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Marital Intimacy
Marital Intimacy: A Traditional Jewish Approach explores the complex and mulitfaceted subject of intimacy in the Jewish marriage. The author takes a traditonal Jewish approach to an aspect of Jewish life that is misinterpreted by some as centering on the denial of pleasure. Jewish literature has often addressed the negative aspects of the power of the human sexual drive. This is a misrepresentation and, ultimately, a falsification of Jewish tradition. Marital Intimacy is a refreshing affirmation of the Jewish view of sexuality in which the Sages laud the enjoyment of physical pleasure in general - and sexual pleasure within the marriage relationship in particular - while still condoning hedonism and self-indulgence.
140 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2005
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March 31, 2021
Book Review
Martial Intimacy
2 stars
There are better books out there on this topic.
*******
I don't recommend this book.
It was actually lent to me, and so I didn't pay a cent for it... but the time-cost of reading even the selected bits of it that I did read is still more than I should have paid.
First, what is not answered in this book: If you have questions about things like "What appendage/ orifice can/ cannot be used in a certain way ?" and halachic details about the nitty-gritty aspects of copulation, you will not find them here.
Second, there is another book that really is written to answer those questions: Yaakov Shapiro's "Halachic Positions: What Judaism Really Says about Passion in the Marital Bed." (You will find more discussion than you ever wanted to read about the permissibility of "overturning the table.")
Third, there are a number of podcasts about this topic, and (assuming you care) you can listen to them for free while driving.
The selection of topics here are things that can only be of interest to people who either: 1) Have too much spare time on their hands OR; 2) People who have passed the libidinous phase of their marriage ("Those that do don't talk and those who talk don't do.")
°°Can we really imagine a 20-year-old newly married person that is just beginning that phase of his life coming up for air long enough to care about these types of topics?
°°If you have 7~8 kids, is there really anything else that you need to know?
°°If, after 7~8 kids you haven't figured these things out... then you aren't likely to.
I also have other questions about this author's technical competence: (p. 100) "The Torah forbids sexual intimacy outside of marriage."
In point of fact, there is no such prohibition in the written Torah, and and there is debate among different rabbinical sources on what that could mean. (Nahmanides takes it to mean couplings between people that would not be allowed to marry under Jewish law.)
Final observations:
1. How to separate what is Jewish law from what is superstition? (Yes, intercourse with first degree relatives is 100% forbidden according to all sources. But, who knows whether or not one sexual practice or another will definitely lead to deformed children?)
2. What people actually do has no relationship to what they can / cannot do. (p.88). I have read autobiographies where certain subsets of Hasidim really do have sex through a sheet or believe that any position other than missionary is the mark of a heretic. ("The Rabbi's Daughter." By Reva Mann.)
So, you may have some Rabbi somewhere giving advice that has no basis in traditional sources.
So now what?
It is far from the first time, and it won't be the last time.
Martial Intimacy
2 stars
There are better books out there on this topic.
*******
I don't recommend this book.
It was actually lent to me, and so I didn't pay a cent for it... but the time-cost of reading even the selected bits of it that I did read is still more than I should have paid.
First, what is not answered in this book: If you have questions about things like "What appendage/ orifice can/ cannot be used in a certain way ?" and halachic details about the nitty-gritty aspects of copulation, you will not find them here.
Second, there is another book that really is written to answer those questions: Yaakov Shapiro's "Halachic Positions: What Judaism Really Says about Passion in the Marital Bed." (You will find more discussion than you ever wanted to read about the permissibility of "overturning the table.")
Third, there are a number of podcasts about this topic, and (assuming you care) you can listen to them for free while driving.
The selection of topics here are things that can only be of interest to people who either: 1) Have too much spare time on their hands OR; 2) People who have passed the libidinous phase of their marriage ("Those that do don't talk and those who talk don't do.")
°°Can we really imagine a 20-year-old newly married person that is just beginning that phase of his life coming up for air long enough to care about these types of topics?
°°If you have 7~8 kids, is there really anything else that you need to know?
°°If, after 7~8 kids you haven't figured these things out... then you aren't likely to.
I also have other questions about this author's technical competence: (p. 100) "The Torah forbids sexual intimacy outside of marriage."
In point of fact, there is no such prohibition in the written Torah, and and there is debate among different rabbinical sources on what that could mean. (Nahmanides takes it to mean couplings between people that would not be allowed to marry under Jewish law.)
Final observations:
1. How to separate what is Jewish law from what is superstition? (Yes, intercourse with first degree relatives is 100% forbidden according to all sources. But, who knows whether or not one sexual practice or another will definitely lead to deformed children?)
2. What people actually do has no relationship to what they can / cannot do. (p.88). I have read autobiographies where certain subsets of Hasidim really do have sex through a sheet or believe that any position other than missionary is the mark of a heretic. ("The Rabbi's Daughter." By Reva Mann.)
So, you may have some Rabbi somewhere giving advice that has no basis in traditional sources.
So now what?
It is far from the first time, and it won't be the last time.
Displaying 1 of 1 review