Noam Sachs Zion - Sanctified Sex: The Two-Thousand-Year Jewish Debate on Marital Intimacy

Noam Zion has written another classic. This treasure trove of sources and insights from the full spectrum of a four-thousand-year-old tradition, uncensored, from the Bible and Talmud down to modern liberal rabbis and feminists, might be called The Art of Halachic Loving because it is not just a static anthology; it is shaped to guide and enhance the pleasure of sex and the depth of development of intimacy, communication and relationship. This is a book to be read, savored, reflected on, discussed, and applied to life.

Blu Greenberg and Yitz Greenberg, authors respectively of On Women and Judaism and The Jewish Way

Combining exacting, serious textual analysis with entertaining, often comical stories of rabbis and their sexual habits, Noam Zion takes us for a ride through the highways and byways of the Jewish erotic imagination. He deserves high praise for his erudition, creativity, and courage.

Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College, and author of American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society

Noam Zion masterfully illuminates how two thousand years of commentary and debate have amplified the subject of sex in Jewish tradition and enriched it with nuance. Engage your mind, open your heart, and take this book to your bed!

Rachel Biale, author of Women and Jewish Law and Growing Up Below Sea Level: A Kibbutz Childhood

Who knew that there was so much marital drama in rabbinic literature? Noam Zion has provided the definitive anthology and comparative commentary on this subject.

David Biale, Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History, University of California, Davis, and author of Eros and the Jews and Hasidism: A New History

Moving effortlessly between traditional Jewish sources produced throughout history, Noam Zion makes us reflect, as Jews and simply as humans, on whats actually at stake in conjugal relationships. I strongly recommend this erudite, accessible, sensitive, and witty guide to all.

Michael Satlow, professor, religious and Judaic studies, Brown University, and author of Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality

Sanctified Sex is a learned, insightful, and engaging treatment of Jewish teachings concerning love and sex. For the rabbi who thinks s/he already knows it all or the graduate student who wants to know it all, there is no better resource. Noam Zion is a scholar who writes with a clear, accessible voice, and readers who are willing to dive deep into this subject will find themselves immensely rewarded by his masterful treatment.

David Kraemer, professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, Jewish Theological Seminary, and author of A History of the Talmud

Sanctified Sex is both timeless and timely. For the mainstream Jewish community, which tends to default to saying that Judaism is sex-positive (in contrast with Christianity), this deeper examination is warranted. For the academic community, the different eras the book encompasses guarantee a broad range of applicability. For the general community, Noam Zion is asking a key human question: what tools can I find to strengthen a long-term marriage?

Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, senior rabbi, Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Montreal, and editor of The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality

Noam Sachs Zion

The Jewish Publication Society | Philadelphia

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2021 by Noam Sachs Zion

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image: The Lovers by Marc Chagall, 1916 / Pixels.com.

Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear in , which constitute an extension of the copyright page.

Author photo courtesy of the author.

All rights reserved. Published by the University of Nebraska Press as a Jewish Publication Society book.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zion, Noam Sachs, author.

Title: Sanctified sex: the two-thousand-year Jewish debate on marital intimacy / Noam Sachs Zion, The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2021] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020041733

ISBN 9780827614666 (paperback)

ISBN 9780827618725 (epub)

ISBN 9780827618749 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : SexReligious aspectsJudaism. | Rabbinical literatureHistory and criticism.

Classification: LCC BM 720. S 4 Z 57 2021 | DDC 296.3/664dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041733

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Dedicated to a Beloved Partner in Life, Marcelle Zion,

and a Lifelong Hevruta, David Dishon

Either companionship or death! ( TB Taanit 23a)

For this publication, my deep gratitude is extended to the steadfast Rabbi Barry Schwartz, director of The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), and to the dedicated and inventive Joy Weinberg, JPS managing editor, both of whom were unflagging in their support and constructive criticism; and to the University of Nebraska Press and its highly professional staff for their role as a publishing partner in this volume.

For emotional love and support, I owe so much to my wife, Marcelle, and our children and grandchildren.

For the academic content of this monograph, stretching from the giving of the Torah to today, I owe much to the breadth of David Biales pioneering work Eros and the Jews, to Moshe Idels and Yehuda Liebess understandings of kabbalist lovemaking, and to Benjamin Browns eye-opening investigation of the debate on marital intimacy among contemporary Haredim.

For intellectual excellence, for educational vision and financial support, I owe everything to the institution that has inspired, nurtured, and sponsored my lifelong researchthe Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, my beit midrash. Its founder is my seminal teacher of Torah, Rabbi David Hartman; its current director and visionary institution builder is his son, Donniel Hartman; its North American director is Yehuda Kurtzer; and its talented scholars are my colleagues, my study partners, and my friends for forty years who have generously shared with me their curiosity, intellectual breadth, and wisdom in small and large ways.

My singular gratitude for this book project encompasses many. My beloved, enthusiastic, insightful hevruta partners are David Dishon, Peretz Rodman, and Randall Zachman. My generous scholarly consultants and critical readers included David Biale, David Golinkin, Elliot Dorff, Yoni (Jonathan) Garb, Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, Kimmy Caplan, Zvi Zohar, Eliezer Papo, Avner Holtzman, Marty Lockshin, Avishalom Westreich, Ronit Irshai, Mark Washofsky, Yitz Greenberg, Steven Greenberg, Ariel Picard, Leonard Gordon, Shraga Bar-On, Biti Roi, Melila Hellner-Eshed, Arthur Green, Rut Kagan, Dror Yehoshua, Dov Linzer, Shlomo Zacharow, Lisa Grushcow, Avi Ferzig, Ira Stone, Geoffrey Claussen, Naamah Kelman, Leon Morris, Alan Flashman, and Janet and Sheldon Marder. My resourceful, widely knowledgeable and ever-helpful research librarian is Daniel Price of the Hartman Institute, and my talented digital editor, himself a scholar of mysticism, Gene Matanky. My tireless copy editors and proofreaders were Virginia Perrin, Sam Mellins, Danny Weininger, Leah Linfield, David Estrin, Michael Milgrom, Shelly Horowitz, Marc Rosenstein, Sigalit Ur, Kathy Aron-Beller, Lynn Pollak Golumbic, Sherman Rosenfeld, Helen Senor, Renee Rothberg, Sophie Wolle, Eli Katz, Rachel Adelman, and Deborah Morse.