Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    Nice job of circumvention in 642.27 - it looks like I have run into
    an impasse of sorts - if the Bible is not considered valid, and
    is thus seen as Mythology, or at best as a contrived retort to earlier
    Goddess based religions; then for me to offer any input to the
    contrary, is to witness an exercise in excision.
    
    I have endured the rigors of comparative theology, philosophy,
    metaphysics and a fair portion of cultural anthropology throughout
    my academic life, and I understand the premise for the stated
    arguments against Bible validity. It's just that I don't buy it
    for a minute - I have studied from the other side of the spectrum
    as well, and the bias inherent in secular viewpoints is as REAL
    as the bias from a Biblical perspective. We digest, then believe,
    what we will.
    
    The Serpent certainly does *represent* Satan from the Biblical
    perspective - Leviathan was not something I referred to, that is
    a derived word from a Hebrew term, denoting something different.
    I don't recall implying a parallel.
    
    As far as Lucifer's creation - we could debate that in length, but
    I realize it isn't the premise for this particular discussion.
    However, if you want to refrain from a Biblical perspective of how
    God views woman, then you should justly refrain from a Goddess based
    perspective to "define" why the Bible says what it says. You are
    using a biased approach in this defense, if you do not allow a Biblical
    perspective to be equally valid. As a result, you are simply extracting
    bits and pieces of a compiled literary work, focusing on non-Biblical
    interpretation of those pieces and drawing conclusions based on
    those interpretations.
    
    This is a fairly common ingredient in attempted Biblical refutation,
    but for those who accept the Word as God's Truth, it is seen as
    a misunderstanding of His Word.
    
    When we (Christian perspective at least) discuss "Women in the Bible",
    and it is, by the way, fairly common to do so - we do not just discuss
    the historical women in the Bible, but apply it to ourselves in
    our present culture, and in past cultures. We do the same for men
    of course, for we see commonality of perspective. I cannot speak
    for all Christian viewpoints, for they are many and diverse - just
    as is true in the nonChristian world. I will be happy to continue
    discussion on *this* person's Christian view of a Biblical perspective
    on Women - I will, if you prefer, refrain from establishing the
    base viewpoint (that God/Satan should be considered real) if the
    antithesis view is equally stifled. Instead, I will do my best to
    defend a Christian perspective of Women.
    
    It's been fun .......                     Marvin

    Hi y'all,
    
I have just seen this note and must say it quite fascinates me.
I notice that someone thinks the rules about being unclean etc are a bit
odd and inexplicable. Perhaps a bit of perspective might help. At the time
that these rules were given, the Israelites were a displaced people at the
beginning of a forty year trek through the wilderness. God had chosen these 
people to be His own to reveal God to the rest of the world. The Jews were
to be a 'light to the Gentiles'. To this end they needed to be seen to be 
different from all the other nations. What better way of making them stand
out than to give them a set of rules by which no other nation lived ?

There is another facet to the part of the Torah which refers to cleanliness.
Again remember that the Israelites were in the desert for forty years. Now the
desert does not have running water, domestic bleach, soap, sanitary towels,
shampoo and all the other little things which we depend on today to maintain
standards of hygiene. These sanitary laws and food laws show God's concern that
His people remain as free from disease as possible. Pigs can poison you, so
don't eat them. Menstruation = blood loss which if not cleaned up properly 
could lead to infection. Ejaculation = emission of bodily fluids which too
need to be cleaned away. Sexual intercourse in the desert could, I imagine, be
a pretty sweat making process - thus wash afterwards to stay clean. 

Do you see that these laws are God's way of caring for His people in a hostile
environment ? Do they discriminate against women ? Well, look at it this way,
when a man has an emission, that's it, a one off process. Have a bath and he's
clean again. But, doesn't the menstrual cycle last a bit longer than one
emission ? Thus it is necessary that more hygienic precautions are taken does
it not to ensure cleanliness and prevent the spread of infection ?

Paul V

    Paul, could you please explain how you think blood from menstruation
    can lead to infection? The only medical fact I can find on this
    states that yeast blooms *may* be more likely after menstruation
    has stopped, due to hormonal changes.
    
    This explanation makes me feel like blood=injury=pain=nasty, not
    blood=cleansing=renewal.         
    
    I have never seen a book which researches the sexual politics of the
    Isrealite society in terms of cultural anthropology. Anyone know
    if one exists?
    
    Tamzen

    
    I don't know if it does cause infection. What I was getting at is
    this - it's important that the women kept themselves clean. What
    better way for God to do this than to give them a law about it,
    which if broken, would prevent them from certain practices available
    to the ritually 'clean'. The uncleanliness isn't supposed to make
    people feel dirty inside, but rather to help them appreciate personal
    hygiene don't you think ?
    
    I could imagine that if a woman was to let the blood collect without
    washing it away (same for a man letting any emissions stay without
    cleaning them up) then it would lead to pretty dirty genital areas
    and thus provide a harbour for all those nasty things that can arise.
    It's not the blood per se that results in infection, but not cleaning
    it up. After all, doctors do place a very high priority on personal
    hygiene and we were even taught in school at the age of 9 the correct
    ways to wash and thus keep ourselve clean in all areas and thus
    prevent disease.
    
    Does this help ?
    
    Paul V

    paul,
    do you mean that "god" actually _spoke_ to these people? that must
    have been in the olden days -- i've _never_ met anyone who's admitted
    that god has spoken to them personally. don't you think that personal
    hygeine practices come from _people_? you seem to imply that doctors
    emphasize it, or are you saying that _they_ have a direct link to
    god? oh yes, btw, my parents were kind enough to teach me to bathe
    _before_ i went to school. 

    
    yes, I mean God spoke to the Israelites by giving the Law to Moses
    up on Mount Sinai. After all, that was the whole point of the Jewish
    people, that they be a light to the world, to reveal God to all
    nations.
    You've not met anyone who admits to God speaking
    to them ? Well, you've just met one.
    Marvin & Jim, are you going to admit this too ?
    
    The reason I brought doctors into the discussion was to show that
    the ritual cleaning laws were not just given to make life awkward
    for the Israelites, but that they actually had a practical value.
    Doctors will tell you of the importance of proper hygiene, not
    necessarily emphasise it more than other important things.
    No, I'm not saying that doctors have a direct line to God.
    I don't believe that the personal hygiene rules as laid down in
    the Bible (book of Leviticus) were of men but of God as that's what
    the book says. And that brings us nicely back to the original topic
    - women in the Bible.
    
    Cheers,
    Paul V

    Paul,

    What I hear you saying is that "god" developed rules about personal
    hygiene and transmitted those rules to people. These people discovered
    that the rules had practical import, and the rules have been written
    down and transmitted to future generations. 
    
    My belief is that _people_ developed these rules, and because they were
    important, wrote a book claiming that a high authority (god) was
    actually the author. 
    
    Now, I doubt that either of us is about to convince the other, nor am I
    interested in trying. So, since we've each had our say, can we agree to
    disagree on this one? 

    Marvin,

    Several individual points.

    One.  Jews do not believe in Satan.  You are essentially claiming
    and insisting that they do.  This is wrong.

    Two.  I am speaking of the Goddess religion from the historical
    perspective of its interaction with the Hebrew tribes.  I speak
    of it as a historical fact.  I do not speak of it as being the
    One True Religion.

    Three.  Nowhere in this conference do I speak of my own religious
    beliefs.  You do not know what they are.  You have no right to claim
    what they are, especially since you are wrong.

    Four.  The Bible is a valid piece of literature.  However, it is
    one that has been heavily edited over the centuries, and has been
    drastically reinterpreted over millenia.  It is not proper to
    insist upon treating it as Revealed Truth in a secular notefile.

    Paul and Jim,

    You seem to have a faulty understanding of the *Biblical* concepts
    of "clean" and "unclean".  To quote Asimov (op.cit.), "To us, clean
    and unclean tends to be a hygenic matter.  [Elaborating sentence.]
    The Biblical use of the term involves religious ritual. �  Something
    is clean if it may be offered as a sacrifice to God, or if it may
    stand in the presence of God. ..."

    The Bible does not consider blood, qua blood, to be unclean, as we
    can see from (for example) Leviticus 17:6, "and the priest shall
    sprinkle the blood on the altar of the LORD at the door of the tent
    of meeting..."  So, all these claims that blood is prohibited
    because it is unhygienic are false claims.

    Paul is correct in stating that Jewish Law is used for differentiating
    the Hebrew tribes from their neighbors.  However, as Jewish scholars
    have [reluctantly] concluded, prohibitions against eating pigs and
    seething kids in their mothers' milk are not based in hygiene, but
    in differentiation; those foods were prohibited because they were
    common among their neighbors.

    These prohibitions are a way of saying "Sex is dirty." and of saying
    "Women are dirty."

    Jim,

    If you are going to feel competent to have opinions on subjects
    (such as Talmudic teachings) on which you admit you know nothing,
    why do you feel entitled to dismiss the findings of Joseph Campbell,
    the noted historical anthropologist, on these same subjects?

    The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the
    World, was in active and vigorous use well into the Christian Era.
    Mami (Mammuti) is mentioned explicitly by Jesus (under the name
    Mammon) as being worshipped, and richly so.

    						Ann B.

    
    re .7
    Yup, if you like, we can agree to differ, although I wasn't actually
    trying to  get you to accept what I said. Still, whether the laws
    were from God or man is not really important in the context of this
    discussion. What Ann says in .8 is what's important, ie, are the
    laws demeaning to women ?
    
    Ok, let's respond to .8
    
    Ann, I don't think I ever said that blood was unhygienic. If you
    read again what I wrote you'll see I in fact said just the opposite,
    that blood in itself is NOT necessarily unhygienic. You are right
    about blood being sprinkled on the altar. But going into the importance
    of the blood sacrifice is a bit of a rathole so I'll leave that
    one where it is. But, I don't see how the laws are biased against
    women. Would you not concede that if you had no sanitary aids and
    let menstrual emissions collect without washing them away, then
    you would 1) start to feel uncomfortable 2) probably start smelling
    none too sweet 3) in all likelihood spawn a breeding ground for
    bacteria ?
   
    By making sure that women keep clean in this way, is helping to
    ensure their health. I don't see how in this case you can separate
    physical uncleanliness from ritual uncleanliness. You see, by giving
    these laws God was showing that He wanted the best for His people.
    What better way of looking after them than by making these practices
    stipulations of being Jewish ?
    
    I'll grant that the kosher food laws also served to set the Jews
    apart from the other tribes as do, in fact, all 600 odd of the
    laws found in the Torah. Will you not agree though that the food
    laws also hold some practical use in protecting the wandering Jews
    from such beasties as salmonella ?
    
    Thanks for an interesting topic,
    Paul V 
    

    Re: cleanliness and personal hygeine
    
    I have mucous membranes.  They secrete.  Those secretions get in
    the way sometimes so I get rid of them when they do (like: I blow
    my nose when I can't breathe).
    
    So what?  They aren't "unclean" in any way; they are simply another
    part of my body.  
    
    "Germs"... Americans have this mania about "germs", "clean".  Today we
    interpret ancient words of cleanliness to an extreme... the idea of
    "cleaning" with vinegar every week (a friend once called it pickled
    [female anatomy term, not very polite]) is not only silly; it is
    UNHEALTHY -- we have germs and microbes there for a very good reason:
    to eat up and scare away other, nastier things (yeasts, for one). 
    
    Blood is blood, mucus is mucus, sweat is sweat, etc.  They are all
    perfectly natural and healthy.  Get rid of them when they are in the
    way, but realize that your body is pretty smart and probably put
    them there for a reason.
    
    Lee

    um, Paul, I know you haven't experienced this yourself, but menstrual
    blood does not tend to "collect" (would that it did!).  It appears
    to respond to gravity and is absorbed by clothing, padding, or the
    ground...whatever it contacts first.
    
    I imagine the fictional description Jean Auel wrote in "Clan of the
    Cave Bear" of woman using soft skins and furs to absorb the blood was a
    fairly accurate description (do you know, Ann?).  But if they had not
    used something absorbent, it would have seeped through their clothing
    and landed on the ground. 
    
    I am not suggesting that keeping oneself clean was/is not preferable,
    but I don't think that menstrual blood would cause as much of an
    hygenic problem as general excretory functioning would.   
    
    Holly

    Jim,

    In 642.29, you wrote of Genesis 2:22, "Hmmm... Woman from Man... isn't
    it usually the other way, at least these days?"

    Yes, Jim, it is, and it was in those days too.  Why does the Bible
    say differently?  Could it be for the same reason that the Greeks
    invented the legend that Athena was born of Zeus as her sole parent?
    The reason for that is given, quite clearly, in the Eumenides.  The
    Bible is clear too:  The woman is to be a helper to man, and it is
    not to be the other way around.

    Let me remind you about one little detail implied in Genesis 3:16:
    Women die in childbirth.  Two hundred years ago, it was one death
    for every three hundred children born -- and not all the children
    lived either.  Do you think it was any better thousands of years ago?
    Toiling is one thing; dying is another.

    Do you really think women don't toil?  When the average non-working
    woman in *this* country, in *this* century spends fifty hours a week
    on housework?  Do you really think that at the Dawn of Time women
    were not tilling the ground, fighting weeds, and grinding grain to
    make their bread?  Just as men were?

    Exodus 21:22 is so unclear (even in the original Hebrew) that its
    true meaning cannot properly be divined today.

    You still have not explained what is so equitable in Leviticus 12:2-5
    about the differing amounts of time a woman is "unclean" for bearing
    a boy and for bearing a girl.

    There is no equivalent for Numbers 5:29-31 for when a man "goes
    astray" from a woman.  A man may go where he wishes under these
    laws.  A woman is bound to one man.

    							Ann B.

    I find the religious discussions quite interesting in this file...
    
    The topics surrounding the "God the Father" religions seem to center
    around the topic "The Bible is sexist - PROVE IT!", and ignore rational
    thoughts surrounding the topic - even going to verbal gymnastics
    to attempt to show that a religion that says "Man is the glory of
    God; woman is the glory of man" is not sexist.
    
    In another topic, someone suggests that statements such as "The
    Goddess is the ultimate Creator" are sexist.  The idea (from the
    same people sited above) is "You say this is not sexist - PROVE
    IT!"
    
    In fact both views are sexist.  Both are various people's beliefs.
    No one is going to change anyone's religion through this notesfile.
    Still, I find the focus here quite interesting.  Also, as someone
    who views God as being neither male nor female, and at the same
    time both male and female, I seem to be placed in the category with
    those who view Goddess as the only or major deity.  Why is that?
    All "wrong" religions are the same?  Or, all people who include
    Goddess are rejecting the One-True-Right-and-Respectable religion?
    
    I think everyone should think about why they are saying what they
    are before saying it.  There is clearly a sexism in focus here.
    
    End of tirade,
    Elizabeth

    Reply to .13, Betty,
    
    Another way to look at the question in a non-sexist way is to view
    God/dess as the *process* of natural forces. No sexism there.

    A few quick replies, for clarification:
    

    Sorry about that last reply, managed to hit a wrong button somewhere.
    I just wanted to clarify a few points, or address some questions/points
    directed at me (or perhaps at me):
    
    For Ann (.8): Your first point - I will have to discuss this with
    my Jewish friends, I'm really curious what Lucifer (in the OT) 
    represents to them, if not Satan. If you have any data, I'd appreciate
    your insights on this.
    
    Point two - no disagreement here from me, but thanks for the
    qualification.
    
    Point three - Did I so claim to *know* what your beliefs are? I
    might admit some inclination to believe where they may generally
    rest, but since you haven't stated any belief, I'm relatively certain
    I haven't assumed anything. Curiosity: Have you not revealed your
    belief, primarily because it just doesn't seem relevant to the topic
    at hand? I suppose I feel our belief greatly influences how we would
    view this topic.
    
    Point four - "bible .. heavily edited & reinterpreted.." well, it
    probably isn't too appropriate to delve into that right now - but
    I certainly know there are many Biblical scholars who feel the 
    original texts are intact not only in essence, but in interpretation
    as well. It is an arena of constant debate, no doubt - rather like
    life in general.
    
    Paul (.6) - To answer your inquiry .... I won't leave you holding
    the bag on this one. You have my affirmative "yes" there as well.
    They may be ready to issue the funny white coats to us, but the
    joy of that reality isn't diminished.
    
    Elizabeth (.13) - I tried to discern where someone placed you "in
    the category with those who view Goddess as the only or major diety",
    I hope you don't think I did - my reply in .1 was directed to the
    reply in 642.27, which I stated at the outset. My apologies if I
    am addressing this in error, perhaps you can be more specific?
    
    As for the view of "sexist" arguments posted here ..... perhaps
    you're right Elizabeth, but I see it more as philosophic bias. I
    will, of course, have a "Christian bias" (of my own interpretation)
    as would anyone else who had any philosophic bias of their own
    nature. I find it a bit implausible to think that anyone has *no*
    philosophic bias whatsoever, could be completely objective, free
    from any inclination in any direction at all. A Humanist may claim
    such objectivity, but that is something I would certainly challenge.
    It is times such as these that I wish I were a woman stating my
    case, for I can say to you now that there is no sexism in my view,
    but that is understandably hard for females to discern, since I
    am male. Perhaps you view *that* statement as sexist, I don't know.
    And perhaps *if* I were female, my views would differ, I accept
    that - but I am only trying to understand everything I can about
    all things in life, from a human standpoint. Sexism is something
    I tend to reject in my life - I know it isn't prevalent enough in
    this world, and that's sad, but I can only do my best to defeat
    it.
                                               Marvin

    
    Hi,
    I know this is a bit of a rathole, and so if any moderator out there
    wants to move it, please feel free, but I want to just point something
    out.
    Ann B, Satan does exist in the Bible outside of Job and Chronicles.
    He appears in Zecharia 3:1,2 (twice in verse 2) too. In the Jewish
    English Tanakh I am using, the word used in Zecharia is the Accuser.
    In most 'Christian' translations the word used is Satan. If we look
    at the Hebrew word in ther original we have ;
    
    	S�t�n (saw-tawn) - an opponent; esp. Satan, the arch enemy of
    	good:- adversary, withstand. From the Hebrew prim. root 'S�tan'
    	(saw-tan) - to attack, accuse, (be an)adversary, withstand.
    
    The New Testament is full of references to Satan using the Greek
    word 'Satan' which directly corresponds to the Hebrew 'S�t�n'.
    It is important to note that the New Testament was written almost
    entirely by Jews and thus it was Jewish authors who wrote of Satan.
    
    Cheers and God bless,
    Paul V

Yes, I beleive that God talks to me, in His way...

I realize that for the nomadic Israelites, blood was an important symbol.
However a symbol may have more then one meaning, and it may also be referenced
nonsymbolically.

"These prohibitions are a way of saying "Sex is dirty." and of saying "Women are
dirty."

First off these are not prohibitions.  Second, I disagree that the intended
meaning is "Sex is dirty", "Women are dirty".  That may be the common
misunderstanding , and you may perceive it that way, but *I* do not believe that
is the intended meaning.

I never claimed to be an expert on the Talmud.

I am sure that there *is* sexism in the Bible.  Just as I am sure that there is
evil in the Bible.  The Bible is a collection of many stories with various
purposes.  However, just as I do not believe that the Bible commands us to be
evil, nor do I believe that the Bible commands us to oppress women.

Jim. 
 

    You may not believe it Jim,... and that is your right.  But I
    personally *do* believe that the bible has done a great deal of damage
    to the condition of women.  Because I feel this way, I no longer
    give the bible or any religion based on the bible any validity in
    my daily life.  I feel much more free now, and happier.  Interesting
    enough, my sons have reached the same conclusions through study
    of their own and they too live with a code of personal integrity
    rather than rules defined by the bible.  They seem to hold themselves
    to a much higher standard of behavior than most teenagers today
    do and I am very proud of them.

    Reply to .20, Jim,
    
    Which word?

    The word is "wodley"
    
    If you don't understand, never mind. It just means you had a deprived
    childhood :-)
    
    dov

    I can assure you that no such word is written on any part of my
    anatomy_:-)   Now lets discuss your childhood, shall we?_:-)

    Reply to the last .-3 or so,
    
    There twern't no wodleys in my childhood. Did I miss something?

    I always thought the word was, "Johannesburg" 

    Reply to .25, Elizabeth,
    
    Yeah, but FRED is nobody...

The attached note, taken from Usenet, may give you insight into the Othrodix
Jewish view of the relationship between the Written Law (Torah) and the
Oral Law.  The author also discusses a legal problem experienced by a woman,
and how it was resolved within the constraints and requiements of the Law.

Martin.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Path: decwrl!labrea!agate!pasteur!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!iuvax!inuxc!ihnp4!occrsh!erc3ba!alu
Subject: D'var Torah: Mishpatim: Rabbi Riskin
Posted: 16 Feb 88 21:09:09 GMT
Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center
 
 
 
SHABBAT SHALOM: Mishpatim --How the Written Law  Relates  to  the
Oral Law
 
                              by Shlomo Riskin
 
     EFRAT, Israel -- Although I haven"t made  an  actual  count,
there are dozens of transgressions for which the Torah prescribes
the punishment of death, from adultery to breaking  the  Sabbath.
After  a cursory reading of the Torah, one may walk away with the
impression that our Torah is a document that dispenses  death  as
easily as pharmacists dispense penicillin.
 
     And after a cursory reading of this week's portion with  its
famous  "eye  for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" adage one may feel
disturbed  by  this  seemingly  cold  law  of  retaliation,  (lex
talionis  in  Latin) a thorn in the merciful image of Judaism. Is
it possible that back in earliest  Biblical  history  instead  of
imprisonment,  punishment  was  meted  out by torture, operations
without anesthesia?
 
     Another dart thrust into the  "eye  for  an  eye"  principle
comes  from  those  who  see an unbridgeable gap between Biblical
justice and rabbinic law. Some actually point to this as evidence
that  rabbinic  law  is  a  creature unto itself, thus justifying
their own deviations from what they describe  as  merely  another
deviation to begin with.
 
     But Rashi points out that "an eye  for  an  eye"  was  never
intended  to  be  taken  literally.  Citing Talmud Bava Kama 84a,
Rashi says that rather than actually removing the eye what we  do
is  determine  the  loss  in  terms of monetary value on the open
market, essentially the practice in civil court.  There  in  Bava
Kama,  Rabbi  Shimon  bar  Yochai proves that the Torah could not
have meant this retributive language to be taken  literally,  for
if it were, then what would happen if a blind man blinded someone
else. Obviously, it would be impossible to inflict blindness upon
him,  thus  the  principle of one law for all would be shattered.
Rabbi  Shimon  bar  Yocahi  concludes  that  the  only   possible
compensation is a monetary one.
 
     In his Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides discusses the link
between the Written and Oral Law. First of all, if we think about
the quintessential experience of Torah, the Written Law, we  need
go  no  further than public readings in the synagogue on Mondays,
Thursdays, holidays, new moon days, plus every single Sabbath  of
the  year  when the Torah is read from the bimah. The carrying of
the Torah from the Ark and its return is ritualized in every last
detail,   intended   to   increase  our  focus  and  sharpen  our
concentration. Our minds and bodies are poised as we stand,  sit,
respond, and listen.
 
     The Torah was meant to form a uniquely Jewish conscience and
consciousness;  its  purpose was never to be the final arbiter in
judicial decisions. These, from time immemorial, were  the  realm
of  the  Oral  Law,  brought  down  in the Talmud, the Codes, the
Responsa and as such they define Jewish  law  and  practice.  One
cannot  determine  whether  a  chicken  is kosher or not from the
Written Law. For this, and tens of thousands  of  other  details,
the  Oral  Law  is the key. That's why the Torah, week after week
and year after year, teaches that someone who takes  out  an  eye
must  lose  his. No other punishment can make a person understand
the gravity of what he's done. "An eye for an eye" may  be  cold,
but  it's  the  truth  of life. Nonetheless, Judaism never wanted
wholesale amputations as standard punishment. What it wants  from
us is to understand the depth of our actions.
 
     The Holy Zohar actually calls the Written Law "dina d'takfa"
--the  harsher  law-- and the Oral Law it calls "dina d'rafya" --
the softer law. And if we understand the relationship between the
"harsher  law" and the "softer law" we can also understand a good
deal about how Jewish law operates. Despite the  enormous  number
of  death punishments in the Torah, ("the harsher law") the first
Mishna in Makot says that if  a  Sanhedrin  (the  Supreme  Court)
carries  out  a death against even one person in 70 years then it
was called a destructive court. And Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi  Tarfon
add  that had they been judges, no man would ever be condemned to
death since their demands for evidence were so strict that coming
up   with   100%   proof   was   impossible.  Tractate  Sanhedrin
describes how Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach  once  saw  an  armed  man
chase  someone  into  a  blind  cave.  Following  him  inside, he
discovered the armed  man  standing  over  a  corpse,  his  sword
dripping  with blood. Rabbi Shimon knew that either he or the man
with the sword were guilty, but Jewish law could not convict him,
despite  the  strongest  circumstantial case. First there must be
witnesses to the crime itself, they must give clear warning,  and
the  assailant, having heard the warning and the punishment, must
say he's  going  ahead,  and  then  go  ahead.  It  shouldn"t  be
difficult   to  understand  why  the  Mishna  in  Makot  was  not
exaggerating.
 
     When I was still lived in New York, a young  woman  who  was
active  in our synagogue tried to commit suicide two weeks before
her wedding. I hurried to her hospital bed and, between sobs, she
confessed  that  her  life, until then a bed of roses, had turned
into a nightmare. Not that she  didn"t  want  to  live,  but  she
didn"t see how she could.
 
     The Torah says that if a married woman commits adultery, the
result  of  that forbidden liason is called a "mamzer", literally
"mum zar", a foreign blemish, and that person  cannot  enter  the
congregation of G-d and marry within the Jewish nation. The Torah
is emphatic in its  abhorrence  of  adultery  and  expresses  its
unequivocal condemnation, in effect saying that since the marital
bonds were abandoned,  then  the  seed  of  that  abandonment  is
forever  forbidden  to  enter the marital bond. In practical life
however, even if you can prove an act of adultery was  committed,
the  assumption is always that the husband returned and the child
is his.
 
     Right before her wedding, the young woman's mother confessed
that her real father was a neighbor. The daughter slowly realized
the enormity of what she"d been told. Not only couldn"t she marry
the  young  man  she  loved,  she couldn"t marry anyone. A living
sentence of death, permanently exiled. She believed that she  was
better off dead than alive.
 
     I brought the case before a great religious leader,  and  it
was  advised that since there were no witnesses to this purported
act, and since there is a principle in Jewish law that  a  person
cannot  indict  himself,  the  mother's alleged testimony was not
evidence. A mother's tale of what  happened  twenty-  five  years
earlier is just not enough to condemn her daughter as a bastard.
 
     There are two central pillars in Judaism, a Written Law  and
an  Oral  Law. One without the other cannot work. One without the
other cannot guide.
 
Shabbat Shalom
 
Copyright Ohr Torah 1988.
This essay is distributed by Kesher --the Jewish Network. For information 
regarding its use, contact the Kesher BBS at 312-940-1686.
 
For more information, call (212)496-1618.
 
 
 
-- 
               		Alan Lustiger
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