[Avodah] Hypocrisy in halakhah

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 




>>Li nir'eh, though, the taqanah was about something else. Not  that we
necessarily wanted to assimilate Xian marriage ethos, but in  reflection
of the fact that we already did. IOW, once the norm and  expectation was
to have a monogynous marriage, Rabbeinu Gershom might have  felt that the
few violations still left were cruel to the wife who came to be  expect /
assume exclusivity.

This portrays the change as being a  change in din reflecting a change
in realia, rather than changing the din to  reflect a change in desired
morality. >>
 
 
>>>>>
There was always in Torah an implicit understanding that monogamy was the  
norm, the ideal, and that polygamy was the exception or the fall from the  
ideal.  One wife was created for Adam. Noach and his sons each took one  wife into 
the teivah.  Lemach had two wives, about which Rashi comments  with a distinct 
tone of disapproval, "That's how the people of the Dor Hamabul  behaved, they 
would have two wives, one for  procreation and one for sexual  pleasure. [my 
paraphrase] The one for pleasure would take potions to make her  sterile, 
would be dressed up like a bride, feted and cosseted, while the mother  of his 
children would be neglected and scorned and left alone like a  widow."
 
Each of the Avos had one predestined soul mate.  Yitzchak, the olah  temimah, 
lived at the highest level of spirituality and never took a second  wife, 
even when his wife proved infertile.  The relationship between Sarah  and Hagar 
was fraught, as was the relationship between Rochel and Leah -- even  though in 
each of those cases the "real" wife, the real zivug, was instrumental  in 
enabling her husband to marry the second woman.  Chana and Peninah is  another 
famous example of a strained relationship between two co-wives.   The very word 
for a co-wife in Hebrew, "tzarah", tells  you exactly how it  feels to a woman 
to have a co-wife.
 
It wasn't in the Middle Ages that Jews first discovered the drawbacks to  
polygamy.  It was there in the Torah all along.  Permitted but  recognized as far 
from ideal.




--Toby  Katz
=============



**************Plan your next getaway with AOL Travel.  Check out Today's Hot 
5 Travel Deals! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212416248x1200771803/aol?redir=http://travel.aol.com/discount-travel?ncid=emlcntustrav00000001)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20081103/95c7a534/attachment-0002.htm>