[Avodah] Cohen Gadol, Pubescent Girl & Rav Kook

[Yaacov Shulman]

Hi,

I appreciate the many comments made regarding the cohen gadol and the
pubescent girl.

I was thinking, tangentially but not irrelevantly, about some differences
between what one might call a traditional or patriarchal society and today's
western society, which Robert Bly has more-or-less famously called a
"sibling" society, in terms of what are considered acceptable or
unacceptable marriages and sexual relationships.

Regarding sexual activity between young adolescents, in modern society that
is generally not seen as problematical.  But if the two fourteen year olds
who are involved in such activity wanted to get married, that would be seen
as taboo, and if their parents were urging them to do so, they might get
arrested, or their children might be taken from them.

Of course, this is the exact opposite of a Torah approach as it appears in
the Gemara.  Perhaps this is because modern society has no problem with
sexual activity between equals but frowns on a relationship that it would
assume is being imposed on the couple.

Also: modern society has no problem with homosexual relationships but
polygamy is a great taboo.  Again, this may be because the first is seen as
being among equals, whereas polygamy implies that the man is in charge and
his wives are subordinate to him.

However, this doesn't touch on the heart of my question regarding the cohen
gadol and pubescent girl.  In brief, such an activity is illegal in modern
western societies, and, if I am not mistaken, is known as "statutory rape."

On the one hand, I am open to hearing about a society of a vastly different
structure than ours, in which marriage has a very different meaning than
ours has--i.e., in which the husband is a father-figure mentor as much as,
or more than, a friend and lover.

On the other hand ... Many years ago I had a conversation with someone who,
it turned out, was a sexual predator (on boys). I mentioned that I had been
listening to a radio talk show on which people told of how pedophiles had
traumatized them. This pedophile replied, "You only hear of the people who
complain. You don't hear from the people who benefited from such
relationships."

This is not what I want to sound like--and to me, this is what that quote in
the name of R. Dovid Pelcovitz sounds like (i.e., that in other societies
children engage in a variety of sexual behavior, including bizarre
aberrations, and it doesn't harm them).

The cohen gadol is the emblem of the Jewish people in a sense. How, I ask
conceptually, can he be obligated to have marital relations with a 12 year
old girl (assuming he is widowed)? How is it that we do not see a discussion
that touches upon the context of darkei noam?

Micha Berger responded pithily,

Because there is no other way to accomodate the chiyuv deOraisa as
> understood.



My guess is that unless we live in a very different society after the
moshiach comes that this halachah will be worked around and not implemented
as it stands. For instance, a widowed cohen gadol might be obligated to step
down (just as a yavam generally is obligated to do chalitzah and not
yibum--the exact opposite of the original ideal and mandate).

I had originally thought of this answer but didn't like it, because it
seemed so inelegant as a solution. But the fact is that many halachos are
inelegant but working solutions to challenging circumstances. This seems to
be the mechanism whereby we maintain the halachic and spiritual-kabbalistic
integrity of the Torah while we adapt it to changing circumstances,
including societal change (not necessarily improvement, just change).
-- 
Yaacov David Shulman
Translator; Editor; Ghostwriter
Specializing in Torah and literary texts
freewebs.com/jewish-spiritual-and-beautiful
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080707/5dfd547f/attachment-0002.htm>