GEN292 The Torah gives numerous clues about its attitude toward food.  The very first (negative) commandment given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden involved food. They are permitted to eat of every fruit and vegetable except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When the serpent tempted Eve and she and then Adam ate from this tree, they had to leave the Garden.  This act of eating changed the way man looked at the world.  Immediately after eating, “their eyes were opened,” and they realized they were naked. Genesis 3:7.  Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil produced a new sense of good and evil in man.  Therefore, prior to eating the fruit itself, the association of food is with the commandment and with good and evil.  Thus, food had a moral quality form the beginning – eating either fulfilled or disobeyed God’s commandment.  Certainly, the result of the eating was a moral reaction.  Eating caused Adam and Eve to have a new sense of morality, or what was right and wrong.  Thus, this first Torah incident regarding food set the precedent for food in the rest of the Torah and in Judaism in general.  Food is associated in Judaism with a moral act.  AMEMEI 72

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GEN293 [T]he living are destined to be judged.  Pirkei Avot, IV, 29  Man is the crown and the master of creation.  Inferior physically, he stands higher than all other beings with his mind, unique among all creatures, and with his freedom to will.  He alone has the ability to think and choose right from wrong—an ability that he first acquired when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” [this verse]. Be it a privilege or dubious gift, in its wake comes a serious responsibility: Because we can judge, we will be judged in turn.  When man stands at the acme of his strength, at the starting-point of his life all lies before him, ready for his conquest; The Almighty bids him, “Replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28.  He is free to order and rule over every creature, as he chooses his career and pursues it.  But when a time comes for a man to be judged, and he must pay for misdeeds, any and every living being can become Heaven’s agent to carry out the ordained judgment.  Gone then is man’s right to prevail over the lower forms of creation.  In this vein the Talmud observes that “once the time for a man’s end has come, all and everything gain supremacy over him [and Rashi adds; to put him to death—even a fly or a gnat] for it is stated [that Cain pleaded when the Almighty sentenced him to wander as a fugitive,] ‘whoever, whatever finds me, will slay me.’” Genesis 4:14.  [The word kol is here generally rendered “whoever,” but it can equally mean “whatever.”]  Cain knew that ultimately he must pay with his life for the murder of his brother, and so he feared that thenceforth any person or creature could bring his end.  Another Sage derives this teaching from a different verse: “For Thy judgments do they stand this day, whereupon all are Thy servants.” Psalms 119:91  Once the day comes for people to and and receive Divine judgment, all creatures become the Holy One’s servants and agents, to do his bidding.  From that moment, all nature is no longer responsive to the rule of the sentence man, but only to the decrees of heaven. SINAI2 201-2

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GEN300 How can we decide when preserving privacy should take precedence and when we should give precedence to other needs? The comparative gains and losses must be weighed.  The gains from invading privacy are usually obvious, but some of the largest costs of invading privacy are more subtle.  These include not only the short-term strains on relationships and the losses to the person whose privacy has been breached, but the broader erosion of trust, a form of moral and social capital that is critical to sustaining community and building relationships.  People’s conduct changes when their trust is eroded. They might, for example, stop consulting the doctor, therapist, or rabbi, or they might become less committed to their employer or friend.  Given the high cost of violating privacy, compelling reasons should exist for doing so.  One simple way of gaining perspective on a decision involving privacy is to consider how others whose ethics you respect will view you if you breach privacy.  Will they find your explanation compelling? Will they appreciate what you have accomplished?  When violating privacy also involves breaching confidentiality, the moral price of doing so increases considerably because such a violation also involves breaking an explicit promise, or at least an implied one, that confidentiality will be maintained.  This results in an even more substantial breakdown of trust.  Therefore, it is much harder to justify, though the examples above [i.e., duty to warn a third party when in danger of serious emotional or physical injury; reporting a wrongdoer to authorities] indicate that on very rare occasions breaching confidentiality may be the right thing to do.  … Weighing “comparative gains and losses” of privacy against other needs is no easy matter, made even more difficult by our inability to be objective about ourselves.  As it is written [this verse]: “It is not good for the human to be alone.”  We need to seek out and to cultivate trusted counsel to help us decide such matters.  AGTJL 114

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GEN295 (Continued from [[EXOD140]] Exodus 11:2 friend BLOCH 140) The rewards of friendship are great, and the Bible encourages people to cultivate it. There are exceptional people who are loners, either by choice or by chance. For most people, the acquisition of friends is a practical necessity. The biblical phrase that “It is not good for man to be alone” [this verse] is as applicable to a man without friends as to a man without a wife. Ecclesiastes advocates the assiduous pursuit of friends Soncino, Eccles. 11:2. Ben Sira informed his readers that “sweet language will multiply friends” Ecclus. 6:5.  He cautioned, however, that “if thou wishest to get a friend, prove him first and not be hasty to credit him” Ecclus 6:7. He also warned, “Open not they heart to every man, lest he replay three with a shrewd turn” Ecclus. 8:19 BLOCH 140-1 (Continued at [[DEUT619]] Deuteronomy 13:7 friend BLOCH 141)

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GEN299 Despite the misgivings of moralists about the possible misuse of feminine pulchritude, Judaism was not distracted from its goal of promoting the institution of matrimony as the cornerstone of civilized society. Matrimony offers many rewards, chief among them physical comfort, companionship, and gratification of the sex drive and the craving for children.  Of course, some of these advantages can be obtained outside of matrimony. Furthermore, matrimonial benefits are offset by heavy responsibilities. Support of family, the onus of child-raising, and domestic friction are serious deterrent considerations.  For the hesitant, Judaism painted a bright picture of the bliss of matrimony. At the same time it branded extramarital sex as grossly immoral. It also condemned celibacy as contrary to God’s design. The Bible is quite emphatic in its advocacy of matrimony. [This verse]. This divine pronouncement proclaims the desirability of marriage. Entering into matrimony is an ethical imperative and a practical act which fulfills God’s intent. BLOCH 218

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GEN301 In addition to curbing man’s offensive acts, respect for man dictates affirmative measures in support of those who need help. Every individual is a beneficiary of society’s companionship and protection. This is the sense of the text in Genesis: “And the Lord God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate’” [this verse]. Mutual interdependence, essential to man’s happiness, imposes an obligation to balance the benefit derived from human intercourse with a reciprocal contribution to the welfare of others. BLOCH 255

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GEN297 Derekh eretz means respecting the social conventions of the community. As. R. Meir taught: “When you enter a town, follow its customs” Genesis Rabbah 48:14.  Thus, the sage Samuel counseled Jews some 1,500 years ago to refrain from spitting in another’s presence Haggigah 5a.  That’s still proper etiquette today, and we extend it by showering regularly and using deodorant as part of our hygiene regiment. Our desire not to offend those with whom we come in contact in the community continues to rule our bathroom behavior, establishing standards of simple decency that our ancestors would find quite foreign. Let’s face it. With the exception of those few who seek solace in a solitary existence, all of us echo the teaching of Genesis: “It is not good for people to live alone” [this verse]. Judaism has long taught that humans were created as social beings. Hillel’s statement that we should not separate ourselves from the community Avot 2:4 still rings true.  Our generation, for all its privatism, knows well that it is psychologically unsound to spend too much time isolated from others. So the current rage to commune profoundly with our computers, substituting a screen for the bodily presence of a co-worker or friend, is troubling. The virtual reality of e-mail and chat-room conversations cannot match meeting people face to face, when body language, gestures, and silences are often more significant than the words we swap. BOROJMV 55

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GEN298 Adam and Eve, the progenitors of all humanity according to the biblical story, were specifically created for each other, “for it is not good that person be alone… and therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife so that they become one flesh.” [this verse, Genesis 2:24].  The Torah thus recognizes the basic human need for intimate companionship and sex to satisfy that need through the institution of marriage. Indeed, Genesis 2 portrays Adam as created by God first as a solitary human person, endowed by himself with all the possibilities of life. Since, according to that story, God eventually created both Adam and Eve, why, we wonder, did God not create them simultaneously? The reason seems to be that God wanted the first person to experience, not just to imagine, what it is like to have every material thing but no person to love. Only after Adam had experienced the pain of being continually alone would he be ready to appreciate the need for companionship and interdependence as the essential path of personal fulfillment. For him, and for us, his descendants, this is the human norm. This interpretation attributed by the author to Rabbi Mark Loeb.  Sex is one of the ways in which the companionship between husband and wife is expressed. In … Exodus 21:10 …, the Torah recognizes the sexual desires of women as well as those of men.  While contemporary Westerners might take it for granted that women as well as men have rights to sex within marriage, other societies in the ancient world—and, for that matter, in the medieval and the modern worlds as well—assumed that only men have sexual appetites. Women tolerate the sexual advances of their husbands, in this view, because they want children and economic security. In contrast, the Torah and the Rabbis who later interpret it, in recognition of the couple’s mutual desires, structure the laws of marriage so that both spouses have rights to sex with regularity within marriage. For the wife’s rights to sex, see M. Ketubbot 5:6; M.T. Laws of Marriage 14:4-7, 15; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 235:1, and Even Ha-ezer 76,77:1.  For the husband’s rights to sex, see M. Ketubbot 5:7, M.T. Laws of Marriage 14:8-14; and S.A. Even Ha’ezer 77:2-3.  Moreover, within the bounds of modesty, Jewish law permits couples to have sex in any way they want. S.A. Even Ha’ezer 25:2, gloss.  The Torah and the Rabbis thus went quite far to affirm the rights of both members of the couple to the pleasures of each other’s sexual company. On the other hand, when sex becomes a tool for control, a marriage ceases to be the partnership that it is intended to be. Jewish sources specifically proclaim that coercive of sex is never allowed, and they disdain either spouse “rebelling” against the other by denying sex.  One need not agree to engage in sexual relations each time that one’s spouse wants to do so, and a refusal to have conjugal relations must be respected. At the same time, the tradition does not approve denial of each other’s sexual rights over a long period of time without due reason, for then the spouse who wants to have sex is being denied the sexual expression of companionship to which each partner is entitled in a marriage. Marital companionship is, in part, sexual, but it is more than that. In the Jewish marriage ceremony, the only explicit reference to the couple being married describes them as “re’im ha-ahuvim” (the loving friends).  This description appropriately indicates that the companionship of marriage should extend over a wide scope, such that the husband and wife are not lovers but also friends. They should take time to enjoy many things together. They should talk with each other about what is going on in their lives in what they are thinking and feeling. They should be, as the marriage ceremony says, loving friends, where the friendship is a strong element in their relationship as their romantic love. DORFFLOV 82-4

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GEN296 (Continued from [[EXOD630]] Exodus 22:10 oath GATES 420). If the sinner is one who [generally] fears sin, the observer should tell himself that the sinner has surely repented already.  It is also fitting for him to fear for his own soul and to tell himself, “Since that person is God-fearing, perhaps his merits are greater than his sins” – our Sages said Kiddushin 39b that one whose merits are greater than his sins is counted among the congregation of the righteous. (I.e., he should be concerned for his own soul, for speaking lashon hara about a righteous person is a grave sin and brings severe punishment.) However, if the sinner is of those fools whose nature is to repeat their foolish ways, it is best to inform the judges so they can punish him in order to separate him from that which is forbidden.  Nevertheless, if he is the only witness, it is not good for man be alone bearing purposeless testimony, for his testimony is for naught since it cannot be relied upon, as the pasuk says Deuteronomy 19:15, “A single witness must not arise against a man, [to condemn him] for any punishment or sin-offering.”  Therefore, he is considered a slanderer.  GATES 422-3 (Continued at [[LEV23]] Leviticus 2:6 break GATES 421-3)

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GEN294 …. the idea that the manner in which the male and female principle complete each other in the world is determined by the aggressive or active nature of the male and the passive and receiving nature of the female … is mainly reflected in the legal status of the woman. Because of the legal form of the marriage contract she was originally greatly disadvantaged. While the husband could divorce her at will and against her will, she could not, and cannot to this day divorce her husband. The husband could inherit her property, but a widow does not inherit her husband’s and has to be maintained by her children from the estate they inherit. The heirs of a man are his son, not his daughters. The daughters have to be supported and must be provided with an appropriate dowry, but they do not inherit as equals with their brothers. Women are not admitted as witnesses or as judges. Similarly, their religious status is also severely limited. They are under no obligation to fulfill the highest commandment of Judaism, to study Torah. Since they are not obligated to study, they can have no obligation to teach. Therefore, while it is incumbent upon a father to teach his son Torah, the same duty does not apply to the mother. But not only was there no obligation for a woman to study Torah, the teaching of the written law to her was actually frowned upon, while the teaching of the oral tradition was forbidden.  See T.B. Sotah 20a; Maimonides, Yad HaHazakah, Talmud Torah 1, 13; Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 246.6  Her place as a member of the religious community is strictly limited.  While she is obligated to adhere to all the negative commandments, she is exempted from the duties to practice most of the positive commandments whose observance depends on a specific time of the day or the year. She does not have to put on Tefilin (phylacteries) or to wear Zizit on the corner of her clothes, she does not have to dwell in booths during the Sukkot festival, etc. She cannot be part of a Minyan, a quorum of ten Jews required for a congregational religious service.  We may now be in a better position to understand how those negative opinions about female characteristics might have come about and might, notwithstanding their exaggerated generalization, often have been derived from experience. There is little doubt that notwithstanding these rather limiting rules and regulations, Judaism produced numberless Zadkaniyot, women who were pious, chaste, virtuous, and charitable often in a self-sacrificial sense and to an ideal degree.  Yet we have to consider what must have been the effect of the position granted to the woman on the great majority of their sex. Since education was essentially Torah education, many women had no education at all.  They were of course taught the duties appertaining to their responsibilities as wives and mothers, and also learned from the example of the living tradition that surrounded them. As compared to the education of the sons, many of the daughters of Israel must have been intellectually as well as emotionally stunted. They were largely excluded from and were often mere spectators of the drama of the creative forms of religious life.  Their legal status, too, is often that of a passively receiving, protective member of society. It should not, then, be surprising if many of them were thievish, because they might have felt that they did not have the share in the family fortune that was due to them. That they were quarrelsome is quite believable; dissatisfied people often react to their surroundings in such a manner. With our better psychological insight, we may well understand that the deeply frustrated person may seek comfort in over-eating and become gluttonous. Some of the other negative characteristics too, which were ascribed to women in Talmudic times, are better understood as psychological reactions to their condition. We need not at all be convinced that the good woman, whose goodness was said to be limitless, was indeed potentially a better human being than the bad one, whose wickedness, it was maintained, was without end. Could it not have been that a good woman was meeker by nature and because of that readily accepted her status, whereas the bad woman was more vital, more energetic, with a stronger will of her own and because of that, much more frustrated. Her “wickedness” might have been her unconscious rebellion against her inability to make meaningful use of her natural gifts.  Rabbi Eleazar, a Talmudic teacher of the early part of the third century, has an interesting comment on the creation of woman, which has a bearing on this aspect of our discussion. We read in the Bible that God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet (sic?) for him.” [this verse] Its rather awkward English phrase stems from the fact that an attempt is made to get as accurate a rendering of the idiosyncrasy of the Hebrew text as possible. A more literal translation of the second part of the sentence would read: I will make him a help meet (sic?) opposite him. The phrase, “opposite him,” is explained by Rabbi Eleazar to mean: If a man deserves it, she will be a help meet to him; if not, she will be “opposite him,” i.e. against him. T.B. Yevamot 63b. It may well have been the case that the numerous shrews about whom Talmudic records know were the kind of women that the society or some men deserved. All those sweeping generalizations about women may say very little about what women are, but rather about what they become and the circumstances in which they had to live. (By Eliezer Berkovits, "The Status of Woman within Judaism") KELLNER 359-61

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