[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Chana Luntz]

I am rearranging the order of some of RDR's quotes in order to discuss some
items earlier than others:

RDR writes:

>Incidentally, I still find the concept of zuhama cryptic (more below).
...
>I'm at a disadvantage here because I don't know what zuhama is.  As I
implied before, however, I think the gemara's point is that it's not a
situation >where you have to balance advantages and disadvantages - - if
there is zuhama she won't find him attractive.

Zuhama is, according to the midrash, what the snake injected in Chava, ie a
form of impurity, which is then passed down by sexual transmission, but was
lifted from Bnei Yisrael at Sinai. Oddly enough it appears to bear a certain
resemblance to the Xtian doctrine of Original Sin (absent the effect of
Sinai).

Thus my reading of the situation is that she willingly accepted upon herself
a detriment, zuhuma, not the usual benefit that comes with the act of
relations.  But the only reason she was even aware of zuhuma was because she
was such a tzadekes (as the gemora and midrash makes clear when discussing
it in relation to her).  That is, for somebody on her spiritual level, it
was an additional disincentive to have relations, and hence part of what
made the act so clearly lishma - because there was and could be no ulterior
motive in Yael's mind, knowing that she would get no benefit from the
encounter (unlike the Imahos, who also no doubt had the praiseworthy goal of
building up the Jewish people, but in the meantime intended and did benefit
from the encounter).

I wrote: 
> <<Now, again I think you are misreading this Tosphos, but to 
> understand this aspect, you need to go to the gemora in Baba Kama 
> which this is drawn (32a). The gemora there makes a husband liable for 
> any damage that he does to his wife during the course of tashmish. But 
> a query is raised, why is it the husband's problem and not the wife's, 
> since the husband is permitted to have tashmish - answer - but it is 
> only the husband who is doing an act - "kavid ma'aseh", so he is 
> responsible for hurting her, and she bears no liability.>>

RDR:

>Admittedly this is a plausible reading of the gemara there, but, as you say
below, it makes no sense.

I didn't say it made no sense.

I did say:

> <<But the problem with that is if you take it too far, as I suggested 
> in my earlier post, then you ought to get women off scot free from 
> committing adultery, because they never do any act, it is always the 
> man doing it all.>>

And RDR said:

>And here you've made it explicit.

It is not me that is making it explicit, it is the gemora.  The gemora
states, point blank, that a husband is responsible for physical injury to
his wife during tashmish because he does the act, not her.  No ifs not buts,
nor maybes.  And that is how it is brought down in the codes, including in
the Shulchan Aruch.  Now either you assume that the gemora is completely
ignorant as to the nature of tashmish (as are all the codes), and believes
that all women lie back and think of England, or you have to conclude that
they understand that what a woman does in normal tashmish is not deemed a
ma'aseh, but rather is deemed a hana'ah to her (and this is true whether or
not she lies back and thinks of England or whether she takes what we would
consider to be an active part in the proceedings).  The latter seems to me
far more plausible.

But once the gemora concludes in this vein, it has to learn out that it is
the hana'ah that makes women liable for adultery, because women do not act.


Note however that this whole discussion is in the context of women
consenting (the wives presumably are consenting to the tashmish with their
husbands, and the adulterers to the adultery).  Ie first you need consent
(otherwise you are in karka olam territory) once you have consent, then the
hana'ah aspect is what is equivalent to the ma'aseh aspect and creates
liability in terms of onesh, but not in terms of unintentional physical
injury, where the physical reality prevails (absence of an act on behalf of
a woman).

> See Rabbi Heller's comments on the Rosh ad. loc. >(Pilpula Harifta S.K.
reish); he suggests an okimta: that the gemara is discussing only the case
>where she is passive.  

Can you give me a Hebrew books or other cite, as I would like to see this
inside?  However, if such an explanation was normative, then you would have
expected a qualification of this nature to be included in the Tur, Beis
Yosef, Shulchan Aruch etc, but they are not.

>And this suggests that we're arguing about whether the gemara construes
passivity as a normative description of how women behave during tashmish, as
you >imply, or whether it's an option, but by no means an exclusive option,
as I think they imply.

Firstly, it depends on what you mean by passivity.  I may not mean by
passivity what you mean by passivity, or rather, I think the use of the
English term passivity is misleading.  My understanding of what the gemora
is saying is that women do not, as a matter of fact, do an act in the course
of tashmish, as the gemora understands the term act ie ma'aseh.  Ie it is
*not possible* for a woman to do an act in the course of tashmish.  If that
is what you mean by passivity, then yes, I am saying that women are (always)
passive.  But I would not use the English word passive to describe what I
believe the gemora is talking about, because in English we tend to use the
word passive, certainly in this context, to mean a woman not getting
pleasure from the situation, and I don't think this is what the gemora is
talking about at all.  That is, and I am trying to work out how to say this
in an appropriate way on a family list, I think the gemora understands women
to be passive, ie not to be doing any ma'aseh, even if she - well I want to
use the O word, but am not sure it is appropriate on this list.  Ie even
that is not considered a form of ma'aseh.

>  See Rabbi Heller's evidence from Massaches Kallah (evidence, if we needed
any, that he was a hacham, since he cited Masseches Kallah in a halachic
>context).

You will have to be more explicit as to the reference.  But I do not agree
that: 

>And, indeed, the language of Tosafos fits Rabbi Heller's okimta.

Not the Tosphos we have been discussing, nor the Tosphos on the page in Baba
Kama (32a) d"h ihu k'avid ma'aseh:

"v'mahu l'inyan chatas ul'inyan malkos chayaves d'rachmana achshive
l'hana'ah ma'aseh"

Not that it really is a ma'aseh, but that it is equated for the purpose of
chatas and malkos etc

RDR:
>No, I think there are two loopholes.  The first is passivity, and the
second is coercion.  

But if there are two independent loopholes, that would seem to mean that not
only is a woman not liable if she is coerced, she is not liable if she is
passive (whatever that means) even if not coerced.  

So if you take this ukimta, assuming that I have understood it correctly,
and differentiate between a woman who decides to lie back and think of
England, and one who takes physical pleasure from the act, you appear to end
up with the startling proposal that a woman who is caught in the act of
adultery, where it is agreed by all that she was not coerced, can exempt
herself from the death penalty by demonstrating (or perhaps even merely
asserting) that she was passive and didn't find the act pleasurable.  Where
do you have evidence of an additional defence over and above ones (which is
clearly the coercion aspect)?

(And on the flip side, the husband can patur himself from paying damages for
injuring his wife by asserting that she was enjoying it - and given kim li,
that would seem to suggest that he would almost never have to pay).

I wrote:

<<Note by the way that the Tosphos further up on Nazir 23b (d"h "Tamar")
also supports this understanding, the gemora describes Tamar has having
"zinsa" and Tosphos's comment is "niskavanan l'shem shamayim .." that is why
she is praised - it is her kavana that makes it different from the situation
with Zimri, who also zinsa.>>

>I agree that this is a puzzling gemara: it's especially puzzling according
to your opinion, since Zimri was male and Tamar was female.  

Not really, by consenting, Tamar brings herself into the same category as
Zimri.  Just as Yael does, except that she knows that she will get no
benefit, while Tamar was presumably not unhappy to get the benefit.

>Shogeig vs. meizid, however, clearly are defined by what's in a person's
head.

As is mesasek - if the person never intended to do the act at all. But at
least one understanding is that the act it still a form of averah, that of
being mechalel shabbas, but the person is completely patur, because they
never intended the act.  

And so similarly is this in Yael's head - if she had intended to have
pleasure/benefit from Sisera, she would have been guilty of an averah
b'mazid.  But her act was not shogeg (she did not forget that adultery was
assur, or have it happen thinking that he was her husband when he wasn't),
nor was it mesasek, she intended the act to occur.  Thus the gemora
characterised it as an averah, but an averah lishma.  I think one could say
a similar thing about being mechalel shabbas (note the language) for pikuach
nefesh.  The difference being that most of us who are mechallel shabbas for
pikuach nefesh are not doing it lishma - we are doing it out of concern for
the welfare/benefit of the person (or, if a doctor, to advance his/her
professional career - but the existence of this very real benefit does not
stop a doctor being permitted to be mechalel shabbas for pikuach nefesh
reasons).  And if two people do the same act of being mechallel shabbas, the
one doing it because in his head he is intending for pikuach nefesh reasons,
and the other one not, the one would be considered on a high spiritual
level, and the other not, demonstrating that it all is really about what is
in the head, it is the intent that brings it into the mutar category.

In Yael's case, not only was it permissible to do the averah, because of the
overriding goal of saving klal yisroel (just as one is permitted to be
mechalel shabbas to save a person's life), but she was doing it in
circumstances where there was a detrimental side effect, hence the
additional praise (rather like, if somebody was mechalel shabbas for pikuach
nefesh in circumstances where doing the act would get themselves sacked, ie
there was in addition a personal downside to themselves, that would seem
logically to garner them additional spiritual praise).

But it is all about intent, it is the intent that in circumstances where two
halachic principles clash which makes the overriding of one for the sake of
the other mutar.

>David Riceman

Shavuah Tov

Chana