[Avodah] Two kinds of humros

[rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com]

Rn Toby
> It makes people in general aware that there a lot of people you can't
> marry and especially that you can't marry most of the people with whom
> you have close, family relationships, the people you run into all the
> time and have a degree of emotional connection with -- aunts and uncles,
> in-laws, whatnot. That generalized awareness of "can't marry relatives"
> makes people a little more wary in an incest-taboo kind of way about
> getting themselves involved romantically with MOTOS with whom they have
> more than passing contact (precisely because they /are/ "family"). --
 
AIUI this is also the rationale for issur MZ 
 
It ALL ties in to a feeling of safety from "sexual predatory behavior". 
 
IOW the Torah is concerned that family memebers should not feel
threatened, nor the males going to a mikvah or public bath.
 
To me that is the common denominator underlying social-spirtual-psychological 
Hashqafah of much of these "taboos". 
 
KT 
TTW 
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