חדש באתר: NotebookLM עם כל תכני הרב מיכאל אברהם

Q&A: Incest

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Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Incest

Question

I heard in a YouTube interview with you that your liberal position supports marriage for anyone who wants it, and in your words, even with a telephone pole.
My question is: do you also support a father and daughter or a mother and son, or alternatively a brother and sister who want to marry each other? Should the state (which is really the social culture) recognize that as well?

Answer

Absolutely. I think I wrote that here in the past. Of course there are health risks here that would impose costs on the state, and if that is clear-cut enough then there is legitimacy to oppose it. But in principle, certainly yes. In my estimation, this too will happen in the future. 

Discussion on Answer

A (2023-06-23)

There is another problem. Incest and marriage within the family could lead to tribalism, and then there is a danger of tribes fighting one another.
I remember seeing an article once about how Christianity broke up tribalism in Europe because of the biblical prohibition on marrying relatives up to the 7th degree.
But on the other hand, in Judaism (except among the Karaites) and in Islam there are relatives who are permitted to marry. And in the Middle East tribalism is very strong.
Even though both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran try to fight tribalism.

David (2023-06-24)

And how would his honored Torah eminence explain the prohibition, “Like the practice of the land of Egypt, where you dwelled, you shall not do; and like the practice of the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you, you shall not do; and in their statutes you shall not walk”? הרי this is a command to the entire nation.

Michi (2023-06-24)

I did not merit to understand the question. All commandments in Jewish law are general.

Asking Seriously (2023-06-25)

I didn’t understand—are you coming to permit incest?

David (2023-06-25)

Let me clarify my question:
The Torah commands us not to follow the ways of the Egyptians and Canaanites in the matter of boundless sexual permissiveness. There is no doubt that the command was said to the people of Israel as a whole and not as guidance or a recommendation to individuals. And consequently, God’s will is that society prevent the individuals within it from engaging in forbidden and unacceptable sexual behavior.
If one believes that the Torah was given to us by the Holy One, blessed be He, and that it obligates us, how can one relate with equanimity to incestuous conduct, or support it?

Michi (2023-06-25)

I do not support it, nor do I relate with equanimity, neither to incest nor to Sabbath desecration nor to eating non-kosher food. All of these are commandments for the whole people and for all time. I just think that a democratic state is not supposed to get involved and help me impose my beliefs on others, especially when those beliefs are the beliefs of a minority.

David (2023-06-25)

In your last sentence you tripped yourself up by your own wording: if these are the beliefs of the majority, then is it permissible to force the minority to behave according to the values of the majority? Is that liberalism?
Moreover, in that interview, in your attempt to present yourself as liberal, it sounded as though you had no principled moral problem with “marrying an electric pole.” Here I understand that you do have a principled moral problem with the “marriage” of a father and daughter, a mother and son, and a brother with his sister. It’s just that your moral positions should not be imposed on others.
Do you also have a principled moral problem with “marriage” between two people of the same sex? It’s just that you do not want to live in a properly ordered society according to your own values because the value of “democracy” overrides the value of morality. Or, on the level of principle and morality, do you see this as something legitimate?

mikyab123 (2023-06-25)

If you want to draw your conclusions about me regardless of the facts, there is no point or need to talk. You can just go ahead and announce that I am an adulterer and a heretic and be done with it. But if you want to talk, the basic conditions for that are to read what I write and say before you respond, and to show reading comprehension beyond that of a child in kindergarten. At this stage it appears that you have fulfilled at least one of neither: either you didn’t read, or you displayed reading comprehension at a level that does not allow for intelligent discussion. So I’m stopping here.

David (2023-06-25)

You ran away from dealing with it, as usual.
You are the great genius and everyone else is stupid at the level of kindergarten.
Interesting whether one can write a book about that wrapped in lofty words.
I did not claim that you are an adulterer, Heaven forbid; that cannot even be inferred by reading between the lines, and I did not even hint that you are a heretic. Why are you pinning on me accusations about you that were never said? Are you trying to paint me as some benighted inquisitor because you lack the ability to answer a question coherently?
I am indeed less smart and brilliant than you, but I would have expected fairer and gentler treatment from you.

mikyab123 (2023-06-25)

Indeed, as usual, I fled from wasting time. Even in this short message you sent there are failures of reading comprehension (for example, I did not claim that you accused me of adultery or heresy, nor did I portray you as an inquisitor; I pointed to one of two possibilities, neither of which is inquisitorial).
My attitude was entirely gentle, fair, and to the point. When there are questions, I always answer them and never run away (and if I have no answer, I say so). But here, as far as I could see, there were no questions, so there is nothing to answer. In the previous message there is not even one word—not one single word literally—that holds water or is connected in any way to what I wrote and said. It is all inventions from your overheated imagination. If you want to ask something about what I wrote, you are absolutely welcome to. But questions directed at a straw man that you created should be directed to him (or to yourself). Good luck.

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