[Avodah] A Kiss is but a Kiss?

[Yisrael Medad]

Further to the thread of discussion this past week regarding to propriety of
Yaakov kissing Rachel, may I point out that that act of kissing is not the
only one referred to in the Parsha.  Laban says to Yaakov, "and you didn't
permit me to kiss my sons and daughters" (31:28).  And a few chapters back,
Yitzhak says to Yaakov 27:26, "Come near now, and kiss me, my son." (27:26).

Now, the immediate reaction, I presume, would be well, a father kissing his
progeny is perfectly proper.  No one, I would hope, would think that there
was anything immoral in this.  In other words, even though other
possibilities exist, we don't go there in the simple reading of these
verses.  Even the problematic kiss between Jonathan and David - "and they
kissed one another, and they wept" (1 Samuel Chapter 20:41) - is explained
by Chazal in a non-sexual way.

Yet in this case, we immediately assume a problem in an unmarried man
kissing an unmarried girl.  Should we?  Could it not be that simply this
weas the cultural behavior and nothing more?  Are we anachronistically
applying different moral standards?

And just to round it off, there's another kiss this week, but in the
Haftara:
Hoshea 13:2:  'They that sacrifice men kiss calves.'
-- 
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Mobile Post Efraim 44830
Israel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20061202/16f13d08/attachment-0001.htm>