Jewish Sexuality dot Com

Question:

You people must be crazy! Hasn't the Torah forbade enough things that you come and add more? A man can have sex with his wife any time he wants as long as she is not in her menstrual cycle, day or night, seven days a week. Having sex once a week on Sabbath night (see guideline 16 ) might be OK for holy tzaddikim, but not for normal people.

Answer:

You are right that having sex once a week on Sabbath (Friday) night is an ideal for all those who want to sanctify themselves with a special holiness. The Torah understands that people have different natures and aspirations, and thus does not forbid marital relations during the week. But in all cases, a man should strive to perform his marital duty in holiness and not out of lust for personal enjoyment alone.

In his book, "Darke Tahara," former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Mordechi Eliahu, Shlita, writes:

And the L-rd spoke to Moshe, saying, Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the L-rd your G-d am hol, (Vayikra: 19:1).

"And this holiness is expressed not only by distancing yourselves from forbidden relationships, but also in distancing yourselves from things that are permitted. For the Torah has not come to grant those driven with lust room to wallow in their lechery and to be degenerate with the permission of the Torah," (Darke Tahara, Laws of Modesty, Pg. 178.)  

 And Rabbi Eliahu continues:

"However, someone who does not need to have relations in order to quiet an aroused sexual passion, since his urge is not pressing him, but rather purposefully arouses his lust and excitement just to fill himself with the lusts of this world, then his behavior is not a mitzvah. The opposite - this is the counseling of the evil inclination.  From the permitted he comes to the forbidden, as it says, ‘Whoever purposefully arouses his sexual organ to excitement will be banished,' (Niddah 13A.) This resembles a man who is satiated, but nevertheless eats and drinks in abundance until he is drunk and vomits up what he ate.... Thus a man must strengthen himself, and overcome his passions, and battle to save himself by subduing his lusts, so that his soul will reign over his animal nature which knows no limits in seeking to fulfill its lusts." (There, Pg. 182.)