[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Chana Luntz]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:29:16AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> On a more general level I don't understand your point.  The Maharsha 
> construes the gemara as praising "lishmah" in the sense of "having no 
> personal benefit from the act". The Yerushalmi is discussing whether 
> the raped wife of a cohen needs to get divorced.  One would expect 
> different criteria for these very different contexts.

And RMB writes:

>They're not just different criteria for different context, they're
different topics altogether. We're talking about whether a thought can turn
a sin >into something positive. A kohein not being married to his wife the
rape victim has nothing to do with whether or not she sinned altogether. The
divorce >is not punitive. The whole topic of guilt vs merit doesn't apply.

Actually, I think you will find that while the piece of Mishna on which this
gemora is commenting relates to the wife of a cohen, by the time the piece I
quoted is dicussed, the discussion has moved on to the more general din (ie
for the wife of a Yisrael) that rape paturs from compelling divorce, where
ratzon does not.  So indeed the topic of guilt and merit heavily applies.
And it is in this context that the discussion is regarding the case before
Rav Yochanan, where the woman claimed rape, and he initially assumed that
(a) she *must* have enjoyed it (or had a benefit) in the end, and that (b)
since she enjoyed it in the end, she ought to be divorced.  She accepts (a)
in her argument (hence the idea of sticking the finger *with honey* into his
mouth on Yom Kippur, honey being something that everybody enjoys and
benefits from) but argues against (b), which he ultimately accepts.  The
point I am deriving from this story is that Rav Yochanan appears to assume
as the general course that women will enjoy/have benefit, even if forced,
which is why the different context does not matter.  

>-Micha

Shabbat Shalom

Chana