Jewish Sexuality dot Com

If you have taken an interest in this website, chances are you are Jewish. Being a Jew, you are a member of the nation chosen by G-d to lead the world out of the darkness of immorality to a nobler, godlier way of life.

 

In other articles, we saw how the first people on earth, Adam and Eve, failed to safeguard their sexual purity. Outcast from the Garden of Eden, mankind descended further in the pit of passion until, because of its wanton sexual immorality, G-d chose to wipe out the Generation of the Flood. Still, mankind continued to sin and rebel against its Creator, descending once again to the beastlike corruption of Sodom. 

Finally, G-d chose Avraham to be the founder of a new nation that would carry G-d’s message of morality and holiness to the world. In promising the Jewish People the Holy Land, G-d entered in a Covenant with Avraham for all time, the Covenant of Brit Milah, whereby Avraham and his descendants were to circumcise their offspring and guard the holiness of their sexual lives, as the Torah says: “And G-d said to Avraham: therefore you shall safeguard My Brit, you and your seed after you in their generations” (Bereshit, 17:8-10).

In his eloquent and deeply-felt style, addressed to the Jews of his time, here’s how Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsh describes this Covenant and the Jewish People’s eternal calling:     

“WALK BEFORE ME and be perfect” (Bereshit, 17:1).

G-d calls upon the Jewish People to lift their eyes to Him at every moment, in all of their doings, so that every fraction of their lives is dedicated to Him - “Walk before Me and be perfect.”

Do not divide your being into two halves, as if you belong in spirit to heaven, in body to earth; as if you would serve G-d in your spiritual life, but in your physical life allow your body to revel in animal lusts. No. Be whole in your allegiance, be perfect!

The body also must be a means for serving G-d who created you. Every faculty within you has been given to you for a Divine purpose. Dedicate your spirit and your body to Me, and be perfect and whole, your whole being moved only by one thought, dedication to the One and Only Creator.

Thus did G-d address Avraham when he commanded him to set His seal of the Covenant upon that part of the body where man is most akin to the animal, and thereby sanctify and dedicate his body to the mission G-d gave him.

Keep the strength of your body holy; do not squander it in degrading sensuous lust. Do not dissipate it against the will if your Creator. Expend it only as a servant of G-d, transforming the most animal-like actions into the sacred mission of leading the world to holiness. Keep your strength holy for this purpose, and to this Divine mission curb your animal passions. Know that G-d will demand retribution for every atom of strength which you squander outside of his service, or dissipate against His will. This is the summons that the Brit and Covenant of Avraham brings to you – stifle your animal desires at the very outset of your life, at their very birth.

You cannot declare: “Surely I am free to use my body as I please. After all it is G-d who had planted these drives and instincts in me.” If you follow you own pleasures, it is against G-d who you act unrighteously, for you and your body and your instincts belong to Him, and He has set his seal upon our flesh that you might control those instincts and drives and keep them holy for the purposes for which He implanted them within you.

To keep this seal of the Covenant as something holy is fundamental to the eternity of your People, so that the animal in you does not attain mastery, as in the other nations of the world, resulting in their degeneracy.

Desecration of this mark of the Covenant, the Brit Milah, and its preservation in purity, brings in its wake an ever-growing bestiality in the spirit of man, a crippling of the body and soul, a degradation of the race and a corruption of the family, passing on physical, mental, and moral maladies from parents to children to grandchildren in turn.

Therefore did G-d declare, “And I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and your seed after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting Covenant, to be a G-d unto you and to your offspring after you” (Bereshit, 17:7).

But it incumbent upon you also to “establish My Covenant,” you and your offspring after you, by circumcising yourselves and your children, and by guarding it in holiness. “And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his People; he has broken My Covenant” (Bereshit, 17:14).

 

Thus, G-d spoke to Avraham, and thus He speaks to all of his offspring until today. And you, O my young people who read this, do not bear the impress of Avraham in vain. Do not become submerged in the degradation of the age. Remember – you are the children of Avraham. Carry this symbol of holiness proudly. If youth all around you hasten to the paths of destruction, stand proudly strong, be firm in the holy mission entrusted to you in the name of Israel. “Walk before Me and be perfect” Wherever you go, you are in My Presence. Be pure, without stain or blemish. Be wholly Mine with all that I have given to you. Thus G-d calls out to you through the seal of the Covenant whenever sensuality entices you astray. He calls out to you to be true to your calling as a member of the House of Israel. Will you turn away? Will you spurn His summons? Will you stain the noble seal of your People? For what purpose? To revel in lust? To rot and decay?