GEN541 See [[GEN49]] Genesis 1:26 image DORFFLOV 22

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GEN542 See [[GEN115]] Genesis 1:27 image DORFFLOV 75-6

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GEN695 The body belongs to God. For Judaism, God, as creator of the world, owns everything in it, including our bodies. See, for example, Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 10:14; and Psalms 24:1. See also Genesis 14:19, 22, where the Hebrew word for “creator” (koneh) also means “possessor,” and where “heaven and earth” is a merism for those and everything in between, and Psalms 104:24, where the same word is used with the same meaning. The following verses have the same theme, although not quite as explicitly or as expansively: Exodus 20:11; Leviticus 25:23,42,55; and Deuteronomy 4:35,39,32:6.  God loans our bodies to us for the duration of our lives, and we return them to God when we die. Consequently, neither men nor women have the right to govern their bodies as they will; God, as creator and owner, asserts the right to restrict how we use our bodies in ways articulated in Jewish law. Some of God’s rules require us to take reasonable care of our bodies, just as we would be obliged to protect and clean an apartment that we rent. Rules of good hygiene, sleep, exercise, and diet in Jewish sources are, therefore, not just words to the wise designed for our comfort and longevity, as they are in American thinking; they are, rather, commandments that we owe God. Bathing, for example, is a commandment according to Hillel (Leviticus Rabbah 34:3). Maimonides summarized and codified the rules requiring proper care of the body in M.T. Laws of Ethics (De’ot), chaps 3-5. He spells out there in remarkable clarity that the purpose of these positive duties to maintain health is not to feel good and live a long life but rather to have a healthy body so that one can then serve God. So for example, American ideology and law would permit me to eat a half gallon of ice cream every night of the week; I might be stupid to do so because I will look and feel terrible and endanger my life, but that is my choice. In Jewish law, though, I do not have that right, because I have a fiduciary duty to take care of my body since it belongs to God. Just as we are commanded to maintain good health, so we are obligated to avoid danger and injury. B. Shabbat 32a; B. Bava Kamma 15b, 809a, 91b; M.T. Laws of Murder 11:4-5; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 116:5 gloss; S.A. Hoshen Mishpat 427:8-10.  Indeed, Jewish law views endangering one’s health as worse than violating a ritual prohibition. B. Hullin 10a; S.A. Orah Hayyim 173:2; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 116:5 gloss. Conservative, Reform, and some Orthodox authorities have thus prohibited smoking as an unacceptable risk to our God-owned bodies. Bleich (1977a); Freehof (1977), chap. 11; and Rabbinical Assembly (1983), 182.  Judaism also teaches that human beings do not have the right to commit suicide, for doing so obliterates something that belongs not to us but to God. Genesis 9:5; M. Semahot 2:2; B. Bava Kamma 91b; Genesis Rabbah 34:19. (states that the ban against suicide includes not only cases where blood was shed but also self-inflicted death through strangulation and the like); M.T. Laws of Murder 2:3; M.T. Laws of Injury and Damage 5:1; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 345:1-3. In contrast, the laws of most American states permit suicide (although most prohibit aiding and abetting a suicide). See Savage (1996).  DORFFLOV 21

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GEN770 “To lead one’s parents in and take them out”—part of the definition of honoring parents—denotes a kind of personal service when parents are unable to walk in and out by themselves. Maimonides articulated that tone clearly: “And he [the son] leads [the father] in and out and serves him in the other ways in which we serve a teacher.” Footnote 36 The medieval moralist Rabbi Isaac Alnakawa defined this in terms of adult children and their able parents: “’Lead them out’”-How is this to be done? The son is obliged to accompany his father and mother, and not to turn his back until they are out of sight. ‘Take him in’-How is this to be done? He is obliged to give them a fitting dwelling, or rent one for them. And when the father or mother enters the son’s home, he must rejoice in their coming and receive them happily.” Menorat Ha-Ma’or (ed. Enelow), 4:15-16, cited in Blidstein (1975), 53. For many of us, though, the implications of this requirement vis-à-vis frail parents are much more extensive, for Jewish law understood honor of parents to include the requirement not to abandon them. The Midrash states this poignantly. At the very beginning of our familiarity with Abraham in the Bible, when he was still called Abram, we read: “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” [this verse] In commenting on this verse, a midrash (a rabbinic interpretation explanation of the verse) says this: “Abram was apprehensive, saying, ‘When I leave, men will profane the name of God because of me, as they will say, ‘He left his aged father and went off.’” So God said to Abram, “I release you from the obligation of honoring your father and your mother, but I will release no other person from this obligation.” Genesis Rabbah 39:7 The midrash is troubled by the fact that Abram leaves his aged father. What kind of beginning is that for future patriarch of the Jewish people? And indeed, Abram’s own equanimity in the situation is surprising: He is worried only about what others will say, not about the inherent wrongfulness of abandoning his father. The midrash explains these facts as the result of a specific decree of God so that God could use him as a leader.  As Gerald Blidstein points out, “this is a typological rather than unique: the young prophet leaves the home of his parents for the company of Elijah, [and] the student of the sage chooses the academy over home and prefers the service of his master to that of his parent.” Blidstein (1975), 111. For the story to which he is referring, in which Elisha leaves home to join Elijah, see 1 Kings 19:15-21. For rabbinic sources on people leaving home to study, see B. Megillah 16b, M.T. Laws of Rebels (Mamrim) 6:13; and S.A. Yoreh De’ah 240:13.  But those are the exceptions to the rule: unless one is engaged directly in God’s service as either prophet or rabbinic scholar, one is obligated to accompany one’s parents through their old age. It is important to understand that the duty to be with one’s aged parents is not only to be able to take care of their physical needs, a task that presumably could be done by person hired for the job, but also for the psychological reason that they need company—especially from those who can most directly gives them a sense of worth and continuity. Loneliness is painful for anyone. The presence of friends alleviates that, but nothing can replace seeing members of one’s own family. That too is a “need”—or better, an opportunity for honor. Even God, according to the Midrash, exemplifies this value by bidding us to build a sanctuary so that God can dwell among us: “You are my children, and I am your father… It is an honor for children to dwell with their father, and it is an honor for the father to dwell with his children… Make, therefore, a house for the father in which he can dwell with his children.” Exodus Rabbah 34:3 The midrash is commenting on Exodus 25:8, “and make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.”  Thus, although the major medieval codes do not directly require that children reside with parents, they undoubtedly assume it. Blidstein (1975), 113-115 DORFFLOV 136-7

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GEN1023 Even if we are convinced that we should adhere to Jewish moral norms, how do we know what they are? Classical Judaism defines the moral in terms of God’s will as articulated in God’s commandments. Some modern theorists, however, have challenged the nexus between God’s will and Jewish law, and some humanist Jews have even denied that we should look to God’s will in any form to define the right and the good.   Even those who believe that Jewish moral norms are to be defined in terms of God’s will and that Jewish law is the proper vehicle for knowing what God wants of us cannot rest with Jewish law alone, for the Talmud itself declares that the law is not fully sufficient to define morality, that there are morals (lifnim m’shurat ha-din). For example, B. Baba Metz’ia 30b…Since, for Reform Judaism, Jewish law is, according to Freehof (1960), 22, “not directive, but advisory” and involves “our guidance, but not our governance,” moral norms, however they are construed, always take precedence over Jewish law, because moral norms are binding but Jewish law is not.   Beginning, then, with Abraham’s challenge to God, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not to justice?” [this verse] one ethical question addressed throughout Jewish history has been relationship between moral norms and God’s word.   Another, more modern question, is this: If we assume that God’s will defines that which is morally right and good, how shall we discern what God wants us to do now? Reform theories, such as that of Eugene Borowitz, Borowitz [1991], 284-299 maintain that individual Jews should make that decision. They should inform themselves as much as possible about the relevant factors in that case and about the Jewish sources that apply, but ultimately individual Jews, rather than rabbis, should determine what God wants of us on the basis of their knowledge and conscience. This Reform methodology raises major questions about how to identify any Jew’s decision as being recognizably Jewish. Indeed, it makes it possible and even likely that there will be multiple, conflicting moral decisions, all claiming to be Jewish, because each and every Jew has the right to articulate a “Jewish” position on a given issue.  This challenges the coherence and intelligibility of the Jewish moral message. Moreover, Borowitz’s methodology depends crucially on the assumption that individual Jews know enough about the Jewish tradition and about how to apply it to carry out this task, an assumption that regrettably does not comply with reality. Positively, though, Reform methodology empowers individual Jews to wrestle with the Jewish tradition themselves, and it encourages—even demands—that Jews learn more about their tradition in order to carry out this task. DORFFLOV 16

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GEN1475 Especially given the high hormonal levels of teenagers and young adults, refraining from non-marital sex will almost inevitably mean that they, and, for that matter, older people, will masturbate. This is especially true in our own time, when people commonly marry some fifteen years after they become sexually mature. The Mishnah, by contrast, mandates that men marry by the age of eighteen, M. Avot 5:21 and the Talmud records how Rabbi Hisda boasted that he was superior to his colleagues because he is married by sixteen, “and had I married at fourteen, I would have said to Satan, ‘An arrow in your eye.’” B. Kiddushin 29b-30a. In other words, had he married at an even younger age, his sexual needs would never have led him to do anything wrong. Men in their middle to late teenage years presumably married women who are somewhat younger. Even then, we must presume that nature took its course and that people masturbated at least until marriage. The Torah is silent about masturbation; the story of Onan [this verse] that is often cited in this regard is about interrupted coitus, not masturbation. The Talmudic Rabbis and the medieval Jewish tradition, however, roundly condemned masturbation, especially by males. Much of that, though, was due to earlier medical beliefs that masturbation would lead to insanity, impotence, loss of hair, and a host of other maladies. See, for example, M.T. Laws of Ethics (De’ot) 4:19 We now know that such beliefs are not true. Therefore, even though the tradition was not happy about masturbation, it is preferable that people masturbate than that they engage in non-marital sex, because masturbation does not involve any of the moral commitments or physical risks of sexual intercourse. Masturbation should be done in private, of course, just as all genital activities should be. In that context, men and women who masturbate rather than engaging non-marital sex should feel no guilt about it: They are making the morally and Jewishly preferable choice.  DORFFLOV 120

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EXOD63 … God, as understood in the Jewish tradition, is in part known and in part hidden. God is made known to human beings through revelation and through divine acts in history, but no human being, even Moses, can comprehend God's essence [this verse, 33:20 – 23] Furthermore, the Mishnah declares that one who probes God's essence beyond what God has chosen to reveal to human beings should not have been born, for, as the Jerusalem Talmud explains, to know more about God than the Holy One chooses to reveal is an affront to His dignity. M. Hagigah 2:1 and J. Hagigah 2:1 (8b). If God is to be a model for us, then, we, like God, must take steps to preserve our own privacy. We, then, out of respect for God's commands as articulated in the biblical passages just cited, [to emulate God's ways; Leviticus 19:2 and Deuteronomy 11:22, 13:5] must also respect the privacy of others. Thus these demands are deeply rooted not only in morality but in Jewish theology.

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EXOD127 The … positive obligations [under Jewish law] that we have to take care of our bodies … take on added meaning for all those entering sexual relationships in the age of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

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EXOD234 While God in the Jewish tradition is transcendent and awesome, the dominant emphases in Jewish theology are on God's immanence and beneficence. God is portrayed in the Bible as morally good, and God describes Himself as "a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving in equity, transgression, and sin." [Exodus 34:6-7; compare Numbers 14:18–19] Moreover, God is described many times in the Bible as our Healer [this verse; Deuteronomy 32:39; Isaiah 19:22, 57: 18–19; Jeremiah 30:17, 33:6; Hosea 6:1; Psalms 103:2-3, 107:20; and Job 5:18. Similarly, the daily liturgy proclaims, "Heal us, Lord, and we shall be healed"; Ultimately all health and healing rest with God], and the Torah promises that if we obey God's commandments, God will prevent illness in the first place [this verse; see also Deuteronomy 7:15 and compare 28:60] Indeed, in thinking about the relationship between God and illness, we must remember that most of us for most of our lives are healthy. We dare not take that for granted. It is a strong piece of evidence for a benevolent and compassionate God. These aspects of God can and should buoy up a sick person's hope.

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EXOD318 The body belongs to God. For Judaism, God, as creator of the world, owns everything in it, including our bodies. God loans our bodies to us for the duration of our lives, and we return them to God when we die. Consequently, neither men or women have the right to govern their bodies as they will; God, as creator and owner, asserts the right to restrict how we use our bodies in ways articulated in Jewish law. Some of God's rules require us to take reasonable care of our bodies, just as we would be obliged to protect and clean an apartment that we rent. Rules of good hygiene, sleep, exercise, and diet in Jewish sources are, therefore, not just words to the wise designed for our comfort and longevity, as they are an American thinking; they are, rather, commanded acts that we owe God. So, for example, American ideology in law would permit me to eat a half gallon of ice cream every night of the week; I might be stupid to do so because I will look and feel terrible and endanger my life, but that is my choice. In Jewish law, though, I do not have that right, because I have a fiduciary duty to take care of my body since it belongs to God. Just as we are commanded to maintain good health, so we are obligated to avoid danger and injury. B. Shabbat 32a; B. Bava Kamma 15b, 80a, 91b; M.T. Laws of Murder 11:4-5; S.A. Yoreh De'ah 116:5 gloss; S.A. Hoshen Mishpat 427:8-10]. Indeed, Jewish law views endangering one's health as worse than violating a ritual prohibition. B. Hullin 10a; S.A. Orach Hayyim 173:2] Conservative, Reform, and some Orthodox authorities have thus prohibited smoking as an unacceptable risk to our God – owed bodies. Judaism also teaches that human beings do not have the right to commit suicide, for doing so obliterates something that belongs not to us but to God. In contrast, the laws of most American states permits suicide (although most prohibit aiding and abetting a suicide).

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