The Conversation of The Sages is Naught but Lewdness…

“Rabbi Samuel the son of Nachmani said: It is written, ‘A loving doe, a graceful mountain goat. [Let her breasts satisfy you at all times, be infatuated with love of her always’ (Proverbs 5:19)]. Why were the words of the Torah likened to a doe? To tell you that as the womb [vagina] of the doe is tight, and her mate enjoys it each time as though it were the first [for the sexual act is more enjoyable when the vagina remains tight], so are the words of the Torah always enjoyable to their students as though it were the first time” (Eiruvin 54b).

Chazal said (Minor Tractates, Tractate Derech Eretz, chapter arayot, halacha 13): “Do not speak excessively with women, for all women’s conversations are lewdness. R’ Achi the son of R’ Josiah said all who look at women will in the end come to sin.”

But we will show you who seeks truth that a great deal of the sages’ conversations are naught but lewdness, and about them we can say (Kiddushin 70a): “One who seeks to disqualify another projects his own defects upon him.”

One of the puzzling things about our rabbis is their world of sexual fantasy. To make the Torah enjoyable to its students they chose to use expressions from animal sexuality… even though they were no experts on the animal world: they never did, after all, ask the ram if he enjoys his mating with a doe more than other animals enjo their own matings – they just made it all up.

For example, see what else our rabbis have said about this doe: “‘Can you mark the time when the does calve?’ (Job 39:1)–the doe has a narrow womb. When she is about to birth I send her a dragon [snake–Rashi] to bite her and her womb expands. If it were a moment sooner or a moment later she would immediately die” (Bava Batra 16a).

With your own eyes you see how our rabbis make up “natural phenomena” which never actually happened, like G-d sending a snake to the doe, to bite her at just the right time so her womb will expand and she can give birth.

Do not think that these things are mere Aggadah, for the Gemara makes Halachic rulings based on this picture of things (Bechorot 7b): “Cheli d’yachmorta–the Sages tended to say that they are eggs and [therefore] forbidden. Rav Safra said, [however]: They are the sperm of a ram, who wanted to mate with a doe–but since her womb is tight, he could not; so he went to a she-roebuck, and these were left [in her vagina after their mating].” This is the explanation of it, according to the commentaries of Rashi and Rabbeynu Gershom: Cheli d’yachmorta are things resembling testicles dropping from a female roebuck’s vagina. The Sages tended to forbid eating them as limbs of a living being, thinking that these are indeed a male roebuck’s testicles, which he had dropped while fertilizing the female. Rav Safra, however, came along and permitted them–for in his view, they were not testicles but the sperm of a ram, which coagulated after he mated with a she-roebuck (!) because he could not mate with a doe of his own species, whose vagina is tight and she didn’t consent. So he went to a she-roebuck (an animal which looks similar to a doe), and mated. Now, since he had waited for a long time before this mating he emitted a lot of sperm, which coagulated in the roebuck’s womb until it looked like testicles.

This picture of animal world lays at the foundation of a Halachic ruling formulated by the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah section 71, paragraph 3: “The eggs which a she-roebuck drops from her womb are permitted.” The Taz [Turei Zahav] explained  in paragraph 6: “What has coagulated from the ram’s sperm and looks like eggs is only secretions [and is not forbidden as the limbs of a living being, so it is permitted for eating].”

All who hear this will laugh and wonder at this nonsense, which has not a single correct fact about it. Our rabbis come along and make up a whole story about rams, does, roebucks and the sexual relations they are involved in–until they even permitted eating the “eggs” which a she-roebuck drops because they are coagulated ram sperm, nothing more and nothing less. (We will say, as an aside, that we have often heard from our rabbis that eating forbidden foods influences one’s soul. What would these rabbis say about one who is scrupulous to eat permitted foods and eats coagulated ram sperm? What will his soul resemble?!)

Not only has the doe merited miracles when she births. The mountain goat has, too. (Bava Batra 16a): “‘Do you know the season when the mountain goats give birth? Can you mark the time when the does calve?’ (Job 39:1). The mountain goat is cruel to her children. When it comes time for her to give birth she goes up to the top of the mountain so the babies will fall and die. [But] I send an eagle to her to take them in his wings and place them before her.” Did the Sages never see a mountain goat give birth? What is all this nonsense?

If so, it is no wonder that Rabbi Joseph Elbo wrote, in Sefer HaIkarim (fourth essay, chapter 11): “So we have found that G-d watches wondrously over each animal, to give each one a purpose he can fulfill…the animals and birds of prey get no food from plant growth, so nature gave them tools through which they could live off prey, including claws with poison to use while killing, to cook the food and make it better, for the power of the poison and its heat serves them instead of cooking the meat… [See what we wrote in pamphlet 2, that all this is nonsense, for they have no poison in their claws at all.]

And the mountain goat is watched to guard them during their birth, to the extent that none are hidden from this supervision when it is born, as our rabbis OBM said: ‘Since her womb is tight [Rabbi Joseph Elbo gets confused here between the mountain goat, ya’elah, and the doe, ayalah], the holy One, blessed be He, sends her a snake to bite her, and for each and every species in its own way.”

So there, student who seeks knowledge, you have it: a peep into the virtual reality of our rabbis. They make up “natural phenomena” and from that draw conclusions about His supervision…

Since we have been dealing with does whose vaginas are tight, we will cite what is written (Yoma 29a): “Rav Zeira said: Why was Esther compared to a doe? To tell you that just as the doe, whose vagina is tight, is always delightful to her mate as the first time, so was Esther always delightful to Achashverosh as the first time.”

This is an example of Chazal’s strange aggadot about the Jewish prophetesses. It is not at all clear why they chose to attribute all kinds of sex, unmentioned by the Scriptures, to our prophetesses. (Megillah 14a: “There were seven prophetesses. Who were they? Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Hulda, and Esther.”) What is this mania they have about sex?

See what our rabbis wrote of  the sexual relations between Esther and Achashverosh (Megillah 13a): “‘And the king loved Esther more than all the women and favored her above all the virgins’ (Esther 2:17). Rav said: When he wanted to be with a virgin, she was like a virgin, and when he wanted to be with an experienced woman, she was so [therefore it says ‘more than all the women and…all the virgins–Rashi].”

Now see what Chazal wrote about Yael, the wife of Chever the Keini (Yevamot 103a): “Rabbi Jochanan said: [Sisra] had sex seven times with Yael, as is said [in the song of Deborah, Judges 5:27], ‘Between her legs he bowed, he fell, helay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell downdead’ (there are seven instances of bowing, falling, or laying down in the verse)]… Radak (on Judges 5:27), who kept to the plain meaning of the text, contradicts this odd agaddah: “Between her legs he bowed, he fell–this is a literary custom, to repeat words in order to emphasize them. ‘He lay down’–a laying down from which there is no return, and this is why it says ‘there he fell down dead.’ There is a midrashic explication of this [verse], but it is far out. Since there are seven iterations of bowing, falling, and laying down, they said that the evil one had sex with Yael seven times that day, but what we wrote above, on the word ‘coverlet’ [in his commentary on Judges 4:18], refutes it.”

We will also ask: The Scriptures describe in detail how Yael killed Sisra (Judges 4:20-21): “Again [Sisra] said to [Yael], ‘Stand at the door of the tent, and it shall be when any man comes and inquires of you, saying: Is there any man here? that you will say No.’  Then Yael, Chever’s wife, took a nail of the tent and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” According to Chazal he fell down dead after having sex multiple times, so why did the Scriptures testify “[she] went softly to him”?

Now come see what our rabbis said about Abigail (Megillah 14b): “…this teaches us that [Abigail] revealed her thigh [and David desired her and demanded, but she did not listen to him–Rashi] and he followed its light for three parsaot. He said to her: Heed me! [he demanded sex]. She said to him: (I Samuel 25:31) ‘This shall not be an obstacle to you,’ implying David would stumble elsewhere–where? The incident with Bathsheba.”

What do Chazal attribute to the prophetess Abigail? That she raised her dress and showed her thigh to tempt David. The Tosafot, Megillah 14b, s.v. shegiltah, wondered how it is possible that a righteous woman like Abigail would act so loose: “It is puzzling how that righteous woman [Abigail] showed her thigh to David; and it seems to be an exaggeration to say that he followed its light for three parsaot [12 km]. But it should be said…that David desired her and followed that heat for three parsaot.”  That is, David did not actually follow Abigail’s uncovered thigh, he followed his own desire. We do not understand how the Tosafot settle their question about Abigail, who uncovered her thigh. Again we see that our rabbis confuse their commentators and they can’t tell what is parable, what is exaggeration, and what is reality [see our essay:Scriptures and Talmud: What is Reality and What is Parable?].

See, for example, how the Maharsha explains the words of the Talmud in his Aggadah commentary: “[Abigail uncovered her thigh;] she was 3 parsaot from him and did not know of him nor he of her. She uncovered her thigh and it lit his way in the night for three parsaot until she came to him…” How miraculous. According to the Maharsha the righteous Abigail uncovered her thigh when she was far from King David and the light of her desirable thigh lit David’s night for 12 kilometers! How far did our rabbis the commentators’ imaginations go?

We will add that for some reason the Tosafot did not wonder how King David, “G-d’s anointed one,” desired a married woman and did not control his desires. This question was asked in the Responsa of the Ridbaz, part seven, paragraph 29: “I have been asked about the matter of Abigail and David, as related in chapter one of Megillah and in the Jerusalem Talmud in Sanhedrin, that David desired her and she produced a stain and said that she was a niddah…How can we imagine that David, chosen by G-d, wanted to sleep with a married woman…and if about Bathsheba they said that all who state David sinned are mistaken, how can they say he desired a married woman and so sinned?

The answer: …it can be said that David supposed that since Nabal had been deserving capital punishment–for he rebelled against the king–his wife had rightly belonged to the king (see Bereshit Rabbah, chapter 35 [correctly, chapter 32, Vilna edition–DE]), as did all his other property; and just as all other property is passed over while the guilty man is alive, he thought the wife is as well. But in this [David] erred, for though all other property is forfeit [even before the criminal is executed], the prohibition against sleeping with a married woman lapses only when she is divorced or widowed….I have written all this to show that we must turn to all possible sides and sides of sides to vindicate G-d’s anointed one, as our rabbis OBM did on the issue of Bathsheba.”

We learn two things from the Ridbaz’s words. One is that David, “G-d’s anointed one,” treated Abigail (the wife of Nabal) as another item of Nabal’s property (and only erred in calculating that this “property” would pass to him before Nabal’s death) and the other is that the Radbaz freely admits his interpretation to be a product of his own mind, motivated by the desire to interpret the Scripture apologetically in order to to look for the good in the Scriptural “saints.”

Now we will return to the sexual fantasies of our rabbis: “Our rabbis taught: Rahab’s lewdness was through her name; Yael’s–through her voice; Abigail’s–through thinking of her; and Michal’s–through seeing her. Rabbi Isaac said: One who [merely] says ‘Rahab, Rahab’ has [a seminal emission] immediately [because of excessive desire]. Rabbi Nachman said: I keep saying ‘Rahab, Rahab’ and nothing happens to me. To which Rabbi Isaac replied: What I said concerns only [a woman] with whom one is well acquanited” (Megillah 15a).

Based on this gemara Rabbi Obadiah Yossef permitted hearing a woman sing when the listener does not know the woman. In responsa Yabiah Omer, part one, Orach Chayim, paragraph six: “It seems that ‘a woman’s voice is lewdness’ only applies when one sees her face or is acquainted with her, as it says in Megillah (15a), ‘Rahab’s lewdness was through her name, Yael’s–through her voice… [and that] concerns only [a woman] with whom one is well acquainted’.” Woe to the generation which rules halacha based on the imaginations of our rabbis and forbids hearing the voice of any familiar woman lest he inappropriately desire her. How do the contemporary rabbis seal their hearts and not realize that the sages of the Talmud showed unmitigated contempt for women, contempt that should not be given a toehold in our days?

Go see how our rabbis showed contempt for even the Scriptural prophetesses (Megillah 14b): “Rav Nachman said: Eminence does not become a woman. There were two eminent women and both their names are loathsome. One was a bee [Deborah] and the other was a rat [Chuldah].” But “Shafan [Rabbit] the scribe” and “Achbor [Mouse] the son of Mikiah” (II Kings 22) were not ridiculed for their names.

It should be said that our rabbis in the Talmud, in all honesty, did admit that the desire for women was an inseparable part of their lives and they needed the fear of flesh and blood to help control their desires (Kiddushin 81a): “[An incident when] captive women were brought to Nahrdea and brought to the house of Rav Amram the Pious. They put them in the attic and took away the ladder which led to the attic. When one of the captives was walking in the attic, light fell across the opening, and since Rav Amram’s desires overwhelmed him, he raised the ladder, which ten men together could not raise, and began climbing the ladder towards the captives. When he got halfway up the ladder, he spread his legs [to hold on tight so that he could control his desire] and screamed, ‘Fire in Rav Amram’s house!’ [so that people would respond to his call and rush in, and of shame before them he would leave off his desire]. The sages [who thought there was a fire indeed] came [and saw there was none]. They said to him: ‘You shamed us.’ Rav Amram answered them: ‘Better to be shamed in this world than to be shamed in the next’.”

Also (Sukkah 52a): “Abaye heard a man saying to a woman, ‘Come, let us go on our way together.” Abaye said: let me follow them to keep them from sin. They went some three parsaot until they came to a marsh [where their ways should have parted]. He heard them say: ‘A journey is long and the company was nice [meaning that they had to part].’ Abayeh said: ‘Were I in his place I would not have conquered my desires.’ In his sorrow he leaned on the door latch until the old man came to him and said, ‘Any who is greater than his fellows has greater desires’.”

Come see how far the lewd talk of our rabbis, the authors of the Talmud, goes. The Scriptures say: “He [Asa] also deposed his mother Maacah from the rank of queen mother because she had made an abominable thing [mifletzet] for Asherah. Asa cut down her abominable thing and burnt it in the Wadi Kidron” (I Kings 15:13, II Chronicles 15:16). What is this abomination that Maacah had made? Radak gave a reasonable explanation (I Kings 15:13): “The abomination is idolatry. It is called mifletzet–something, which makes one fear and tremble, as in ‘I shudder in panic [pelatzot]’ (Isaiah 21:4)–because of the panic it casts on its worshippers.” But this did not occur to our rabbis the Amoraim, who instead interpreted the verse the following way (Avodah Zarah 44a): “What ismifletzet? Rav Judah said: a super-mockery [maflei leitzanuta], as Rav Joseph taught: she made a male figure and impaled herself on it each day.” That is, Maacah’s “abomindation” was nothing more than a dildo she used each day!

If so, it is no wonder that when the Sages of the Talmud came to describe the evil Pharaoh they gave his measurements thus (Moed Katan 18a): “Abitul the scribe said in the name of Rav (Pappa): ‘The Pharaoh who reigned in Moses’ days was one cubit tall [about half a meter!], his beard was a cubit long, and his sexual organ was a cubit and a finger-length, to fulfill what is written (Daniel 4:14) ‘And set up over it the basest of men’.”

You learn that according to our rabbis in the Talmud, by whose light we live, the evil Pharaoh king of Egypt was half a meter tall, his beard was half a meter long, and his penis was slightly more than half a meter long…

To this we have nothing to add, and there is nothing more to be said!