Leviticus 15: Pleasure-fluid

Vatikra 15

16 And a woman, when there comes out of her pleasure-fluid, then she shall bathe all her flesh in water, and be impure until the evening.

17 And every garment, and every skin, that has on it pleasure-fluid, shall be washed with water, and be impure until the evening.

18 And a man, whom a woman shall lie pleasure-fluid with him, they shall both bathe in water, and be impure until the evening.

ותקרא י”ה

טז וְאִשָּׁ֕ה כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א מִמֶּ֖נָּה שִׁכְבַת־עֹ֑נֶג וְרָֽחֲצָ֥ה בַמַּ֛יִם אֶת־כָּל־בְּשָׂרָ֖הּ וְטָֽמְאָ֥ה עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃

יז וְכָל־בֶּ֣גֶד וְכָל־ע֔וֹר אֲשֶׁר־יִֽהְיֶ֥ה עָלָ֖יו שִׁכְבַת־עֹ֑נֶג וְכֻבַּ֥ס בַּמַּ֖יִם וְטָמֵ֥א עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃

יח וְאִ֕ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תִּשְׁכַּ֥ב אִשָּׁ֛ה אֹת֖וֹ שִׁכְבַת־עֹ֑נֶג וְרָֽחֲצ֣וּ בַמַּ֔יִם וְטָֽמְא֖וּ עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃    

*

“Pleasure-fluid” is not mentioned in Torato. When we look for a parallel to Torato’s ‘shikhvat zera’, (semen, literally “layer of seed”) again we find ourselves inventing a new term, this time, for the range of fluids issued from a woman’s body when she is sexually aroused. With pleasure we called them ‘shikhvat oneg,’ pleasure-fluid. In Torato the emission of semen results in impurity. The man who emits semen, whether during sexual relations, or by himself, is rendered impure for one day. So too an article of clothing touched by semen. Impurity in this context means that he cannot approach the sanctuary, the Tabernacle or Temple, until he is purified. The return to purity entails two things: bathing (or laundering) and the passing of one day, till the evening. A woman, who had sexual relations with a man who ejaculated is impure too, and can become purified the same way.

The fact that a woman at the time of sexual arousal emits fluids of her own is not mentioned in Torato and so these fluids have no status regarding defilement and purification.

Torato does not explain why semen is defiling. Because most other things that cause defilement in Biblical law are connected to death or sickness, it is common in Jewish thought and in Biblical scholarship to understand the impurity of semen as connected to the loss of the life-potential found within it, that will never come to fruition. This is also how the defilement of a menstruating woman, a niddah, in Torato, is understood. As an impurity arising from the loss of potential fertility that was in the womb, and exits in the menstrual blood. By this understanding purity is seen as the optimal realization of the potential for life, and impurity - the loss of life, or the threat of such a loss. The sacred, which is to say divinity’s dwelling place, is seen as exquisitely sensitive to the reality of life and death. Contact with death and various illnesses influences the sacred, defiles and desecrates it. And so the Israelites are commanded to be aware of their status regarding purity and impurity when they seek to draw near the holy.

*

In Torato, the ejaculation of semen defines sexual relations. Adultery is defined: “And you will not lie carnally with your neighbour’s woman, to defile yourself with her” (Lev. 18:20). The demand is placed on the male, who in Torato is taken to be the one who initiates sexual relations, not to have sex involving ejaculation, resulting in defilement, with the wife of his fellow.

As Yael and I are rewriting the prohibition on adultery, at first we write “And you will not lie carnally with your neighbour’s man, to defile yourself with him.” A somewhat unwieldy formulation, demanding from the woman, now the addressee of the Biblical text, because she is the one who initiates sexual relations: Do not lie with the man of your girlfriend in a way that will lead him to ejaculate, which causes defilement. Pleased, we contemplate the verse, which, it seems, we have succeeded in turning on its head. Now it is the woman who is forbidden to commit adultery and she may not bed that man, because he belongs to her girlfriend!

A moment later, there already rose in me the same bitter humiliation familiar to me from high school days. Then, we learned in Ulpanit (religious girls high school) again and again how great was our responsibility to prevent men from becoming sexually aroused, lest they, God forbid, come to ejaculation. The responsibility for sexual modesty, it was made clear to us, was ours. We, who in every inch of our bodies, are likely to sexually arouse every male we see, all the time, must, then, be the ones who have to cover themselves up. To never wear arousing colors (red, for instance), never sing solo, because our voices are seductive, and when we become men’s wives, to cover each strand of the hair on our heads. Our sexuality was defined by the potential (and, mainly, dangerous) arousal it might cause in men. The men who, after all, are those who initiates sex, ejaculate semen that renders impure, whose seed has halakhic status in its contact with the sacred.

“I don’t want to be responsible for a man not ejaculating!” I shout into Yael’s ears, with judgmental certainty, when I see the verse we rewrote still demands from a woman, to prevent a man from spilling his seed. I must have spoken a little too harshly, laden with decades of humiliation and dread. Because Yael asks me to speak more calmly. We try to understand my hard feelings regarding this verse and discover that the bitterness arises also from the definition of sexual relations as an act connected to the men’s orgasm alone. We try to reverse the very definition of sexual relations and the expression shikhvat zera’ (semen, “lying of seed”) draws us to talk about women’s ejaculation.

Every woman, at sexual arousal, secretes fluids which enables her to feel pleasure from touch with her vagina. Some women report that in addition to vaginal lubrication they experience “female ejaculation,” the secretion of a fluid from the Skene’s glands found along the urethra, when they reach orgasm. Torato does not relate to these vaginal secretions, but Toratah is being written in a different era. Feminist discourse has, in the last century, deeply influenced physiological and psychological study of women’s sexuality. Research driven by the moral demand to give women’s sexuality an equal place in culture impacts moral understanding in turn and helps break mistaken stereotypes and both expands the legitimacy of women’s sexuality and capability to enjoy it. When Yael and I try to formulate the female parallel to semen, that has religious meaning, we study vaginal lubrication and female ejaculation in scientific publications of the sort that were not available to the writers of Torato. This is our historical moment to make present these fluids in culture and give them religious status.

*

Yael and I switch all mentions of ‘shikhvat zer’a‘ with ‘shikhvat oneg.’ But ‘shikhvat oneg’ is different from its male counterpart. Both, to be sure, result from sexual arousal, but ‘shikhvat zera’ has the seed itself, the potential for fertility in it, while the fluids a woman secretes in sexual arousal there are no eggs. So, that in it which defiles, and distances from the sacred, is not the element of lost life within it, and we are faced with a new question: what then are the meanings of purity and impurity in Toratah, if not nearness to, or distance from, death? And what, in essence, is the sacred?

The very question is at one and the same time, moving, and destabilizing me. Over the last fifty years, I have deeply internalized the identification between life and fertility with the sacred, and death with defilement. I loved the Jewish texts that depicted Judaism as a religion of life, fighting for life in the face of surrender to decay and the urge for destruction. I esteemed the daily, Sisyphean efforts to battle the forces of degeneration and despair. On the other hand, once I became aware of the world of spiritual, pastoral care that Yehudah my partner participates in, I learned to respect the acceptance of death and understand its being, in certain circumstances, preferable to a life of unbearable suffering. The stories of the spiritual caregivers that I heard over the last twenty years, undid the tie on which I’d been raised between death and wretchedness, failure and menace with the sacred. What might be the meaning of the sacred that isn’t tied to life and death?

Yael encourages me to define, again, what is ‘shikhvat oneg,’ and when I shut my eyes, the first thing I see in my mind’s eye, and from my own experience is the hormonal cream that the doctor prescribed for me when I got to menopause. All at once, my eyes fill with tears. I remember the long period, before I shared my situation with the gynecologist, when I couldn’t understand where my ‘shikhvat oneg’ had gone and with it, my optimism. A period of physical and psychological distress, confusion, fear and shame. I share this with Yael and describe for her in terms drawn from religion (and, when you come down to it, from magic) the deliverance that the hormonal cream had brought me. Yael, in her sweetness, shows me the change from cream that she uses, wretchedness is transformed into laughter, and loneliness to love. I describe to Yael how, in my imagination, a woman like us is going to the Temple, and there the Priestesses give her the sacred ointment - ‘mishkhat oneg’ - that they craft for us. I start putting into words what holiness is for me: help to live with less suffering. Help to weave pleasure into my life. Relations of helping and being helped.

*

Yael and I return to the verses we rewrote about ‘shikhvat oneg’ and try to understand why it defiles, and not sanctifies? Why it distances us from the sacred, and it isn’t the sacred itself. I try to understand what is it in sexual pleasure that can lead to distancing from divinity, with all that divinity is, and signifying for me. Under the impression of my recent work on V’Tikrah 18, the chapter dealing with incest, and with Devarim 22, which deals with rape, I think about women’s sexuality as it gets pathological. In Toratah, sexuality is defined and experienced differently from in Torato. No longer happening in a patriarchal world, but in a world where women own their sexuality. Their space to choose whether, with whom, and how, to have sex is utopian, and hard to imagine. But this utopia comes with a dark side - with immense power to do evil. After all, in a patriarchal world women can use their sexuality in ways that are cruel to others and themselves. But in Toratah, women’s ability to abuse their sexuality is many times greater. Is that the threat to the sacred? Does ‘shikhvat oneg’ defile because of its potential to do harm to others and to myself? Are the defilement and the means of purification meant to remind me to use my sexuality only with care?

I smile to myself a half-bitter smile, since that’s how it is with Toratah: Just when we’re starting to delight in the revelation of our existence and our strengths, we’re brought face to face with their dark sides. We haven’t yet adjusted that we are the addressees of the divine call, that Tehovah-Elohin, in whose image we are created, cares about us, and seeks for us, and already we discover that She also demands from us to limit our use of our powers and not take our presence for granted. Is this how men feel all the time? Is that how they walk in the world?

Toratah makes us human in every sense of the word, for good and for bad.