple wives. Jacob’s summary of his life was: “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.”
A few questions: a. If polyamory arises after the fact, after a long period of ordinary marriage, is the agreement of both sides sufficient to nullify the original agreement? In any case, I am quite sure that the vast majority of cases are in this form (otherwise I do not see the rationale for binding yourself to such an agreement). b. Usually the feeling of disgust toward certain things stems from actual moral defects, which the disgusting action reflects. For example: eating the dog points to a serious defect in the personality of the person that enables him to enjoy the flesh of a relative/creature that was emotionally close to him, something that perhaps indicates a lack of ability to love and feel empathy. Homosexuality points to a moral defect that assumes that love and physical attraction are the main thing (and it does not matter that today children can be brought into the world indirectly; the fact that this could not be done in the past points to the defect in the act itself).
That is, the consequences of those acts do not actually cause the act to become immoral; rather, the consequences show us that those acts are immoral (after that diagnosis, it does not matter whether the consequence will no longer exist in the future, since we have already exposed the immorality of the act itself)
*bind yourself
With God’s help, 8 Adar 5779
Besides what Roni pointed out, that the Book of Genesis shows all the troubles arising from “bringing trouble into the house,” it seems that the ideal to which the positive exemplary figures of Genesis aspired is: “and he shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Thus Adam has one unique wife, and so too Noah and his three sons. Even the animals chosen to enter the ark come “male and his mate.”
Even among the Patriarchs it is clear that the ideal case is one wife, and taking an additional wife was done only because of necessity, either because the wife of one’s youth had not been blessed with children (or had “ceased bearing”), and she herself asks to bring in her maidservant as a wife in order to be built up through her. Thus Abraham took Hagar at Sarai’s request, and thus Jacob took Bilhah and Zilpah at Rachel’s and Leah’s request. Jacob married Leah against his will because of Laban’s deceit.
This situation stands in contrast to the norm among all the neighbors – Nahor and Seir, Esau and Ishmael – for whom multiple wives and concubines are the ideal from the outset. The first to invent polygamy was Lamech, who also had the “merit” of continuing Cain’s path in “I have slain a man for my wound, and a child for my bruise,” and he bequeathed polygamy to humanity. In the end, even Laban understands that multiple wives are not good, and he stipulates with Jacob, “If you take wives in addition to my daughters.”
It seems there is a correlation between monotheism and monogamy, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says to His wife, the Congregation of Israel: “One is my dove, my perfect one.” The ideal in Scripture is “she is your companion and the wife of your covenant” (Malachi 2), and taking an additional wife is a necessity, whether because the wife of one’s youth was not blessed with children, or for the purpose of levirate marriage to a brother or relative who had no children.
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
What do you mean by bad for those two people? Will it harm them, or is it not a moral act (contrary to what you wrote)? Or do you mean to say that a person has the right to do an immoral act (so long as he harms no one).
Who asked you to grant legitimacy to anyone? The question I discussed was whether such an act is moral or not.
You have both gotten carried away. It is neither a hymn nor a condemnation. Jacob’s life was bad for all sorts of reasons, and not necessarily because of multiple wives. Were the quarrels with Laban and Esau connected to multiple wives? Were the quarrels among the children (Joseph and his brothers) connected to multiple wives? They were connected to Joseph’s attitude toward his brothers, which perhaps indirectly also stemmed from the fact that they had different mothers. Beyond that, in Jacob’s case we are talking about polygamy and not polyamory. For our purposes the difference is very great. Not only the asymmetry between women and men, but in polyamory all the adults and children do not live in one house, whereas in polygamy they do. The problems with Jacob, to the extent that they stemmed from polygamy, were because it brought the whole family into the same house. Therefore even the small component of polygamy in those problems has no connection whatsoever to polyamory.
We have a disagreement, but you did not present my position correctly. I did not argue that feelings of rejection have no significance, but that they do not necessarily have significance. When there is such a feeling, we must examine whether it reflects an ethical principle or a certain psychological and cultural structure that is subject to change. Most of the claims you raised here are unsubstantiated. You speak about harms to love, to the sexual bond, and to care for the family, and it does not seem to me that you have systematically investigated what happens to these parameters in a polyamorous world. These are gut feelings, and it is enough for you that they exist; you do not bother to examine them because you are biased. And that is exactly what I was talking about.
What is certain is that if a child calls the son of polyamorous “partners” a “son of a whore!”, the latter will not be able to make his life miserable. Similar to the words of R. Judah the Pious in Sefer Hasidim, Wistinetzki edition: “118) Let not the humble man allow anyone to quarrel on his behalf; and if they say to him ‘son of a whore,’ or about his fathers or his wife or his family, let him not allow those who hear it to quarrel on his behalf.” And elsewhere there: “444463) A sage entered the house of a righteous Jew, and that righteous man had small children, and the children would say, ‘Son of a whore, give us this and that,’ and the righteous man would remain silent.” Or: “444473, 3) An old man entered a house and heard that his little son, about four years old, said to his father, ‘Son of a whore,’ and his father was beating him for this.”
All this will not apply here, then
A. Of course that is enough to nullify the original agreement on the moral and human plane. After all, there is no obligation whatsoever to uphold a contract if by mutual consent it is canceled. But halakhically apparently not. If this was not agreed from the outset, then the marital bond is apparently valid kiddushin. However, there is room for the argument that if both agree to polyamory, then it is revealed retroactively that they did not understand what they were signing or the meaning of the kiddushin contract between them.
B. Here I really disagree. First, eating the dog does not necessarily express a lack of connection. Once it is dead, it is no longer it. Second, even if it does express lack of connection, there is no moral problem here. And even if a person has an inability to form connection, that is not a moral problem but at most a psychological problem. That is really not the same thing. As for homosexuality, I do not see why focusing on love and a couple bond rather than only on children is problematic. Nor do I think you are right. They bring and raise children, only they do not conceive them in the usual way. And in general, what about marrying a woman who cannot give birth? In your opinion is there a moral obligation to divorce her.
And the general thesis with which you concluded, according to which the consequences expose the immorality of the act, seems to me utterly unfounded. A mere declaration.
Ploni wrote:
Roni: indeed, I exaggerated a bit with “hymn,” but I want to hang on a high tree – the damages do not indicate a flaw in the act itself, as was emphasized in the article. So perhaps a blues song instead of a hymn – but still a song (:
(Ploni, in the future please continue in the same thread. Click “reply” after the first message in the thread, and your response will appear at its end.)
My basic argument is not because of harm to the sexual bond or to love etc.; that was just for dessert.
My basic claim is that covenant-making is a very human act, and humanity (or religion, it does not matter for present purposes) developed this mode of sexual bond in order to create humanity within that bond. And it is obvious by reason – and I assume you agree – that making a covenant with one person is making a covenant, whereas with two it is not covenant-making but merely sexual relations.
Therefore ordinary marriage is a sexual bond with a distinctly human character, whereas open marriage is a sexual bond with an animalistic character.
It clearly emerges from the Book of Genesis that the ideal is “and he shall cleave to his wife.” Adam, Noah, and his sons had one wife. Even the animals were required to enter the ark “male and his mate.”
Even among the Patriarchs we see that the ideal case was one wife. Only out of necessity did Abraham and Jacob take additional wives, when the wife of one’s youth had not been blessed with children, and only at the initiative of the wife. Jacob was forced to marry Leah because of Laban’s deceit.
Lamech invented polygamy – the continuer of Cain in “for I have slain a man” – and after him went Seir and Nahor, Esau and Ishmael. But Abraham’s disciples, just as they advocate “monotheism,” so too they advocate “monogamy,” and only under great necessity of procreation or levirate marriage do they take a second wife.
And therefore the prophet Malachi sharply condemns those who betray the wife of their youth, who and only who is “your companion and the wife of your covenant.”
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
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…. and after him went Seir and Nahor, Esau…
From Judah’s statement, “Let her take them, lest we become a laughingstock,” it appears that although harlotry with an unmarried woman was permitted (as Maimonides rules regarding Noachides), resorting to a prostitute was considered a shameful thing even by the standards of the “land of Canaan.” Simeon and Levi too are appalled and avenge them, saying: “Should he treat our sister as a harlot?”
In any case, we have been “privileged” that Bar-Ilan University (and a teacher in the Advanced Torah Institute beside it) are hastening the redemption by fulfilling “the house of assembly shall become a brothel” 🙂
Nothing remains but to bless them that they redirect their energies to bringing the redemption nearer by more positive means, whether through Torah and acts of lovingkindness, which save from the birth pangs of the Messiah, or through making the land flourish, which is “the revealed end.”
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
I’ll tell the rabbi why point a. is important in my opinion. Because I find it hard to believe that in that odd arrangement, in which the parties agree to what they do not agree to, both sides jointly decided on the arrangement. I am inclined to believe that in most cases, one side pressed hard enough to make the other side understand that it was either this or divorce. Here we are already talking about coercion, which may not fit the definition of a joint and agreed decision, and therefore the thing is still morally wrong.
It is strange that all the commenters argue passionately that the family unit of father and mother is something sacred and that harming it is immoral
but they forget that according to the Torah multiple wives are permitted, and not only permitted, but this is how the great figures of the nation conducted themselves.
Of course one can distinguish between multiple wives and polyamory, but still the distinction does not justify one being sacred and the other morally wrong.
Personally I feel much more opposition to polyamory than to same-sex marriage. Couplehood, even if of the same sex, is built on mutual trust and establishing a shared home; I cannot imagine that multiple partners can create a family unit. I think a stable family is the basis for healthy child-rearing and the existence of society. But this problem also exists with multiple wives, unless they are weak and dependent women, in which case maybe it can work.
With God’s help, 8 Adar 5779
To Dani – greetings,
Already among the Patriarchs one sees that the ideal case was one wife. Abram took Hagar only because Sarai was barren, and at her initiative. Jacob was forced to take Leah because of Laban’s deceit. And he took Bilhah and Zilpah only because Rachel and Leah requested to be built up through giving their maidservants. Another circumstance for taking an additional wife is to establish the name of a deceased husband upon his inheritance, or to give protection to a lone woman, in Ruth’s words: “Spread your wing over your maidservant.”
Only among kings do we find multiple wives, apparently as a way of forging political ties, and even regarding that the Torah imposed a limit when it commanded the king, “He shall not multiply wives for himself.” Perhaps Solomon concluded from his difficult experience that a man should rejoice in the wife of his youth and keep far from the strange woman (Proverbs 5). The prophet Malachi too sharply condemns one who betrays the wife of his youth, hurling at him: “For the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and the wife of your covenant.”
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
The question is whether one accepts values that are not values of interpersonal ethics, and the Sages already said in Yoma that forbidden sexual relations are among the things that, had the Torah not been given, reason itself would have required them to be said – meaning they are something reason obligates, and not religious statutes.
And the rabbi has already written about this in some post.
That is, there are families of values of purity and holiness that are not moral values.
After we sharpen these subjects of values, we need to try to understand whether polyamory belongs there at all.
The intuitive perception probably associates polyamory with values of holiness, and that is what the struggle is about: whether to recognize such values or not.
Moshe R.
How do you define “coercion”? The couple entered the marriage from the outset knowing (in a manner that “fits the definition of a joint and agreed decision,” in your words) that if one side wanted to divorce, it would happen. After some time, one of the sides decides to divorce, at least in the sense that if the choice is between the present situation and divorce, he prefers divorce. Then there is a joint and agreed decision that this is going to be a special kind of “divorce” in which the relationship is polyamorous. At none of these stages do I find any breach of agreement or coercion.
Not that I agree with the whole move, but the problem, in my opinion, already lies in its ethical premises, not in this specific inference.
Noam wrote:
The rabbi wrote in his latest article regarding polyamory that there is no problem of a married woman because he betrothed her not on condition that she be exclusively his, and therefore this is not considered valid kiddushin.
So first, assuming the rabbi meant that, allow me to disagree already on the factual level. The truth is that in a large portion of cases they marry in the ordinary way (perhaps they were even observant), and only after a few years decided to diversify their sex life. On the halakhic level, why exactly is this a necessary condition for kiddushin? Perhaps there is reason to say that kiddushin is by definition in order to forbid her to the whole world, but as I understand it that is only rabbinic and not the Torah’s intent.
My answer:
There is a mix-up here. Regarding one who betrothed in the ordinary way and afterward they decided on polyamory, see my response to Moshe R. above.
And what you asked at the end refers to one who betrothed on that understanding from the outset. That is not kiddushin, and it is void by Torah law. What is rabbinic here?!
Your assumption is incorrect
The question whether in most cases there is coercion is an empirical question, and I do not know the answer to it. I assume you do not either. In any case, it is not relevant to the principled discussion, which dealt with the state of polyamory itself, regardless of coercion.
That is not exactly the question. Even if there are such values, the question is whether polyamory is included among them.
It is true that even if there are such values, polyamory itself must be discussed on its own,
but the intuitive perception is like that; it may be that people are confusing it with a feeling of disgust,
but the struggle right now is about values,
it may be that if they look again they will see there is a mistake here,
but the fact that this is not a moral issue does not mean that the struggle is not about values. As stated
I did not understand why exactly these are not kiddushin. He betrothed her according to the law of Moses and Israel without exclusivity. Why is that not halakhically valid?
This is kiddushin on condition that she be permitted to another. If he were to do so as a condition, then this would be a stipulation against what is written in the Torah, and then the condition would be void and the act would stand. But from this you learn that permission to another contradicts the essence of kiddushin in the Torah. Therefore, when one does this in the definition of the act of kiddushin itself and not as a condition, such kiddushin is not kiddushin.
Maimonides, Laws of Marriage 7:13:
If one says to a woman, “Behold, you are betrothed to me except for so-and-so,” meaning that she shall not be forbidden to him, but shall be a married woman with respect to the whole world while to so-and-so she is as an unmarried woman – she is betrothed doubtfully. But if he says to her, “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you be permitted to so-and-so,” she is betrothed and she will be forbidden to him like all the people, because he stipulated concerning something impossible to fulfill.
With God’s help, 9 Adar 5779
There is no need to look for justifications for “polyamory”; it is both a matter of adultery and a matter of promiscuity, which according to Maimonides is forbidden even in a one-time act of intercourse, and according to Nahmanides at least in a state of “permanent openness.” Even for Noachides, for whom the matter is permitted – the nations themselves have already fenced themselves off from it, and it is considered shameful, as Judah said: “Let her take them, lest we become a laughingstock.”
Morally, there is exploitation here of the distress of the partner who, out of desperate love, is willing to accept the infidelities of the beloved. There is also wrong done to the children who grow up in an unstable family framework in which every “casual romance” is liable to shake the stability of the home and the security it provides.
We need to give tools to get out of this. To teach about the happiness found in a couple relationship full of fidelity and commitment, a relationship not based only on pleasures but on shared values and a shared destiny, on gratitude and mutual appreciation, in which the man and his wife are “companions and people of covenant” to one another, in Malachi’s phrase (chapter 2).
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
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We need to give tools to get out of this. …
Indeed, an age-old curse. 🙂 One would have to ask linguists whether the Hebrew is more correct than current usage…
Indeed, nowadays someone wishing to insult his fellow will hurl at him, “you polyamorophobe!” and that will be a terrible slur 🙂
Regards, Politically-Levinger Correct
Sounds to me almost as severe as Hillary’s Basket of (Polyamorophob) Deplorables …-)
To write, “As far as I am concerned, all marriage is contract law. Even among Jews. The Torah determines what the contract includes,” is a bit of wordplay. The central difference between contract law and the law of prohibitions is that contract law is based on the parties’ intention, whereas prohibitions are determined by the Torah. If not, in what sense exactly is this contract law?
Or in your own language: why is it obvious to you that the Torah did not include under the law of a married woman, in every contract between a Noachide and his wife, the prohibition of a married woman?
After all, according to your claim, among Israel too this is contract law, and still: “If he said to her, ‘Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you be permitted to so-and-so’ – she is betrothed, and she will be forbidden to that so-and-so like everyone else, because he stipulated something impossible to fulfill.”
Is it at least clear that a couple who married and afterward decided they are polyamorous are transgressors, or do you hold that marriage is contract law and therefore if the parties consent there is no prohibition of a married woman?
Can we get a definition of morality? What is the moral act, and what is the measure by which to assess what is a moral act? If a moral act is universal and symmetrical and identical among all human beings, is the understanding of what a moral act is embedded in human essence?
I am not worthy
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… and after him went Seir and Nahor, Esau…
Note:
In the end, even Laban understood that multiple wives are not good, and he stipulated with Jacob that he should not take wives in addition to his daughters.
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
I have lost the thread of the discussion.
The laws of bailees are contract law, and yet the Torah dictates them. True, there one can stipulate and alter them and in kiddushin one cannot, and still it is a contract.
As for Noachides, it has no connection to the issue at hand. In our case the Torah defined the contract, but in their case the Torah defined the contract nowhere, and only recognizes it after the fact. So why assume additional assumptions about it?
I already answered your question at the end in my reply to Moshe R.
With God’s help, 6 Adar 5779
On the contrary. According to its simple meaning, “abomination” is an emotional matter, something disgusting. And who says that there is also in it something objectively false. Therefore the Gemara adds that “to’evah” is an error, something not right and not true, something that causes “wandering astray,” a loss of direction.
The sexual impulse was intended for the maintenance of the world, to fulfill “He did not create it a waste; He formed it to be inhabited.” When this impulse is activated “in vain,” in a way that does not create a stable family – then one fulfills “They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way; they found no city of habitation” (Psalms 107:4).
When one understands that a path opposed to the Torah leads to error and loss of direction – then one seeks and is granted help from God: “And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation” (ibid. verse 7). “If you labored and found – believe!”
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
In honor of Rav S. Z. L.
From where does his honor derive this statement, that “there is no polyamory by consent”?
Did the master sit within the chambers of the hearts of all those who argue for polyamory and receive this information?
Or was it revealed to his honor from Heaven, disclosing to him this secret, which apparently is transmitted only to the discreet?
With God’s help, on the eve of holy Sabbath, Tetzaveh 5779
To R. M. A. – greetings,
From where? Anyone who has ever experienced “amory” – knows. Love is seeing one’s covenant partner as the dearest soul of all. Loving companions rejoice in one another “as You gladdened Your creature in the Garden of Eden of old,” where the man and his wife were alone in their world,
Regards, S. Z. Levinger
With God’s help, on the eve of holy Sabbath, Tetzaveh 5779
“Amory,” and in the holy tongue “love,” is a known human emotion. The lover feels that his partner is the dearest soul of all to him, and expects that the partner feel the same toward him. As King Solomon described: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving hind and a graceful doe; let her breasts satisfy you at all times; with her love be you ravished always” (Proverbs 5:19).
And like every emotion, love requires constant nurturing lest it fade. It must be watered by the dews of mutual appreciation and mutual investment. When one does not take one’s mind off the prophet’s instruction, “For the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your youth… and she is your companion and the wife of your covenant” (Malachi 2:14) – there is no need and no place for “side romances.”
With blessings of “Shabbat shalom,” S. Z. Levinger
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… and as King Solomon instructed: …
Yes, it is bad for those people. If a person does such a thing to himself, perhaps it is moral (the classic question is the morality of suicide). But the act of making such a thing socially accepted – that is already not a moral act.
On nature and beyond it.
I will begin by saying that our eyes plainly see same-sex relations among animals (even among different species); this cannot be denied. If so, we have here that it is natural, or at least not contrary to nature if you prefer.
Seemingly, from this observation it follows that arguments that relations exist only for evolutionary utility lose some of their weight. We see that the sexual impulse operates in other ways as well.
But we must also examine the causes and consequences of these sexual relations among animals.
First I will need to generalize and establish one simple point: what harms = immoral, that is clear to all of us. What does not harm can be moral so long as certain conditions are preserved. For example, slander, which was brought in the article: one can indeed argue, as the Chafetz Chaim does, that all slander harms even if we do not see it. Still, a common claim among those who speak slander is: I am only talking, and he is not here to hear me and be hurt; not a hair on his head is touched, so how can you claim that this is immoral?
In slander, the corruption of the soul of the speaker and the listener, as well as the fact that it opens the door to plotting evil, or simply diminishing the person spoken of in a way that affects the subconscious and therefore harms him – that is what is immoral.
I would qualify this paragraph by saying that when absolutely everything is by consent, it seems to me that I incline to the rabbi’s view that there is here no moral prohibition belonging to the intelligible, but only something conventionally accepted (and of course there remain biblical prohibitions of “thou shalt not”).
From observing animals we may learn that this is how they are built; this is the nature also imprinted in us to carry out the means of reproduction. These means are given over to an impulse that brings them into action, and it is one of the powers of the living and speaking creature. The impulse is almost on a par with the impulse for food, water, and sleep, and its need is comparable to theirs. From the moment a person feels it, all the more so after he has consciously made use of it, and all the more so after he has used it for union, it grows stronger. “There is a small organ in man: if one starves it, it is satiated; if one satiates it, it is hungry.” And from the moment a person knows the feeling of having satiated it, it becomes harder for him to overcome it, for it is hungrier after having been fed. Here is where the corruption of the soul through satisfying lust comes to expression.
For among animals we do not see sexual restraint to the slightest degree. Dogs that undergo training and whose owners impose discipline on them will not mount furniture, because they are not the alpha. Not because of restraint. By contrast, in the park they will use the sexual impulse to display dominance over other dogs. And this is a large part of their games among themselves (not when a person throws them a stick, when they are playing with the person). But if it has not undergone training, the dog will mount objects and people if it senses insecurity in its owner, which causes it itself to be insecure and anxious that it has to take care of the whole house. So for it this is a kind of assertion of control, because if it has to be the boss it must establish its status. The need itself comes to expression; that is clear. But dogs too will not like another dog dominating them, and they will do everything to prevent it. Therefore we need to ask whether this is human. Is it natural that it happens? Yes. But does the fact that animals do it make it human? Is it human for a person to satisfy his lust whenever he can? It is better for man that his life be more than a search for satisfying lust. There is so much to do, and if a person’s fields of interest are only around his lust, deterioration will occur in the other things he needs to develop, and his body will weaken. This will lead to a deterioration of morality and of the whole establishment on which we subsist. Precisely the fact that animals have many sexual relations leads me to the conclusion that we must be more than that.
It seems to me that restraint is the key to moral existence. Without restraint a person will also come to moral crimes.
At the same time, the mechanism itself is activated by touch and warmth, regardless of the thought itself. Any man and any woman can come to the fulfillment of desire itself with whoever they are with, simply because of the way the mechanism is heated.
Which brings me to the discussions of love. For love itself is not for the act, but for the person and his support of us. One can love without lusting. Desire for a person comes from our choice to act, to touch with the intention of reaching fulfillment. At the same time, the togetherness of desire brings closeness and arouses love. And the two things are connected. And I ask seriously: if so, what prevents a person, whoever he is, from seeking a soul suited to him, and bodily love will come without fixing the attraction? For it is souls that we love, not bodies.
I wrote more about this, but the page is too short; I will stop here while the last sentence continues to echo.
There is theory and there is practice. That is the problem with philosophy.
In theory there is consent and everything is wonderful and nobody should interfere in our open marriage.
In reality, studies show that there is not always real consent. Competition, jealousy, and suffering arise. And then someone is not always willing to continue with it while the other is unwilling to give it up.
The fact that a wife or husband does not want to divorce and therefore is “willing” to polyamory sometimes constitutes exploitation and oppression. It is not enough to say that the person agreed.
The second problem is a slippery slope. Recognition of this leads to recognition of open marriage, lowering the moral boundaries regarding infidelity, etc.
Shai, it is a bit strange to me that you criticize philosophy for being detached from reality while your own argument suffers from that very fault. The slippery slope you are talking about is already here. Polyamory will change nothing one way or the other.
By the way, here is another theoretical-philosophical argument: reality shows that even in ordinary marriages there is not always consent (certainly in cases of refusal to grant a divorce), so perhaps we should not permit those either?!
The article here did not speak about a case that involves exploitation of the other spouse, but about a case where it is done willingly, with the agreement of both, without a single moral flaw by one toward the other
And if you claim that there is no such reality, I would be glad to hear how many such couples you know and whether you have studied the issue, or whether you just threw out an assumption without knowing the subject [because anyone who merely watches a bit on the internet sees that at least they speak differently
To Rav S. Z. L.
If, as you say, the logic and feeling of one who has been married tells him that there are no couples who live in love and yet want multiple loves, how do you explain the many among Israel before the ban who, despite being married, added another wife?
How do you explain David and Solomon, who despite being married and investing in their love at least as much as you did, were nevertheless drawn many times to more and more women?
You are making assumptions that I, as a happily and lovingly married man, reject, and I think they are nothing more than religious justification and persuasion that a life of commandments is also the most suitable in terms of compatibility and convenience in life – something that certain religious people tend to do. But I judge you favorably that you are doing this, as you wrote: “We need to give tools to get out of this” – you too do not believe what you wrote, but you want thereby to influence others so that they will believe your words
In Genesis one sees this less because it was done out of necessity, but with David and Solomon, who took more and more wives on top of their wives, when their motivations are described one clearly sees the legitimacy they saw in the matter and that the structure of a healthy man is such that one woman does not satisfy him
Also, the fact that in Genesis it seems this was not done ideally, and that Rabbeinu Gershom abolished it from Israel, is not necessarily because of the very fact that a person wants another woman despite his marriage, but mainly because such perfect two-person marriages, when they even lived together, would create conflict between the women [as one sees in Genesis]; but if it had been done in such a way that one was married and the second only somewhat on the side, there would not necessarily have been the problem that led Rabbeinu Gershom to the ban [perhaps he had another problem with it, but not the problem of two wives]
Besides, one must remember that all this is irrelevant to the article of Rabbi Michael Abraham, because here the issue is when it comes from the consent and desire of both, and then who are we to complain about a couple and claim that they are doing something immoral
Rav S. Z. L. keeps assuming here, again and again, that multiple wives is not the normal thing from the Torah’s perspective, something whose source is unknown to me
Among the Patriarchs we do not find that they objected to multiple wives, and the fact that Jacob got stuck with Rachel and Leah was not because of opposition to the idea itself, but simply because at that point he wanted Rachel, and naturally he did not want another woman. So too with Abraham, we find no opposition at all, and we do not see that he had any problem with Keturah. And from the fact that Sarah had to offer him her maidservant Hagar, one sees nothing, because she was only a maidservant, and who says Abraham wanted her specifically? But we find no source that he was opposed in principle
And as for the claim that the kings did this for political reasons, I do not know its source, and why invent something with no source at all, especially since we explicitly see that David did this out of lust for women he met, some of whom he met when they were exposed, and only with Solomon do we find that some of his wives were daughters of kings; but even that does not necessarily mean that was the purpose of the marriages [just as marriages between two Hasidic rebbes are not intended for political purposes], and certainly he had many other wives and concubines not for these purposes
And as for the Torah warning a king against multiple wives, the Torah explained that this is so that his heart not turn aside, not because of a problem inherent in marriage to several women
One thing we see clearly in David: that a man’s nature is not built for marriage to one woman, and even when his marriage is happy he needs another woman
At the same time, one must remember that this is not connected to the issue discussed in this article, regarding couples where both want it, for even if the Torah did not see this as the normal form, still it is impossible to accuse them of lack of morality
The article is good and accurate
At the same time, it is worth emphasizing that there is logic in attacking both these marriages and the LGBT community in the religious sector and calling them all sorts of derogatory names, and doing so as a kindness to religious people –
This is because today a religious person who identifies himself as gay is forced to choose among 3 bad options for him: 1) not marry a man despite the personal tragedy involved, 2) remain religious and marry a man and live in constant contradiction both toward himself and toward his surroundings, 3) leave the religious world
In most cases all three options are undesirable from his perspective, and any path he chooses causes him indescribable emotional suffering
On the other hand, one thing is clear: among all those who identify themselves as gay, many could live happily with a woman were it not for the entire public atmosphere. [I did not write that all of them, but that many of them could.]
If so, the more we exclude this topic from religious discourse and make it seem irrelevant, the more religious people will feel the attraction that exists in them also toward women, and not be drawn only to men
The same thing is also suitable for multiple loves
[I am not deciding here that it is preferable to behave this way, that it is preferable to do this in order to save some of the suffering involved in being a religious gay person at the cost of the part for whom in any case they will be gay and will only suffer more because of our war against them; my only claim is that there are two sides to the coin and one must think also about the other side[
And if there is a guiding hand behind these things? This may be a deviation from the topic, but what if there is a guiding hand whose goal is to undermine what we know as the normative family unit, by promoting everything that used to be on the margins (LGBT identities, polyamory, sex changes, incest), shifting the Overton window in order to harm humanity and gain control? To confuse the younger generation, inject LGBT content into the education system, allow a minor to consent to sex change without parental consent, all in order ultimately to establish a satanic cult that denies divinity? To establish a global satanic religion? Would that change the whole discussion? If there is agreement that people with interests want everything to be permitted and free in order to change and re-educate humanity? (For example, what is happening today in the Northern Hemisphere regarding gender and the blurring of differences between women and men, transhumanism)? Does that sound conspiratorial?
The conspiratorial phrasing is demagogic and unnecessary. There is an open struggle to broaden the definitions of family and couplehood. It is on the table, and that is what is being discussed. So what?
1. I think what’s missing here is a substantive reference to the essential difference between polyamory and homosexual relations – a married woman is forbidden even to Noachides. The fact that the couple did not want to marry with kiddushin according to the law of Moses and Israel does not mean that they are not married *at all*. Unless you want to argue that the prohibition of a married woman for Noachides applies only when the gentile has relations with the intention of marrying in such a way that she becomes forbidden? I think that is a bit forced.
2. What follows from the previous comment is that there is more room here to ask about the morality of the prohibition – seemingly even someone who does not hold that commandments are tied to morality can identify the Noahide commandments as a moral requirement.
3. Regarding Maimonides – I am not sure that the distinction between conventionally accepted things and intelligibles is productive. Seemingly, this distinction buries the entire moral discussion – Maimonides argues that good and evil are the categories of the conventionally accepted, as opposed to the intelligible, so in effect his claim is that man’s fall into sin is the degeneration that causes us to identify aesthetics and ethics. “Disgust” and “evil” are not in separate categories for him; on the contrary, they are united over against “falsehood.”