Q&A: A Jew Who Has Relations with a Gentile Woman
A Jew Who Has Relations with a Gentile Woman
Question
Hello,
It seems to me that in the past you addressed the following question here on the site, but I can’t find that discussion (are there search options here?).
Maimonides (Forbidden Sexual Relations 12:10) writes:
“But if a Jew has relations with a gentile woman—whether she is a minor of three years and one day, or an adult, whether unmarried or married, and even if he was a minor of nine years and one day—once he has had relations with the gentile woman intentionally, she is executed, because through her a stumbling block came to a Jew, just like an animal. And this matter is explicit in the Torah, as it says: ‘These were the very ones who, by the counsel of Balaam, caused the children of Israel…’ and ‘kill every woman who has known a man by lying with a male.’”
From his wording it appears that this would apply even in a case where the Jew raped the gentile woman, and it is very hard to make sense of this Jewish law. Especially since Maimonides derived it on his own, without any source at all. And as for what he brings from the daughters of Midian, the connection is not really clear: there there was a special command to kill women who came to cause Israel to sin and bring calamity upon them, as it says there, “Take vengeance for the children of Israel against the Midianites.” So what is the basis for learning from there to every case of a Jew who has relations with a gentile woman?
Answer
Indeed, I vaguely remember this coming up here in the past. But I don’t remember where, or what I wrote.
It seems that this is a law of stumbling block and disgrace, and the reason they kill her is because of the disgrace. And in fact, Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in Or Sameach, Laws of Kings 9:7, and in Kli Chemdah on Deuteronomy (p. 170), wrote that the same applies even if she was raped, because her law is like that of an animal with which a Jew had intercourse, which is killed because there is disgrace in this (see Sanhedrin 56 in the passage about stumbling block and disgrace). And indeed, regarding the daughter of a resident alien they wrote there that she is not executed. From this you may infer for our times that gentile women are not in the category of animals (they are restrained by the norms of the nations), so there is no place for this law.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand. What does this have to do with comfort? Even if Maimonides himself didn’t think so, that is still the law, in my opinion. I wasn’t trying to comfort anyone.
Beyond that, even someone who does not think so might say that only because he never imagined that there could be enlightened gentiles—in other words, that the animal-like quality is not essential to a gentile. Someone who encounters normal gentiles, in my opinion, at least in practice would not behave this way. How would he justify it? Either directly (like Meiri) or in a crooked way (“our hand is not strong enough,” “for the sake of peace,” “because of enmity”).
By the way, in my article about Meiri I wrote that Maimonides is the source of his approach. Maimonides writes (if I remember correctly, in two places) that the discriminatory attitude toward gentiles is because they behave like animals. Actually, this is explicit in the Talmud, Bava Kamma 38a: “He saw and released the nations.” And see his commentary on the Mishnah there, 37b:
If a legal case occurs between a Jew and a gentile, then the manner of judgment between them is as I will explain to you: if under their laws we have an advantage, we judge them according to their laws and say to them, “This is your law”; and if it is better for us to judge according to our law, we judge them according to our law and say to them, “This is our law.” And do not find this difficult, and do not be astonished by it, just as you are not astonished by the slaughter of animals even though they have done no wrong, because one in whom the human qualities have not been perfected is not truly a human being, and his purpose is only for the sake of man. Discussion of this matter requires a separate book.
One can of course say that in his view this is essential to gentiles and cannot be changed, but in light of the Talmudic passage in that very same place this is not reasonable.
As for what I mentioned about “comfort,” that is a need (at least for me) when I encounter a Jewish law that is so bizarre, so illogical, and also lacking a clear source.
As for Maimonides being the source for Meiri, it’s not really clear to me what would cause Maimonides to decide that the law had changed. I hope it is agreed that he did not view the gentiles of his own time the way Meiri did, but rather as he writes in the quotation you brought from him; otherwise he should have added some sort of clarifying note. And this despite the fact that he knew the Arab philosophers and presumably respected them.
And what Maimonides would say about our own times, I do not know. We know some enlightened gentiles, but also the Arabs around us, and the Nazis and their helpers from the other nations. So should every gentile be judged individually? Presumably not. It seems more likely that Maimonides would say that nothing has changed (assuming he even holds that such a change would alter the law).
Thank you.
It is clear that the issue is one of disgrace, as Maimonides himself writes, that her law is like that of an animal. And it is this comparison that I find very difficult.
I am doubtful how much comfort we should take in consoling ourselves that nowadays gentile women are not in the category of animals, since gentiles are restrained by the norms of the nations—whether that is actually correct according to Maimonides. If a thousand years had separated Maimonides and Meiri (the originator of this idea), then maybe there would be room to say so. But in the present case, I’m afraid that Maimonides simply did not hold like Meiri.