Lies we have been feed & other issues.

I was pretty much a Chassidisher Bocha, ok so I wasn’t in Yeshiva at the time, but was happy within myself and happy with my Yiddishkite, I had found peace, meaning and purpose, and not in any stupid happy-clappy Baal Teshuvah way, but via a deeply serious intellectual and ongoing meditation on the Rebbe Rashub’s famous mimor Hechaltzu. I felt in tune with life, I found love within myself, and I felt a love for all of life, and I used to smile a lot. And it seems people aren’t happy if other people are happy, they would like everyone to join in their misery, and it didn’t take much for them to knock me off my little pink floating cloud.

I remember how heart broken I felt, when I discovered that there was a roomer about me having a ‘girl friend’, at the time I obviously didn’t have a girl friend and in fact found it almost impossible to even make eye contact with a girl, let alone actually speak to her, or convince her to be my girlfriend! Anyway I was troubled by this allegation, and when a well meaning member of the community took me aside and asked me about this roomer, and told me that ‘its not something we do in this community’ I didn’t say anything, I was so shocked that I just said that I’d sort it out, (implying that I’d stop seeing this imaginary girlfriend) but in my own mind I made a cheshbon, if there is such a rumour, then there must be a reason, maybe it was because I’d listened and actually enjoyed some ‘kol ishah’ on the radio, or that I had to be even stricter with myself with regards to the mikva avera, either way I had my bases covered, and went on my way.

But that incident, ignited in me, a rage, a burning hate for everything that this community was supposed to be representing, this was not just one or two imaginative housewives, everyone assumed that it must have been true, ‘look at the proof, he’s always smiling!’  I spoke to the Dyan, and he said that 'you know there’s nothing wrong with having a girlfriend,’ but I dismissed this man, and what he said as firstly being so estranged from the reality of my life as a Chassidisher Bocha, that it made absolutely no sense what so ever, I hadn’t even spoken to a girl in years, and then it was probably only to ask for the salt!

Secondly he was probably just trying to make me feel relaxed enough to admit that I did have a girlfriend! And I was beginning to become quite pissed off. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? This example of loshen hora, made me realise that it does kill, and it made me angry enough to want to kill, and that's when it started, it was just small at first, just sparked by this incident, but that flame, that consuming flame of cynicism slowly began to grow. Was this my reward for giving up any chance of normal life? For people to spread false roomers about me? I hated the community that had fabricated such lies, that had drawn my innocent soul into its flock, only to belittle anything I may have done or accomplished within myself. Being Happy was easy as long as people weren’t talking lies about you, it made me cry to think of the absurdity of it all. This religious community was actually just very human very petty and miserable, and didn’t think people could actually be happy without having to go against its own principles.  It showed me something was wrong, the community itself was not living by the values it represented, so I moved out of that area for a while and tried to forget about what had happened, which was nothing, except loshen horah.

Years went by, and I still didn’t really talk to girls, and found it almost impossible to make eye contact, but that apart, I still felt happy and comfortable with myself. As things development, I soon realised that this phenomenon, which I had witnessed wasn’t limited to one community, but was prevalent in most. This time around it wasn’t loshen horah, but rather ignorance and apathy, over those years I had submerged myself in the issues of Moshiach and Geula, and again not in a superficial fashion, however, I now realised that no one else knew what I was talking about, this realisation, was the same feeling I had had a few years before, the realisation that the people the community where very far from the teachings they taught. It was a painful realisation one that would eventually make me question my identity with such communities and one day with the entire religious Jewish world, but that’s another story for another time.

What I want to talk about now is sex. And as my mother asked me, when she saw ‘sex & sexuality’ on my website a few years ago, ‘What do you know about sex and sexuality?’ implying you haven’t even had sex, and now your gonna write about it? But as anyone knows the bible is full of sex, and stories of sexual relationships and escapades. And I had done some research and just wanted to share that with you, the reader.

I feel I must first preface this with a story I was told while in yeshiva, about a man that had a secretary whom he had an affair with, and went to see his Rebbe to find a path for repentance and tikkun of this act. The man told his Rebbe all the details, explaining that the secretary was Jewish, single and had gone to the mikvah prier to their secret rendezvous, to which the Rebbe say, ‘there is no tikkun, that will help you for this'  which was explained to us in yeshivah to mean that there is no tikkun for an intentional sin, but only for involuntary or accidental sins, sins of passion. And that was the message we where taught.

Some years later while I myself was teaching Chassidus in a Lubavitch ‘yeshivah’ I joined a class given by Rabbi Dr, Dovid Fink who is supposed to be quite well known in areas of hallacha and medicine/medical science. Anyway one of his lectures was on a strange idea that hadn’t really come across in any detail, that of the ‘laws of Pelegesh’ that is ‘Concubines’. Now we all know, Judaism forbids sex before or outside of marriage, right? And that the Rabbi have forbidden young unmarried women from going to mikvah? Right? That you could only have one wife? So the idea of Pelegesh in this day and age seemed quite silly and  irrelevant, but I went along anyway because I like his teaching style and felt he was a nice guy, unlike some of the other Rabbis there at the time. Anyway, getting to the point, what I learnt blew my mind away! And I’ll tell you in short what I learnt:

 a Pelegesh is a:

1.Jewish woman
2. Who keeps the ‘Laws of purity’ (as would a married woman)
3. Has made a Halachic Vow to be monogamous to her chosen spouse
4. Does not live or move into the house of that spouse, but has her own accommodation
5.a. Is not married Under the Chuppa (or engaged) or any other way
5.b. Is not bound by any legal or monetary contract to her spouse
6. Does not have a history of ‘sleeping around’
7. She may have children from her spouse and they are Not considered illegitimate
8. If she wished to end the relationship, all she has to do is break her vow (a Halachic problem? –but not
as big as aguna!)
9. Once she has broken her vow she is forbidden to return to her previous spouse/s

The only Poisek to categorically forbid a pelegesh is the Rambam (Sefardi),
however, all of the other Ashkenazi Poiskim see nothing wrong with pelegshim. Moreover, puskin that a (Ashkenazi) man is allowed up to four peleshim (at one time, not at the same time ;-) but only one wife, where as Rambam doesn’t allow ordinary men (only kings) pelegshim, however, does allow them up to four wives (this would be the accepted law amongst the Sefardim).

For those of you that may not be able to put two and two together, let me help you, it turns out, as long as you are (Ashkenazi and) are entering a relationship with long-term commitments with a single Jewish women, and she goes to the mikvah or equivalent/river/sea or b’dieved swimming pool/30min shower (see Reb Moshe Fienshtine?) then its ok! Premarital sex is fine! If you’re a man even extra-marital sex is fine as long as its not just a one-night-stand, but a commitment to a real long-term relationship.

This is of course a male dominated law, it is men that are allow multiple partners, and women who have to promise to be monogamous.

But on the other hand it is the woman who is in charge of this relationship, if she chooses to brake her vow, that’s the end of the relationship, and there are no avenues back as far as I'm aware.

 Now all this having been said certain things start to make sense, when the Dyan said having a girl friend was ok, and now the story about the man who had an affair makes sense as well, if you remember his Rebbe told him there was ‘not tikkun for such an act!’ the reason now seems obvious, if she went to mikvah, then what’s the problem? there is no problem there is no sin, and thus no tikkun! And no need for tikkun!

My dear friends, this is not necessarily a blank check to go screwing around whomever and wherever you like, but rather, a view of a halachick issue that has been kept quiet for a long time, and that you may want to think about. May all your relationships be loving, caring, respectful, long term and happy, as well as exciting of course!