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Nahmanides and Rashi on the One Flesh of Conjugal Union: Lovemaking vs. Duty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

James A. Diamond
James A. Diamond*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo, Ontario
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Extract

The seminal thirteenth century Geronese kabbalist, Talmudist, and exegete Moses Nahmanides (Moses b. Naḥman, 1194–c.1270) perceived the physical world as a mirror for the internal workings of the divine world. For him the Bible “relates about the lower matters and alludes to the upper,”1 rendering its apparently mundane legal, historical, and ethical dimensions a record of the inner variegated life of God. At the very inception of the world, each and every day of creation transcends its strict temporality, referring “at the inner core of the matter” () to the “sefirot which emanate from above.”2 The world's genesis unfolds along the parallel planes of the material world and the complex intradeical mechanics, the sefirot—a staple of kabbalistic thought and terminology—that are constituent of God himself. However, Nahmanides' exegetical project does not invite the escapist flight from reality that mysticism so often requires. On the contrary, his thoroughgoing kabbalistic ontology divulges a keen appreciation for and preoccupation with empirical reality and temporal history rather than threatening to overwhelm the mundane. His biblical exegesis has been characterized as exceptional within its genre for being “entirely free of the frequent kabbalistic tendency to devalue peshat [the plain sense of the text].”3 As David Novak has argued, Nahmanides, despite his kabbalistic theology, “also finds in the Torah a commitment to the reality of nature and history, even if that level of truth is transcended by the Kabbalah. Kabbalah, the highest truth, does not displace all other truths but puts them in perspective.”4 The argument that ensues in this article will demonstrate, firstly, that a prominent example of this feature of Nahmanidean exegesis pertains to the domain of interhuman relations. Here I will focus particularly on those “truths” his exegesis discloses about the spousal relationship. Secondly, Nahmanides' view of the spousal relationship is offered as paradigmatic of his kabbalistic theology, which not only does not displace its concrete social, psychological, anthropological, and juristic realia, but actually complements them. Thirdly, the case will be made that Nahmanides' narrative exegesis, with its overarching quest for the plain sense of the text, is not intended simply to sate his readers' intellectual and literary curiosity but also practically shapes his normative positions. In this particular context I will explore how his exegetical construct of a primordial composite human being, its gendered bifurcation, the definitive ideal of spousal union, the subsequent relational tensions between man and woman, and their conflict and resolution into a gendered hierarchy, all dramatized by the Garden of Eden narrative, inform his normative framework for the conduct of conjugal duties.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 102 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 193 - 224
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2009

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References

1 Moses b. Nahman (Nahmanides), Nahmanides' Commentary on the Torah (Heb.; ed. Charles Chavel; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1958–59; hereafter Commentary) 1:15 (Gen 1:1). Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

2 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:16 (Gen 1:3).

3 Bernard Septimus, “Open Rebuke and Concealed Love: Nahmanides and the Andalusian Tradition,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity (ed. Isadore Twersky; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983) 11–34, at 18.

4 David Novak, The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1992) 15.

5 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:16 (), based on Deut 21:16).

6 E.g., for “I don't understand”: Gen 14:7; 35:18; Exod 12:16, 21; 19:1; Lev 19:29; 22:15; Num 11:15; 15:38; Deut 26:3, 14; for “this is incorrect”: e.g., Gen 15:15; 40:10; Exod 28:35; Lev 18:9, 21; 19:19; Num 4:27; 14:21; Deut 4:9; 20:10; and for “there is no rhyme or reason in this explanation”: e.g., Gen 6:3; Num 10:35. These are not meant to be exhaustive.

7 See Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:359 (Exod 15:25).

8 Septimus already notes a hint of irony where Nahmanides states his plans “to be infatuated with the love of Rashi's words,” which Septimus takes as “ironically hinting at critical distance as much as passionate commitment” (cited in Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 16).

9 However one characterizes Nahmanides' relationship to Rashi, there is no doubt that Nahmanides' systematic engagement with both Rashi and ibn Ezra, as Twersky points out, “set the stage for the emergence of the triumvirate which still casts its shadow over all Bible study.… Rashi, ibn Ezra and Ramban are the pivot, the point and counterpoint of Scriptural exegesis.” Introduction to Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban) (ed. Twersky), 4.

10 R. J. Zwi Werblowsky claims that to his knowledge, “Kabbalah is the first system in Western religions to develop a mystical metaphysics of the sexual act.” “Some Psychological Aspects of the Kabbalah,” Harvest 3 (1956) 1–20; repr. in God, The Self and Nothingness: Reflections Eastern and Western (ed. Robert Carter; New York: Paragon House, 1990) 19–36.

11 Moshe Idel, for example, characterizes this as “one of the most important contributions kabbalah has made to the Jewish modus vivendi; marriage and sex were transformed into a mystery that reflects a mysterious marriage above, whose success is crucial for both the divine cosmos and the lower universe.” “Sexual Metaphors and Praxis in the Kabbalah,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (ed. David Kraemer; New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 197–224, at 208.

12 Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (trans. Joachim Neugroschel; New York: Schocken, 1991) 39.

13 Elliot Wolfson has presented abundant evidence of the androcentrism, or more appropriately, phallocentrism, of kabbalistic thought, in which the female's value is solely a function of her contribution toward a fully integrated male, a utopian “reconstituted masculinity.” Wolfson's studies on this are legion and here I refer to but one most recent articulation of this thesis in his Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 84–86. See also the studies he mentions on page 85, n. 275.

14 Elliot Wolfson, “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides' Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,” AJS Review, 14 (1989) 103–78, at 111. In the debate as to whether Nahmanides was an arch-conservative kabbalist from whose literary legacy we can glean very little of his mystical “secrets” (Moshe Idel, “We Have no Kabbalistic Tradition on This,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban) (ed. Twersky), 51–74) or whether his writings are rife with kabbalistic allusions that beg his audience to speculate and decipher (Wolfson, “By Way of Truth”), my study is premised on the latter.

15 Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” especially 142–53. See also Wolfson's discussion of this Nahmanidean hermeneutic in “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes: Peshat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics,” in The Midrashic Imagination (ed. Michael Fishbane; Albany, New York: 1993) 155–203, at 159–65. For a listing of numerous instances in which “Kabbalah and the search for peshat seem to converge in Nahmanides,” see Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 21 n. 37.

16 All references to Rashi's biblical commentary are to chapter and verse of Raschi. Der Kommentar des Salomo B. Isak über den Pentateuch (ed. Abraham Berliner; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1969; repr. of Frankfurt: J. Kauffmann, 1905). A critical edition of Rashi remains a desideratum, but here we are dealing with Rashi as understood and read by Nahmanides. A possible source for this is Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer 12 (trans. Gerald Friedlander; New York: Hermon, 1965) 85–86.

17 Moshe Idel traces negative views of the primeval dual-gendered being to much later mystical exponents than Nahmanides, such as the 16th century kabbalist Meir ibn Gabbai. As I argue here, however, Nahmanides explicitly expressed this negative view of the dual-gendered state of being well before ibn Gabbai. Idel, “Androgyny and Equality in the Theosophico-Theurgical Kabbalah,” Diogenes 52 (2005) 27–38, at 35.

18 b. Berakhot 61a; Genesis Rabbah 8:1; b. Eruvin 18a. See also b. Ketubot 8a.

19 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:38.

20 In this first example of an exegetical point of contention between Nahmanides and Rashi, as in those to follow, Nahmanides' readings are consistent with his general approach to biblical narratives, which reflect a greater sensitivity than other medieval exegetes to “the inner world of the biblical characters, revealing their emotional and psychological mindset which motivates them to action.” Michelle Levine, “The Inner World of Biblical Character Explored in Nahmanides' Commentary on Genesis,” Journal of Jewish Studies 56 (2005) 306–34, at 307. Nahmanides' appreciation for the sentiments, emotions and intimacy of sexuality is a function of this sensitivity.

21 See also Nahmanides' reiteration of the world's continuous contingency on divine will in his “Derashah al Divrei Kohelet,” Kitvei Ramban (ed. Charles Chavel; Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1963) 189 (hereafter Kitvei).

22 Abraham ibn Ezra, Perushei HaTorah LeRabbenu Abraham ibn Ezra (ed. Asher Weiser; 3 vols.; Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1976). Although it is possible that ibn Ezra's reference is to the other “and I saw” of the Hebrew Bible in Dan 10:7, it seems more likely that he had Eccl 2:13 in mind. The latter verse plays on precisely the same distinction between light and darkness that appears in Gen 1:4, comparing the advantage of wisdom over folly to the “advantage light has over darkness.”

23 Shlomo Pines finds the notion that pre-sin Adam was devoid of free will unprecedented in both the Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions, although the lack of freedom on the part of the heavenly bodies to which the pre-sin Adamic state is analogized does echo Greek and Arabic texts. “Nahmanides' Perspective on Primal Adam in the Garden of Eden in Light of Other Interpretations of Genesis 2 and 3” (Heb.), in Exile and Diaspora: Studies in the History of the Jewish People Presented to Prof. Haim Beinart on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1988) 159–64, at 161.

24 Bezalel Safran, “Rabbi Azriel and Nahmanides: Two Views of the Fall of Man,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban) (ed. Twersky), 75–106, at 96, esp. 86–98.

25 Although Pines finds no precedent for lack of will in the pre-sin state, he does find the notion of lack of sexual desire in the thought of Catholic theologians such as Augustine, Scotus, Aquinas, and Origen (Pines, 162–63 n. 23).

26 Emphasis mine.

27 Haviva Pedayah, in her study Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text (Heb.; Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003) devotes a chapter to the notion of “will” in which this comment of Nahmanides on Gen 2:9 regarding the transition in human nature from pre- to post-sin is an anchor text. Admittedly, Nahmanides' position is problematic and somewhat inconsistent with other positions expressed in his commentary, as Safran (see n. 24) points out (86–87), especially with regard to comments he makes on Deut 30:6, and this deserves independent treatment. However, despite these problems, I do not believe that one can categorically characterize Nahmanides' position on free will as totally devoid of godliness, as Pedayah does (Nahmanides, 286–87). Nahmanides' combined comments add up to a more nuanced position according to which the correct exercise of independent free will by human beings is a reflection of godliness in this world.

28 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:36.

29 Nahmanides echoes this position when he alludes to this verse once again in his comments on Gen 6:3. There he states that “God made man upright to be like the ministering angels by means of the soul he placed in him, however he was attracted by the flesh and corporeal desires…” (Commentary, 49). Man has the capacity to mimic the angels or the animals. It is his prerogative.

30 In another passage (Commentary, 2:87–88 [Lev. 17:11]) Nahmanides allows for limited emotions and attachments within the animal world. While animals may recognize a family unit and even exhibit loyalty, they do not, according to Nahmanides, exhibit exclusivity and dedication. Notably, Nahmanides continues to rationalize the proscription against eating blood on the grounds that eating forms a bond of “one flesh” which fuses the animal soul with the human soul, thus polluting the latter. The “one flesh” relationship is reserved for the human heterosexual couple.

31 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:41 (Gen 3:16).

32 In the section on “Sentimental Love in Kabbalistic Literature: The Identification of the Shekhinah with the Wife of the Kabbalist,” in his The Female Body of God in Kabbalistic Literature: Embodied Forms of Love and Sexuality in the Divine Feminine (Heb.; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2004), Daniel Abrams concludes that “in the majority of kabbalistic sources it seems that the mystic loves the shekhinah so excessively that there is no room for sentimental emotions toward his wife” (164). My argument here would characterize Nahmanides as an exception to the general rule formulated by Abrams.

33 This is an example of “midrashic biblical citation,” a technique that Daniel Boyarin describes in chapter 2 of his Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994) 22–38. I thank the anonymous reader of this article for suggesting a more nuanced classification of these verses.

34 Although the list following Lev 18:6 includes individuals who are not strictly related by blood, it is interesting to note that Jacob Milgrom understands the phrase to refer to the closest blood relatives, indicating that the verse cannot be taken as a general heading for the list that follows (Leviticus 17–22 [Anchor Bible Series; New York: Doubleday, 2000] 1528). Nahmanides' rationale for the general prohibition in this verse would seem to be consistent with Milgrom's reading. Since the primary purpose of intercourse is propagation, Nahmanides rationalizes the prohibition on the grounds that the proscribed unions produce non-viable or defective offspring, thus defeating their purpose. As he states, “this is the intent of the expression, ‘anyone of his own flesh’ ()… It is something to keep away from because of .” This rationale is applicable only if refers to blood relatives.

35 See Milgrom, 1534 and Gen 20:4; Lev 20:11; Isa 8:3; and Ezek 18:6.

36 There is support for both Rashi's and Nahmanides' positions on the meaning of among the various sides of the debate on the issue in the Talmud, b. Ketubot 47b.

37 Nahmanides traces the etymological roots of the plant in Gen 30:15 to the phrase , since the plant is an aphrodisiac which stimulates the female libido. The theme common to both terms is the time at which a woman desires sex.

38 When discussing sexually abhorrent behavior Nahmanides always uses the term , whereas in this proposition identifying ideal sex as a combination of three elements he uses . The former connotes one-sided sex, while the latter connotes a coming together which occurs when all the elements of , , and are present. The Iggeret Hakkodesh, a 13th century anonymous kabbalistic treatise (popularly ascribed to Nahmanides) on the proper conduct of marital relations consistently uses .

39 This follows the translation of Moshe Greenberg in Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible series; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983) 277. In support of his translation, Greenberg argues that “ is specifically sexual lovemaking (Ezek 23:17; cf. Prov 7:16; Song 4:10; 7:13).”

40 My thanks to Prof. Arnold Ages for providing me with the precise Old French usage Rashi offers as the equivalent of .

41 Hidushe HaRitva: Masekhet Ketubot (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1982) 390. In another Talmudic context Rashi points out simply that the usual manner in which sex is engaged is naked and that it is therefore unusual for the partners to be clothed. See his comments on b. Shabbat 13a, lead words . As far as I know he does not value the intimacy of naked sex. See also Charles Mopsik's discussion of passages from the Tiqqunei haZohar in his Sex of the Soul: The Vicissitudes of Sexual Difference in Kabbalah (Israel: Cherub Press, 2005) 122–26, where he shows that the physically unobstructed sexual act is a model for divine union in later kabbalistic literature.

42 Nahmanides, Commentary, Lev 2:101 (18:6). See also 2:205 (Lev 18:9), where this rationale appears again as grounds for the prohibition against sexual intercourse during menstruation, and 2:115 (Lev 19:2), where he advises that marital sex should be restricted to the bare minimum necessary for fulfilling the commandment. Chavel notes an inconsistency here and suggests that what Nahmanides refers to as the purpose of intercourse should rather be regarded as its “principal purpose” (2:104 n. 19).

43 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:65 (Gen 9:12); 1:454 (Exod 25:3); 2:491 (Deut 33:1).

44 See, e.g., Scholem, The Mystical Shape, 145–46; 160–1; 175.

45 Ibid, 175.

46 Pedayah, 390 n. 12: “the term in the Nahmanidean corpus is a consistent symbol for the shekhinah.” Moshe Halbertal, By Way of Truth: Nahmanides and the Creation of Tradition (Heb.; Israel: Hartman Institute, 2006) unequivocally establishes the identification of with shekhinah in a lengthy note (185 n. 252); Elliot Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995) 16 considers it a given “in Nahmanides' writings that the word , the feminine form of the demonstrative pronoun, refers to the Shekhinah”; Safran, Rabbi Azriel and Nahmanides, 94–95, similarly, identifies with shekhinah, according to his reading in which the “fall” is a saga about the spiritualized Adam who signifies the sefirah of Yesod uniting with shekhinah to produce the second material creation of man and woman. R. Menahem Recanati, a fourteenth-century Italian kabbalist and important exponent of Nahmanidean thought, explicitly identifies zot with its kabbalistic referent: “the term alludes to the Shekhinah.” Recanati on the Torah (Jerusalem: M. Atiyah, 1960), comments on Gen 2:23.

47 Wolfson, By Way of Truth, 115–16.

48 The source for this is a statement of R. Eliezer in b. Yevamot 63a. Rashi explains the midrashic hermeneutic underlying R. Eliezer's interpretation: “This time” indicates that “there were other ‘times’ where he engaged in sexual intercourse but failed to be satisfied.” It is of interest to note that the other appearance in Rabbinic literature of the expression (he was relieved; assuaged) as descriptive of Adam's psychological state is in the context of the realization that he did not share a certain quality with animals (b. Pesachim 118a). Our instance is a perfect parallel: relief from anxiety arrives with the departure from the animal world and the realization that an essential feature of his existence can only be shared with another human being.

49 The source for this is Bereshit Rabbah 17:4.

50 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:39 (2:20). Emphasis mine.

51 Ibid.

52 Moses David Cassuto adopts a similar interpretation of the God's intention to make an and His presentation of the animals for naming. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Heb; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1969) 84.

53 Gen 1:27. Rashi does render the meaning of the word normally taken as rib () in 2:21 as “side” in accord with the opinion that primordial man was bisexual (). However, Rashi is merely attempting to demonstrate that the surgery can be viewed consistently even with the midrashic view of original man as androgynous. The term can be read either as an entire side or as one small part such as a rib.

54 R. Abraham ben David (Rabad of Posquieres; d. 1191) is an earlier prominent kabbalistic expositor who suggests similar ramifications to the creation of an originally double faced () conjoined Adam/Eve. For his most important statement on this issue see Scholem's rendering in Origins of the Kabbalah (ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky; Princeton: Jewish Publication Society, Princeton University Press, 1990; English translation from the Hebrew) 217.

55 For the symbolic richness of this female component of the Godhead, only a glimpse of which is revealed by the list of allusions, see Isaiah Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar (vol. 1; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) 371–87.

56 See Wolfson, Circle in the Square, 16, where he establishes through a string of associations the Nahmanidean equation of shekhinah=blessing=Torah=covenant.

57 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:454–5 (Exod 25:3), and Wolfson, Circle in the Square, 15.

58 See, e.g., Elliot Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) 334 n. 30, and discussion on 336–41, esp. 337 n. 40.

59 Nahmanides, Commentary, 1:64–5 (Gen 9:12).

60 Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 340. See also idem, “Circumcision, Secrecy and the Veiling of the Veil: Phallomorphic Exposure and Kabbalistic Esotericism,” in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Rite (ed. Elizabeth W. Mark; New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 2003) 58–70, where he discusses a passage by Gikatilla (d. 1325) explaining the androgynous nature of the circumcision covenant (68–69). There he draws an equation between a number of the identified here, such as Torah, circumcision, and Sabbath.

61 Elliot Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005) 381, and discussion on 378–84.