Judaism ForumAsk an Orthodox JewHi all!
Aineo, you posted:
Try to tell most Christians that Ezekiel lists the reasons for the destruction of Sodom and you will have a major fight on your hands.
???
But thank you for confirming what I have been saying for the better part of two decades.
You're welcome!
You also posted:
Moses was Married and remained celibate after his encounter on Sinai. So did Aaron and the 72 chosen elders. The Priests, when serving in the tabernacle, could not have relations with their wives, so those with life long commitments to temple service remained celibate, even the married ones. Elijah and Elisha no longer had relations with their wives after the prophetic call came to them.
The above was posted on another message board and is part of a discussion concerning Jewish men and women who were "married" but never consummated their marriage. Also this person claims that Jewish men were required by Rabbinical law to divorce his wife if she committed adultery.
In Leviticus 20 the penalty for adultery is death but I cannot find any Scripture that states a man had to divorce his wife if she committed adultery.
What does Orthodox Judaism teach concerning the above situations.
Well, I'm perplexed. "Jewish men and women who were 'married' but never consummated their marriage" is a new one to this Hebrew. Judaism explicitly disavows celibacy as an unnatural defiance of God's will.
About Moses. Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Riskin (a transplanted Yank like myself) writes a column for The Jerusalem Post every Friday (the Friday papers here are like the Sunday papers in the USA, i.e. with all the supplements, magazines, special sections, etc.) on the weekly Shabbat (the Sabbath) Torah reading ( ). We read Numbers 8:1-12:16 a few weeks ago. Rabbi Riskin wrote:
The great philosopher - legalist of the 12th Century, Maimonides, explains it as follows (Laws of the Foundations of Torah, 6): The Almighty, in an attempt to raise the spiritual level of the Israelites and prepare them for the Revelation at Sinai, instructed them to separate from their spouse for three days prior to the Appearance of the Almighty atop the Mount. At the conclusion of the Revelation, G-d instructs His prophet, “go now and tell them to return to their tents (and their wives)” (Deut 5: 27,28 ). Miriam therefore tells Aaron that Moses, too, should have returned to his wife Zipporah. After all, was not the commandment to return to the natural familial situation after the Revelation given to everyone - including Moses !?
What Miriam did not understand was that Moses was sui generis, unique and different “in kind” from everyone else, and even from every subsequent prophet. G-d specifically singled out Moses and separated him from the general return to the family tents when He said to him, “But you stand here with Me and I shall (constantly) speak to you….” (Deut. 5:28 ). “All other prophets had their ‘prophetic moments of Divine communication,’ either in a dream or in a vision; Moses prophesized when awake and standing … the holy spirit garbed and enveloped him, whenever he desired it… He was constantly prepared and ready for Divine communication, just like a heavenly angel. Therefore the other prophets would return to their homes and to their bodily, physical needs once the spirit of prophecy departed from them, whereas Moses could not return to his wife, but had to separate himself from her forever, because his mind was constantly bound up with the “mind” of the Rock of Eternity, whose Divine glory never left him…” (Maimonides, ibid).
Link: http://www.ohrtorahstone.org.il/parsha/5765/behalotcha65.htm
But Moses, as Rabbi Riskin says, was utterly unique. (Besides, he had already fathered two children with Zipporah.) I have not heard anything about Aaron & the 72 elders (who had not been chosen for prophecy at the time of the revelation at Mt. Sinai but only later, in the wilderness). It seems like someone got hold of a garbled version of the following. Our Sages teach that the Eldad & Medad prophesied that Moses would die in the wilderness & that Joshua would lead us into the Land of Israel (Joshua was concerned for Moses's honor & was worried that we would panic upon hearing Eldad & Medad, thus he wanted to arrest them)...
"Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, 'Was it only to Moses that God spoke? Did He not speak to us as well?' And God heard. Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth!"
Our sages give us some background to the incident (Tanchuma 96,13). Moses stopped cohabiting with his wife Ziporah after he descended from Mount Sinai. When the seventy elders were being chosen, there was a need to deal with the problem of two extra elders that had to be excluded from the group. There were twelve tribes to represent and only seventy sages allowed. The most equitable distribution would have allowed six elders per tribe, but this would have added up to seventy two, more than the number allowed. The decision was taken to write seventy-two names on lots and pick the seventy elders by drawing the first seventy names. Eldad and Meidad, both of whose names had been included in the draw, decided to solve the selection problem by not showing up to the drawing.
For this act of generosity and humility they were awarded with the gift of prophecy, and they began to prophesize in the camp. Their prophecy: "Moses will die in the desert and Joshua will lead the Jews into Israel." Ziporah and Miriam were both present when Moses was informed. Miriam overheard Ziporah remark, "How unfortunate are their wives as their husbands will now stop cohabiting with them just as my husband no longer cohabits with me." Ziporah was so upset about Moses' separation from her that she didn't even react to the content of the prophecy regarding her husband's death, but remained focused on the unfortunate marital consequences of the phenomenon of prophecy, as she understood them. The separation practiced by Moses was obviously undertaken and carried out without soliciting her agreement and against her will.
Upon realizing this, Miriam, who was Ziporah's sister-in-law, decided to intervene on her behalf. She went to her brother Aaron and attempted to enlist his aid. Her argument: she and Aaron were also prophets and yet they continued to lead normal lives including the maintenance of full marital relations with their spouses. Moses was therefore inflicting uncalled for mental anguish on his wife by his ascetic behavior, and it was up to them, his family, to straighten this out and protect the conjugal rights of their sister-in-law.
At this point in the story God inserts the aside regarding Moses' humility quoted above; but this is not what He tells Miriam and Aaron. To them He explains at length that whereas on their level of prophecy marital relations can and should be maintained, Moses is a higher sort of prophet and the extra spiritual dimension of his prophecy mandates the abstention from physical relations he practiced; and that Moses' decision had His full approval.
"Hear now My words. If there shall be prophets among you, in a vision shall I, God, make Myself known to him; in a dream shall I speak with him. Not so is My servant Moses; in My entire house he is the trusted one. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him, in a clear vision and not in riddles, at the image of God does he gaze. Why did you not fear to speak against My servant Moses?"
The commentators explain the background of God's intervention; as He was fully familiar with Moses' extreme humility, God realized that Moses would never defend himself by revealing the truth - that he had reached a higher level of prophecy than even the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore it was up to Him, God, to defend Moses from his siblings' undeserved criticism.
First God explained the matter and then He expressed His anger. He basically told Aaron and Miriam that they should never have assumed that Moses was capable of causing needless anguish to his wife Ziporah; they should have realized that if he separated from her, it was done as a matter of strict necessity.
In the event, it is God who made a public incident out of this story. The Rabbis specifically teach that neither Aaron or Miriam mentioned their criticism to anyone, and what is more they spoke directly to Moses and not behind his back (Ohr Hachaim). "And God heard"; only He heard, no one else.
I recommend that you read the whole article at http://www.aish.com/torahportion/mayanot/Torah_Pride_and_Torah_Prejudice.asp.
Jewish law says that if the High Priest was either divorced or widowed, he could not perform the Yom Kippur service in the Temple; i.e. the High Priest had to be married & living with his wife in order to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple (where he, and only he, would go once a year, on Yom Kippur).
Regarding the requirement that a husband divorce his adulterous wife (as opposed to her being executed), see http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=865&letter=A&search=adultery#2151.
References to Elijah being celibate are based on a particular tradition found in later Kabbalistic literature that Elijah was an angel in human form; however, this particular tradition is very much a minority view. Jeremiah is no precedent; he received a direct, peremptory and personal command from God. (Our Sages teach that Hephzibah, the wife of King Hezekiah & mother of King Manasseh, was the daughter of the prophet Isaiah.)
Howzat?
Be well!
ssv
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