Rav Yosef Karo Uses the Zohar to Eliminate the Opposition

In this post we will finally tie our two separate threads together, the mystical Kabbalistic thread and the Halachic thread.  Rabbi Yosef Karo (RYK), the most influential Halachic authority since the days of Maimonides, was the author of two major halachic works.  The Beit Yosef is written as a commentary on the Arba'ah Turim which we discussed in the previous post, and it is an encyclopedic review of all of the halachic opinions on the topics covered by the Tur. Based on his Beit Yosef, RYK then wrote the Shulchan Arukh (SA), where he summarizes his conclusions of law.  This has become one of the most important works in the history of the Halacha.

The Beit Yosef provides us the insight we need into how RYK came to the conclusions that he records in the SA.  I promised you in a previous post that I would show you how RYK brought the Zohar and Lurianic kabbalah into the Halachic world regarding the topic of masturbation.  So now is the time to fulfill my promise. 

In the Beit Yosef, on his commentary to the Tur Even Ha'ezer 23:4 the Beit Yosef adds to the Tur:

It is written in the Zohar that the severity of the prohibition against ejaculation for naught is more than all the other sins in the Torah, therefore one must be extremely careful regarding (the avoidance of) this (sin).

If you recall our previous post, the Tur cites the lenient opinion of the Ri HaZaken as a dissenting opinion, as he permits spilling seed in the context of an appropriate relationship.  RYK's comments on this are fascinating and revolutionary.  in the Beit Yosef (siman 25) he says:

It is very difficult to allow someone to spill his seed even if it is only occasional, and one who is careful regarding (matters of) his soul will stay far away from this and from similar acts... 

Then in his later work, Bedek HaBayit (ch. 25), RYK cracks down even harder and states regarding the Ri HaZaken:

had the Ri HaZaken seen what is written in the Zohar regarding the punishment for someone who needlessly spills seed, that it is more severe than any other sin in the Torah, he never would have written what he wrote...

Essentially, RYK is saying that the Tosafists and Halachic authorities who were not exposed to the Zohar, as they lived prior to the revelation or publication of the Zohar. The ramifications of this statement are astonishing.  RYK is suggesting that a Halachist would make a different Halachic decision because of the Zohar.  Somehow it even suggests that the pre-Zohar Halachists weren't quite as informed on these topics as the "post-Zohar" Halachists and thus their opinions are less legitimate.

RYK then codifies this in the SA, and completely omits the opinion of the Ri Hazaken and any of the other lenient opinions that we have cited in our blog up to this point.  It is worth reviewing the SA in Even Ha'Ezer chapter 23 in its entirety.  I will leave it to the reader to read it, as quoting the entire chapter would be lengthy, but I do want to point out a few very important details.

1. We mentioned in the last post that the Tur changed the Rambam's word "however" (Aval) to "and" and how this suggested that the Tur understood the Rambam's prohibition against "Ni'uf BeYad U'beregel" to be a prohibition against masturbation.  This was in contradiction to the Rambam's own explanation of the term in Pirush HaMishnayot.  This also indicated that the Tur understood the Rambam's objection against using withdrawal as being a sin of "spilling seed', which was not how the Rambam was understood prior to the Tur.  RYK takes this a step further and completely removes the word "and" as well.  What this does in effect is completely change our understanding of the Rambam.  Now it reads as follows:
   
   "[One may not do withdrawal, one may not marry a woman incapable of conceiving] those who engage in such practices and spill seed in vain (elu Shmena'afim beyad etc....) not only are they committing a terrible sin...
   
   What the SA is doing is presenting the Rambam as if the reason for the prohibition against marrying someone incapable of conceiving and for withdrawing and ejaculating extravaginally is due to the prohibition of spilling seed.  This is totally the opposite of the way the Rambam was previously understood. The "and" of the tur made it into a list of three things, while dropping the "and" turns it into an explanation of why the acts are prohibited.
   
   
2. The SA injects into his quote from the Rambam the term he used in the Beit Yosef, which comes directly from the Zohar, that "This sin is more severe than any other sin in the Torah".
   
   
3. The SA, unlike the Tur, completely omits the opinion of the Ri HaZaken.  He doesn't even bring it as a "Yesh Omrim" (There are some who say)
   
   
4.  The SA, unlike the Tur, omits the Rambam's explicit quotation from the Gemara that permits a husband and wife to engage in whatever sexual activity they so desire, including anal intercourse (Biah Shelo Kedarkah)

There are more things to point out, but the items I just mentioned are enough to establish how RYK has now taken the Zohar and placed it directly into the realm of Halacha, and he has explicitly prohibited things that were permitted by the Talmud itself and the Rambam (and others as we have written about extensively in previous posts).

Lest you think that the SA only wrote these Halachot to sound scary, but he didn't really prohibit actions explicitly permitted in the Talmud and the Rambam, here is a story from the Sefer Chareidim (Rabbi Eliezer ben Moshe Azikri 1533-1600) that recounts an actual case brought before the Beit din (rabbinical court) of RYK:

There was a case in Safed, in the year 5308 (1547), that in the presence of the great rabbis Our teacher and Rabbi Rav Yosef Karo, and our teacher our rabbi R' Isaac Massoud, and our teacher our Rabbi Avraham Shalom and my teacher the Rabbi, the pious R' Yosef Shaggis, and several other rabbis, that a woman came and stated that her husband had intercourse with her "shelo kedarka" (anal intercourse) and they excommunicated him, and criticized him and said that he was (worthy of) being burned, and in the end (his verdict was that) they banished him from the land of Israel...(End of chapter on Hotz'at Zerah in Sefer Chareidim)

This is remarkable, and it demonstrates just how far RYK took the Zohar into the realm of practical  Halacha.  An act explicitly permitted by the Talmud and the Rambam, was prohibited to the extent that RYK banished this man from Israel.

There is so much more to write. We can discuss the Lurianic kabbalah and how it expanded further on the ideas of the Zohar.  We can discuss the Hassidic movement, and how it expanded on the ideas of the Lurianic Kabbalists.  We can discuss the Halachic literature and how it accepted the established Halacha as codified by the SA.  We can discuss the Mussar literature, and how it was affected by the Kabbalah.  However, I am going to skip all of that. The reason is because I have sufficiently demonstrated how this all came to be.  How the "sin" of spilling seed became established as a Halacha, despite not being mentioned in the Torah or even the Talmud.

Instead, I will in my next post discuss a little bit about the influences of the Christian world and the scientific world on the Jewish attitudes towards masturbation.  Then I will talk about some of the many "side effects" of this Halachic reconceptualization of the SA such as its influence on modern laws of birth control, fertility treatments etc...  Then I hope to discuss what the world of sexuality according to the Torah would look like if we had taken a different path and accepted the Talmud, Maimonides, the Ri Hazaken, and the Tosafot Rid etc... as the law of the land instead of the path taken by the Zohar and the SA.  I think some of my conclusions will be surprising, and certainly something to think about.

The Tur Interprets the Rambam

In this post, we will go back to Halachic world, and see how the conception of the prohibition against masturbation evolved as it became codified into law.

Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (RJBA) (1269-1343) also known as the "Ba'al HaTurim" was famous for being the author of the "Arba'ah Turim" or "The Four Pillars".  This work was hugely influential in the future development of Jewish law.  The format of this work became the blueprint for all major Halachic works until modern times.  One of the most important aspects of the Arba'ah Turim was that it served as a bridge that unified the two primary schools of Halachic scholarship that were beginning to grow further and further apart, the Ashkenezic and the Sephardic scholars.  RJBA was born in Cologne in Germany, but moved with his famous father, the "Rosh",  to Castile in Spain, so he drew his scholarship from both worlds.  He was famous for his reliance on Maimonides, but also how he describes the opinions of the Tosafists when there were disagreements.

A quick review of the development of the Halacha so far is important in order to understand the significance of this post.  We described how the Rambam understood the Talmudic objections to masturbation. The Rambam had basically three problems with masturbation. 

1. Sexual activity done in a certain manner in order to maintain a sexual relationship and thus avoid his obligation to procreate, even in the context of marriage.  This only applied to someone who hadn't yet fulfilled his obligation to procreate
2. Sexual activity that is done intentionally as a method of sexual gratification outside the context of of marriage, this was called "Ni'uf Beyad U'veregel" or "sex with hands or feet (or other limbs)" This, according to the Rambam, is problematic because it leads to and occurs in an environment of immorality and promiscuity, and a general lack of holiness.  
3. The third is that the Rambam, in line with the medical thinking of his day, generally felt that too much sexual activity had health risks. This would apply even to too much intercourse with one's own spouse, even in a completely permissible way.

What was not prohibited by the Rambam was sexual activity, done in the context of marriage, that results in ejaculation outside the vagina or otherwise cannot result in pregnancy.  Similarly, what was not prohibited by the Rambam, was masturbation by a single man in a way that would not result in promiscuity or immorality.  (This does not mean that the Rambam approved of this behavior, as he disapproved strongly of deliberately stimulating oneself sexually, and recommended early marriage and involvement in holier pursuits to keep one's mind away from thoughts that could lead to sin. It just means that there is no specific prohibition of "spilling seed").   

This was also clearly the opinion of the Tosafot Rid and the Ri Hazaken, and the general Halachic understanding even during the beginning days of the Chasidei Ashkenaz such as Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid. 

We also described how a new trend in Halacha began with Rabbeinu Tam's interpretation of Rashi to mean that any act of spilling seed that was not in "the normal way of intercourse" was a violation of the command to procreate. This was the first mention of a specific prohibition of "spilling seed".  We pointed out how the Chasidei Ashkenaz emphasized the holiness of avoiding arousing oneself and masturbation in general.  We saw how Rabbeinu Yonah then stated that the act of spilling seed as described by RT incurred the death penalty, and finally, how the Semak then codified it as a halacha.

Now let's turn to RJBA, whom I shall refer to as "the Tur" (short for his work Arba'ah Turim").  The Tur, in his usual style, brings direct quotes from the Rambam in order to present the Rambam's opinions on a halachic matter, and then he brings the dissenting opinions from both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic scholars.  He also often writes his own conclusions after discussing the Rambam's opinions and others. When it comes to our topic, the way that the Tur presents the Rambam is very different from the way we analyzed the Rambam in our previous posts.

Shilo Pachter, in his doctoral dissertation that I have quoted earlier in this series of posts, describes how through numerous subtle changes, omissions, and changes of context, the Tur presents the Rambam in a completely different light. I don't mean to suggest that the Tur deliberately changed the Rambam, rather, the Tur was writing after about two hundred years of influence of a sea change in Halacha with regard to the attitude towards masturbation.  Therefore he understood the Rambam very differently than we did.

I am only going to mention some of the points that Pachter makes, but hopefully enough to show what effect these subtle changes in the Tur's presentation of the Rambam had on the subsequent development of Halacha.

1. The Tur places these Halachot in the laws of Pru U'rvu (procreation).  This immediately gives the impression that the laws of "spilling seed" are meant to address married couples as well as single men.  This differs from the Rambam's placement of these laws in the Sefer Kedushah together with other proscriptions designed to help prevent immorality and promiscuity
   
   
2. The Tur, when quoting this Rambam, makes a subtle but very important word switch.
   
   "It is prohibited to ejaculate semen for naught, therefore a person should not have intercourse and then withdraw to ejaculate, one should also not marry a woman too young to give birth to a child. However, those who have sexual relations with their hands and thus ejaculate (outside of a woman's body) not only are they committing a prohibited act, but one who does should be isolated (from the community) and regarding such people it is said (Isaiah 1:15) "Their hands are stained with blood" and it is as if he is guilty of murder.  (Rambam, Laws of Forbidden Relations 21:18)"
   
   The word "Aval" which I translated as "however", is changed by the Tur to a simple "vav" meaning "and".  Although this seems like a small change, it is actually extremely significant.  Until now, we have understood the Rambam as discussing two different categories, separated by the word "however".  The first two cases, withdrawal and marrying a woman incapable of pregnancy were issues because a person was not fulfilling the Mitzvah of P'ru U'rvu. However,  "Ni'f Beyad U'veregel" ("sexual relations with hands or feet") was a problem that was prohibited because it would lead to promiscuity.  (Recall that the Rambam explained in his Pirush Mishnayot that Ni'uf Beyad refers to sexual contact with others that does not involve vaginal intercourse.)  By changing "however" to "and" the Tur is suggesting that Ni'uf beyad U'veregel is actually referring to masturbation and applies to married couple as well as singles.  The Tur does not mention the Rambam in Pirush Mishnayot at all.
   
   
3. The Tur does not quote the Rambam who permitted marrying a woman incapable of conceiving for someone who has already fulfilled P'ru U'rvu. This was one of the primary lines of evidence with which the Rambam made clear his understanding of what the prohibition of Hotza'at Zera was all about. That a sexual relationship with a spouse, done in such a way as to avoid fulfilling his obligation to procreate, is what the Talmud was condemning, as it is indicative of a marriage for the purpose of sexual pleasure alone.  The Tur completely leaves out this Halacha of the Rambam.
    
4.  The Tur quotes the Rambam with the new additional phrase that was not included in the original manuscripts of the Rambam.  This phrase was appended at the end of the Halacha where the Rambam explicitly permits all sorts of sexual activity with one's spouse.  The phrase reads: "as long as one does not spill seed in vain".  We discussed this phrase before, but according to the original manuscripts, the primary purpose of that entire statement of the Rambam was in order to permit sexual activities with one's spouse that do not result in pregnancy, including anal intercourse, and other practices.  Inserting that phrase completely turns the Rambam upside down. 
   
   
5. The Tur prohibits even a married person from touching his penis, thus prohibiting what the Talmud and the Rambam explicitly permit.  All of this was because of his fear that even a married person might commit this sin.  

The sum total of all of this (and many more subtle changes that Pachter records)  is that the Tur presents the Rambam as if he held like Rabbeinu Tam.  That spilling seed is prohibited even for a married couple, and that there is a specific prohibition against spilling seed that has a Torah origin, like Rabbeinu Yonah.

The Tur however, was aware that the Ri HaZaken expressly permitted extra-vaginal ejaculation for married couples.  So he brings the Ri HaZaken as a dissenting opinion.  The end result of the Tur's presentation is that we have the force of the Rambam presented as if it stands in opposition to a lone dissenting opinion of the Ri Hazaken.  The Tur therefore is deciding in favor of the Rambam, essentially squelching all future debate on this issue.

While the Ri Hazaken in our original analysis was simply following the prevalent and generally understood approach to this topic in the Talmud and the Rambam, suddenly the Tur has turned him into an outlying lenient opinion without too many legs to stand on.

As we shall see in a moment, the Beit Yosef is going to take it a step further and use the Kabballah to eliminate the opinion of the Ri HaZaken completely, and establish the Tur's rendition of the Rambam as the law of the land..

The Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah

The influence of the Zohar on the future attitude of Jewish religious thinking regarding masturbation would be impossible to overstate.  I struggled for a while trying to decide how to present this material in a blog post, as the Zohar devotes an immense amount of attention to this subject.  I decided to give brief summaries of the basic concepts found in the Zohar, and I quoted the sources for those who want to do more research on their own.  To translate and quote each idea would make this a very long post indeed.

The Zohar's teachings on the subject of spilling seed is to be understood as a direct result of how the Zohar understands procreation in general.  Most importantly, it is based on the way the Kabbalists explained the origins of semen, and the process of bringing a new soul from the spiritual world into the physical world. I recommend that you review my summary of the Sefer HaBahir in the last post.  Everything else flows from there.  

No Seed is ever a "Waste"

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the approach of the Zohar is the Zohar's rejection of the idea that masturbation is prohibited because of "wasting seed". The Zohar attaches such an intense importance to the act of procreation, that it would be impossible to assume that when one ejaculates that nothing important is going on. since the seed is endowed with a soul, it can't be that it is just being wasted.  Instead, the Zohar introduces an entirely different concept. When one ejaculates in the context of normal vaginal intercourse with his spouse, the soul that his seed is endowed with is holy, and implants in his wife to develop into a holy child.  However, the Zohar teaches, that when one masturbates, or has any other sort of prohibited sexual intercourse, the "soul" endowed in his semen is an evil spirit.  Although these evil spirits may not be visible to the naked eye, they indeed are created and they accompany this person throughout his life and indeed even after his death.   This has many important ramifications that we shall discuss.

The Evil Spirits Haunt Their "Creator" 

The Zohar describes in several places the punishments in store for one who ejaculates in any context other than "normal" intercourse with his spouse (see Zohar 2:263b for example)  These evil angels have become his tormentors, and they will haunt him forever. So the act of ejaculation always creates a spiritual being, it just depends on the individual if that will be a holy being or an evil one.  

Note how different this is from the term Rashi used in the "Rashi on the Rif" that we quoted earlier.  There he wrote that "wasting seed" that could have potentially been a child is destructive because it is "wasted." This sounds like a potential human being has been lost, but nothing else was created in its' stead.  However, the Zohar is more concerned about the actual evil creations that the spilled seed is responsible for creating.

Masturbation Becomes One of the Arayot

Another result of the Zohar's conception of ejaculation, is the reclassification of masturbation in the category of one of the forbidden sexual relationships.  The Zohar spiritualizes the act of illicitly ejaculating semen that is not in the context of "normal" procreative intercourse with a spouse.  Since all such acts create evil spirits and demons, they are all similar sins.  For example, in Zohar 2:264a it is lumped together with bestiality, forbidden relationships, and more.

No Path for Repentance

In several locations, the Zohar makes an extraordinary and frightening claim, and unlike all other sins, masturbation is unique in that the perpetrator is denied the ability to repent.  This conclusion follows from the Zohar's understanding of this act.  Since each "seed" is a potential holy child, when has has the wrong intentions and spills the seed, that child is therefore "killed" and in its' stead an evil angel is born.  How could there ever be penance for such an act? In the Zohar 1:219b it is explicitly stated that for this sin alone, there is no repentance available.  Indeed, the violator is even worse than one who murders another person, for which there may be repentance available.  As he is killing his own children!  The Zohar uses this identical language in Zohar 2:3b to describe an abortion, indicated that the Zohar equated the two.  Interestingly, this is the only reference in the entire Zohar to abortions.  (See my previous posts regarding the comparison between "wasting seed" and abortions.)

If this idea sounds remarkable to you, let me emphasize that the Zohar asserts this claim in several places, including at length in Zohar 1:61b-62a.  However, in Zohar 2:214b, the Zohar seems to state that repentance is possible, though there the reference is to the sin of "Pegam HaBrit" (which we first saw introduced by Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla) which includes sexual sins other than masturbation as well.  Regardless, the fact remains that in several places the Zohar stated unequivocally that Teshuva - repentance is impossible.

Hotza'at Zera Becomes More Inclusive

Just as the idea of Pegam HaBrit found its' way into the Zohar, so did the idea expressed in the Igeret haKodesh that Hotza'at Zera Le'Vatalah could refer to any type of intercourse that isn't proper, even if it is normal vaginal intercourse. (see Zohar 3:90a).  If the intentions aren't proper, or the relationship is inappropriate, evil spirits are created instead of a child, and one is guilty of spilling seed.

Creating Holy Angels 

This idea of the Zohar does explain one conundrum that was a problem when we explained Rabbeinu Tam earlier on.  If "wasting seed" is a problem because a potential child is being "destroyed, then how can any intercourse be permitted when a child cannot result?  How could one have sexual relations with one's spouse if she is pregnant or postmenopausal for example? If you recall, Rabbeinu Tam explained this by differentiating between "normal intercourse" and "not normal intercourse", but this still left us wondering why that would be. 

However, the Zohar has a convenient explanation for this.  Just as when one "spills seed" he creates spiritual demons that he cannot see, so to when one has appropriate "normal" intercourse with one's spouse, they create holy angels that cannot be seen.  So any intercourse that is appropriate is never a "waste".  (See Zohar 3:167b - 168a).

There are many other ideas expressed by the Zohar on this topic, but I think we should move on to the next major step in the history of the influence of Kabbalah on the laws of spilling seed.  That step is the established of the next great Kabbalistic movement, that of Lurianic Kabbalah in Safed.  

The Mystics of Safed and the Canonization of the Zohar

Tragically, not long after the publication of the Zohar, the Jewish world was crushed by the horrific tragedy of the Spanish inquisition and the expulsion from Spain. Of the Spanish Jewish refugees, some eventually made their way to Safed in the Galilee region of Israel. Along with the refugees also went the wisdom of the Spanish kabbalists, especially the book of the Zohar. In Safed the school that became known as the Lurianic school was to become the dominant force in Jewish mysticism until the Hassidic movement in Eastern Europe in the 18th century.  Among the key figures in this school were none other than Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (1500-1576, the author of the famous Lecha Dodi sung in synagogues on Friday night),  Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570, the teacher of Rabbi Isaac Luria and considered the founder of the Lurianic school), Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572, also known as the Arizal, perhaps the most famous of the Safed Kabbalists and after whom the Lurianic school was named), and  Rabbi Chaim Vital (1542-1620, the Arizal's most important disciple, and the one who recorded in writing the teachings of the Safed school).

It is not necessary for us to delve deeply at this time into the philosophy and teachings of the Lurianic school.  Regarding the issue of masturbation specifically the Lurianic school continued to develop the same basic themes that we mentioned in our discussion of the Zohar.  However, what the Lurianic school did accomplish was that the Zohar became established in the Jewish canon of standard rabbinic texts. The scholars of Safed were responsible for making the Zohar accepted almost universally in the rabbinic world as a work with origins as ancient as the Mishna and Talmud, rather than a product of medieval Spain.

Among all of the famous scholars of this period in Safed, the most important figure for the purposes of our investigation, is Rabbi Yosef Karo (RYK) (1488-1575), the author of the Beit Yosef and Shulchan Arukh. These Halachic works, perhaps with the exception of Maimonides Mishnah Torah, had more influence on the development of Halacha than any other work in Jewish history.  Rabbi Yosef Karo was also a Kabbalist of note, and absorbed the Lurianic system of Kabballah directly from its' masters in Safed.  

RYK brought the Zohar to bear directly on his Halachic treatment of the topic of spilling seed.  However, before we see how, we will need to leave the Kabbalistic universe and go back to the parallel Halachic universe that we left behind a few posts ago.  We have to follow the Halacha through the Rosh, the Tur and then we will see how the Beit Yosef took the Halachic world of the Tur, and the Kabbalistic world of the Zohar and brought them together.