When Rav would visit the city of Dardishir, he would announce, "Who will be mine for a day?" And when Rav Nachman would visit the city of Shachnetziv, he would announce, "Who will be mine for a day?" (Yevamot 37b)

What is the Jewish response to the Eliot Spitzer affair?

Predictably, most of our leaders have joined in the chorus of disappointment, condemnation, or just plain embarrassment at the ex-governor of New York, whose brilliant political career was felled by a single (okay, octuple) transaction with a prostitution ring. Certainly, it's a shonde. But if we were more careful with both our sources and our values, we might not rush to judgment.

First, the sources. The fact is that prostitution is a Christian, not a Jewish, sin. LookAshley aka Kristen for the prohibition in the Torah, and you won't find it. On the contrary, you'll learn of Judah visiting a prostitute -- without condemnation -- as well as of concubines and polygamy. (Cultic harlotry is banned by Deuteronomy 23:18-19, but not secular prostitution.) Even the Talmud is ambiguous; sometimes it appears to condemn prostitution and illicit sex of all kinds, and other times it tells of lusty rabbis visiting prostitutes and otherwise circumventing our expectation of chaste monogamy.

In fact, it was expected that men would have sex outside of marriage. It wasn't exactly celebrated, but it wasn't condemned either. In short, within the gendered context of Jewish law, it's a peccadillo.

Of course, Jewish law is very concerned about adultery. But "adultery" meant sex with another man's wife. As in the ancient British law from which the English term is derived, it was "adultery" in the sense of "adulterating" a man's bloodline -- and the offense was against the other man: abusing his property, confusing his lineage. The concern is about patriarchy, not sex. As usual, sex is problematic not in itself (indeed, you won't find any clear condemnation of heterosexual sex, by itself, in Jewish law) but because of its context.

The source of the religious disapproval of sexuality is not the Hebrew Bible, but the New Testament. Paul does condemn prostitution, along with all other forms of non-procreative sexual expression. And Paul reframes sexual sin in terms of carnality itself. The Jews? Not for another thousand years.

So much for the texts. What about contemporary values?

Some progressives today argue that prostitution is against Jewish (and universal) values because it objectifies and victimizes women, as well as supports an international slave trade. Certainly, these claims have merit, as does the observation that Jewish law is sexist and asymmetrical, banning for women what it permits for men.

But while all these concerns are important, are they really what's motivating our outrage today? Sure, progressives dislike prostitution for feminist reasons, but Christians hate it for Christian ones. And think about it: what really brought Spitzer down? Was it the hypocrisy? The objectification of "Kristen" the call girl? Or -- let's admit it -- the sex? Condemning Spitzer for feminist reasons creates an unholy alliance between the pre-modern Right and the post-modern Left.

Indeed, there are good Jewish arguments for seeing the Spitzer case as indicting society more than the philandering ex-governor.

We live in a sex-crazed society, and we are crazy because of repression. Few cultures in history have enforced the monogamy ideal as we do. Jewish culture was polygamous for most of its history, approved of concubines, and tolerated harlots. European and American cultures usually looked the other way at prostitution, regarding it as a (male) private vice. Many non-Western cultures had elaborate systems of concubines, harems, brothels, and so on, before Christianity told them it was evil and sinful. We are, in short, an anomaly.

And we are equally anomalous in our puerile approach to sex. Our media cultureSt. Paul: Chairman of the No-Fun Committee saturates us with cheap, vulgar sexuality, objectifying to women and pandering to men. Surely, if Spitzer is a hypocrite, our media culture is even worse: titillating us with the endless commercialization of sex, then wagging its moralistic fingers at someone who buys sex for money.

If Judaism celebrates healthy, robust sexuality, then it must condemn all three of these trends: the Puritanical repressiveness, the puerile vulgarity, and the pious hypocrisy.

But there is a fourth and final Jewish reason to hesitate before condemning the ex-governor. Yet again, a conservative party which defends thieves, crooks, and warmongers has taken down a liberal because of sexual peccadillos. No one cheered Spitzer's fall more than the crooks of Wall Street -- including those who just benefited from the multi-billion dollar corporate bailout of Bear Stearns. Just like no one cheered Clinton's fall more than those same crooks, and their war-mongering friends who embroiled us in Iraq.

If Jewish values mean anything, they mean that senseless war is worse than a blowjob, and that billions of dollars of thievery and greed are worse than a visit to a whore.

Of course, none of this is to excuse Spitzer's violation of his marital vows, or his own hypocrisy -- he portrayed himself as an ethical crusader, and so perhaps was right to resign. Nor is this an argument for legalized prostitution or open marriages. Questions of sexism, privilege, and economics are too serious for simple answers.

But our culture's rush to judgment, its phony piety, and its outrageous moral hypocrisy have neither textual antecedent nor philosophical basis. Not in the Jewish tradition anyway. Quite the contrary. While Spitzer may be a moral failure and a hypocrite, many of those who condemn him are worse.

Hate to break it to you, my shrike friend: But I saw your new man on Dontdatehimgirl.comLike the majority of creatures in the animal kingdom, including Eliot Spitzer, brand-new New York governor David Paterson has mated with females other than his life partner.

If you think the above is a ridiculous sentence, you should read the thrown-together essay in today's New York Times on the marital habits of non-humans, followed by today’s Daily News article about how Paterson and his wife both had affairs during a rough patch in their marriage. Sex, politics, fuzzy creatures in love—you couldn’t do better for conversation fodder this week.

The Times article serves as a primer on sexual fidelity in the natural world, or rather the lack of it: “Social monogamy is very rarely accompanied by sexual, or genetic, monogamy” among beasts, it explains. In fact, animals from shrikes (“elegant raptorlike birds”) to monkeys have been known to exchange goods for sex.

This is certainly interesting—but is it relevant? Like, at all? We hold humans—especially public figures—to higher moral standards than we would animals. To do otherwise would be to somehow ignore the whole of human civilization, which is pretty much predicated on the idea that we’re more than just chimps with better posture. Why should our sexual behavior be exempt from the social contract when the rest of our behavior is beholden to it? After all, if Elliot Spitzer was caught flinging poop at his opponents, you wouldn't see an article on the Times front page subtitled "Animals as well as governors have trouble with poop-flinging.”

If you can't find enough material for discussion in the Times article alone, you could also bring in the feminist angle. I’d contend that the circumstances of women’s lives make us as a gender way less susceptible to half-assed “But it’s biology!” arguments. American women begin menstruating at an average age of 12 but don’t have children until they’re (on average) 25. After 13 years of successfully ignoring and subverting the biological need to reproduce, it’s pretty hard for us to believe that we don’t have any control over our dumb animal bodies.

Notes on a pretty minor scandal: The PatersonsAlso, we're constantly reading poorly reasoned articles blaming biology for gender norms, like the old saw about how women like pink because Neanderthal girls spent a lot of time gathering berries. The Times article about infidelity makes a big point about how both sexes cheat, but it’s illustrated by a boy monkey hitting on a long-lashed girl monkey even as he’s tethered to his long-lashed monkey wife. Why? For the same reason that last summer’s study about female cheetahs and their multiple partners got translated in the media as “lady cheetah are total sluts.” Because, as Beth Skwarecki points out in this quarter's edition of the excellent feminist magazine Bitch, the media often skews stories to conform with social constructs, even when the reporting doesn't back them up.

Which brings us to Governor Paterson. The Daily News reports the story thus: “In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.” It’s sort of sweet and heartening that they were able to make it work, don’t you think? But the Daily News headline is “Gov. Paterson admits to sex with other woman for years,” as if it’s that age-old story about how Power Makes Men Cheat -- as if Michelle Paterson was the classic scorned wife a la Silda Wall Spitzer.

The scandal here, such that it is, tells us very little about power or gender or government, and probably too much about the Patersons' private lives A couple hit a rough patch, tried dating other people, and then went to counseling. Now they’re back together. At the Politico, Ben Smith sums it up best when he says his sources all responded the same way: “Yawn.”

Eliot Spitzer built his political career as a moral scold, parleying self-righteous prosecutions of financial malfeasance and prostitution into the governorship of New York. Now his career is over, thanks to a double-whammy of acquiring the services of prostitutes and paying for them with campaign funds (thereby extending the meaning of 'double-entry book-keeping' into unplowed fields).

So some good has already come of Spitzer's spectacular wipeout, what you might call poetic justice as fairness. More good may still come if we take the opportunity Spitzer has provided to rethink the moral and legal rationales underlying the criminalization of a widespread, victimless consensual behavior among adults.

There is a kind of first-principles argument for keeping prostitution illegal, which,Ashley aka Kristen: Eliot Spitzer thinks you should go to jail for hiring her; unless your name is 'Eliot Spitzer' like a common argument for banning pornography, manages to unite a certain brand of feminism with conservative religious prudery. The idea is that the exchange of sex for money is degrading to women, and that any kind of government sanctioning of that exchange would amount to an endorsement of the degradation of women. The difference between the prohibitionist feminist view and the religious conservative view is that the former locates the cause of degradation in the power structures surrounding prostitution, while the latter locates it in the act of sex, but in the end, the two views come out the same for practical purposes.

It's not common to hear this position enunciated publicly (though Ross Douthat gives it a sporting try) since we generally shy away from notions of intrinsic right and wrong in public policy debates. But since the utilitarian case for prohibiting prostitution is so weak, there must be some kernel of the first-principles argument standing in the way of public acceptance of legalization. In any event, the case for keeping prostitution illegal because of its inherent harmfulness or immorality is blatantly question-begging, since the inherent wrong of exchanging sex for money is precisely what's at issue. As Will Wilkinson puts it, there is "no interesting intrinsic moral distinction between brick- and other forms of laying."

In feminist terms, the 'intrinsic harm' case for criminalizing sex work looks even worse, since the linchpin of that argument is that various social structures --- particularly the differential ways in which society evaluates sexual experimentation among men and women --- ensure that female sex workers are deprived of their self-worth and autonomy. But there is no more effective means of reinforcing such inequalities than telling men who sell their bodies to lay bricks that what they do is a productive trade, while telling women who sell their bodies to lay men that they deserve to be in prison.

Alternatively, there is a utilitarian case for prohibiting prostitution, resting on allegedly telling facts such as the American Journal of Epidemiology's finding that "Women engaged in prostitution face the most dangerous occupational environment in the United States." Which isn't all that surprising, given that sex workers are forced onto the black market, where they are at the mercy of pimps and mobsters, and even have a disincentive against seeking protection from law enforcement, since, e.g., filing a rape allegation would be tantamount to turning oneself in.

Both arguments for keeping prostitution illegal fail on their own merits. The first-principles argument fails because it's not an argument, but an assertion, and an unpersuasive one. The utilitarian argument fails because the facts don't support it, and because, in any case, there are precious few people who truly oppose legalizing prostitution on utilitarian grounds. (For those who claim otherwise, try this thought experiment: The facts on the ground have shifted to the point at which there is clearly no utilitarian calculus that justifies keeping prostitution illegal. Would you support legalization then?)

Why then is prostitution still illegal? Because the two arguments operate in a tangled tandem. Put pressure on one, and the prohibitionist will leap to the other. Put pressure on the other, and she'll leap back, repeating the process as necessary. Legalization won't come until we get past the unstated, unargued assumption that prostitution is for some reason icky, which rests on the idea that sex itself is icky, which, in turn, rests on ages of cultural discomfort with female sexuality.

Nonetheless, there is no good reason anyone should go to jail for paying for something totally natural and healthy, that would be perfectly legal to give away for free. Except, that is, for politicians like Spitzer, who have the power to change the law but instead allow their fellow citizens to rot away in prison for non-offenses that they themselves engage in. Spitzer deserves the maximum penalty.

With Eliot Spitzer out as New York's Governor and David Paterson now being portrayed as the sole righteous man in Sodom, America is busy getting to know a new character: Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupre, the high-end call girl who Spitzer was caught employing.Seriously, if this press doesn’t boost her fledgling music career nothing will.

This week’s Spitzer news came as a pretty big shock.But over at Jspot, Rabbi Jill Jacobs is making an interesting point: Haven’t we heard this story before?Look Out, Fellas!: she's putting a spell on you

We’re not just talking boy meets girl, boy gets elected to public office, boy gets caught with a stripper narratives here.Rather, we’re talking about women getting to know men of status in the biblical sense, donning disguises and “playing the harlot” in order to make personal gains.Rabbi Jacobs puts it best: “A young woman, with no parents in the picture, conceals her identity and sleeps with a powerful man in the hopes of moving up in the world, or at least of saving herself from ruin.Must be almost Purim."

The more you think about it, the more familiar and less modern the story becomes: Tamar, veiled and waiting for Judah on the side of the road in order to produce offspring, Yael luring the Canaanite general into her tent so that she could give him milk and stab him in the brain, even Ruth, who got all dolled up and uncovered Boaz’s “feet” so that she and her mom-in-law wouldn’t starve to death.A nice, girl next door type from New Jersey named Ashley becoming the vixen temptress Kristen in order to make ends meet is not that far off from these types of tales.

Rabbi Jacobs wonders what this says in terms of gender roles and society.Do modern women really feel that they need to play the harlot in order to get what they want?

Gov. Eliot Spitzer was elected overwhelmingly in 2006 on his promise to finally bring transparency and efficiency to New York, a promise brokered on his glamorous Wall Street-busting successes as state attorney general. Well, it didn't take long for his administration to plow right over public expectations.

First came the disclosure last year that members of his staff had been spying on Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, and using tax-payer dollars to do so. (More distressing to New Yorkers with a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Bruno is that they didn't turn up anything good on him.) Spitzer took a fall, then rebounded, owing, I suspect, to his lantern-jawed, comic book hero visage which you just want to believe in, damn it. Now comes word that he was involved in a prostitution ring. (Batman never paid for chicks.) His career in politics is effectively over today.

The New York Times just posted this story to its website and Drudge and Fox News have gone all woo-woo in their inimitable ways:

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved.

But a person with knowledge of the governor’s role said that the person believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers.

The governor’s travel records show that he was in Washington in mid-February. One of the clients described in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, the Emperors Club VIP on the night of Feb. 13.

Which of course doesn't prove anything except that Spitzer was likely getting fucked by someone who isn't his wife for $5,500. That's how much the Emperors Club charges for its finest ladies per hour, and everything the Spitz would have us believe about him suggests he's no compromising, part-time lover.

NBC is also reporting that cell phone records are the damning evidence that makes this a no-spin situation.

The Emperors Club website is down now. If it stays that way permanently, a balanced budget and the end to the Rockefeller drug laws can't be far behind.

UPDATE: Spitzer is apparently listed as "Client No. 9" in the prosecutor's brief against the Emperors Club. I just heard on CNN that the call-girl frequented by him said one of their sessions went "very well." So the day hasn't been all bad for the governor, after all.

From CNN: “Facing growing pressure from his own party, Gov. Eliot Spitzer indicated he had not ruled out rescinding a heavily criticized plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, according to published reports.” 

The plan calls for different types of driver’s license, including one not “valid as a federal identification but (that) will be available to illegal immigrants and others for driving.” The purpose would be both to make traffic safer and to “boost security by identifying more immigrants,” but the critics say that “there are security risks in giving government identification to as many as 1 million illegal immigrants in New York state.”

Besides the fact that there is an immeasurable double benefit to the U.S. to continue and improve its policy of welcoming foreigners, for its domestic economy as well as for its foreign political goals through soft power, the joke of talking about I.D. security in the America is unfortunately not lost on this college teacher whose students all seem to be over 21 on the weekends: if you want to talk seriously about security, you may first want to comment about this.

Roger Dodgers and Wife: The StonesAdmit it: When you read about that fatal mob shooting in Little Italy last winter, you became misty-eyed with nostalgia. In the time it took to mouth fugadaboutit, New York had returned to its glory days of broken windows, subway graffiti, serial killers, and Times Square prostitution -- glamorous mayhem. (It took last month's steam pipe explosion to yank us violently off memory lane and back into the haunted wood of sacred terror.)

Fortunately, there are a few staples of Gotham life that never wither or ruin, one being the Tammany style of local politics. Eliot Spitzer must be breathing a sigh of relief today to discover that a storied G.O.P. operative in the behavioral line of Karl Rove and the physical mold of Bob Guccione has made obscene phone calls to Spitzer's dad. And the best part? The operative claims his apartment was the scene of a break-in by a governor supporter, who owns the building and used the phone line to place the call himself, all in a slimeball effort to distract from the wider Albany scandal involving Spitzer's use of state funds to invigilate Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. The operative's name is Roger J. Stone.

He said his apartment building on Central Park South is owned by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer who is the governor’s nominee to be chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and suggested that allies of the governor might have given access to his apartment to someone who made the threatening call. An official at Mr. Hemmerdinger’s company said she was not prepared to comment.

Mr. Stone said: “They have unfettered access to my apartment. I am on television constantly. As Gore Vidal said, never pass up the chance to have sex or be on television. Putting together a voice tape that sounds like me wouldn’t be hard to do.”

I don't know what's weirder. An excuse like that, or hearing a Republican quote Gore Vidal. Add to this the creeptastic fact that Stone's prior scandal involved sex clubs and X-rated Internet ads, all bought with his credit card and billed to his post office box. Another case of illegal seizure and identity theft, Stone said at the time. Uh-huh. And Mrs. Stone doesn't at all resemble Gozer from Ghostbusters.