Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer - Heavenly Sex

Heavenly Sex

Sexuality and the Jewish Tradition

Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
and
Jonathan Mark

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

I am delighted to bring Heavenly Sex: Sex and the Jewish Tradition back into print in this new edition for a new generation of readers. Judaism has always been a sex-positive tradition, though especially in this age of secularization and skepticism about organized religion, in which traditional observance is often equated with Victorian mores, Judaisms more progressive stance toward sex has a tendency to be overlooked.

The Bible and leading rabbinic figures have for centuries offered precepts and rich commentary encouraging a focus on sexual satisfaction, downplaying the idea that sex is only for reproductive purposes, and making clear that sex for pleasure is not an activity to be discouraged or to feel guilty about but indeed is to be considered essential. Moreover, the Bible is attentive to the sexual needs of women and sets forth specific requirements to men to satisfy their wives. Good sex, Judaism maintains, is key to peace in the home and to solidifying the relationship between husbands and wives. These ideas have stood the test of time and remain as relevant and meaningful today as they have been for the duration of the Jewish tradition.

Long before I became Dr. Ruth, when I was still a good little girl named Karola Ruth Siegel growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, I wasnt used to saying or hearing words such as penis, vagina, orgasm, or clitoris. If, through some fluke, I did hear such words, Id find myself blushing.

Sometimes I still blush. We were European Jews, more European than Jewish, and thoroughly influenced by the prudish Victorian attitudes of that eraattitudes still influencing the way so many of us think, act, and talk about sex. Why, when talking about sex, do I need to add that we were more European than Jewish? Simply because if our attitudes were more Jewish than European, we would have been more open and adventurous about sex than most people think possible, including many Jews who are unfamiliar with their own tradition.

What did the Victorian mother tell her daughter on the night of her wedding? Grit your teeth and think of England. But in the Jewish tradition, there are hints, incentives, and even legislation for orgasmsyes, a womans, too.

Especially a womans. In the Jewish marriage ceremony, sexual satisfaction is part of the contract. Under the wedding canopy, a groom promises his bride that he will provide her with comfortable standards of food, shelter, and sexual gratification. The holiest men are required to marry. Celibacy is not a virtueorgasms are.

Some ancient Rabbis advise that if a man brings his wife to orgasm before he ejaculates he will be rewarded with a sona reward thought to be as precious to the man as an orgasm is satisfying to a woman. As a sexologist I know how important it is that a woman not engage in sexual activity continually without having an orgasm. And here there is even a spiritual tradition that clearly understands that in a sexual relationship both partners must be sensitive to the sexual needs of the other. Of course, the equation of orgasmic satisfaction and the gender of a child seems harsh to the modern observer, as well it should. (Indeed, there will be other beliefs and practices discussed in this book that seem dated to modern sensibilitiesmany from holy texts that are eternal, containing Aggadic stories that are presented in the Talmud to make a spiritual point or a teaching but are not and were not legally or religiously binding.) Nevertheless, it is a marvel that the Sages back in antiquity were so concerned with encouraging and educating their followers to the notion that a womans orgasm exists, is precious, and that a woman does not simply exist as a subordinate vessel for the man.

The Jewish writer Maurice Samuel jokes that Jews are too busy having children to bother with sex, but the tradition in fact encourages a husband and wife to have sex not just for procreation, but for pleasure. In the synagogue libraries and study halls of Frankfurt, they studied a rabbinic commentator known as the Ramban (the popular acronym of Rabbi Moshe Ben-Nachman or Nachmanides), who is to this day considered to be among the greatest rabbis. Though he lived from 1195 to 1270, he is spoken of and quoted in the present tense, as if he were still alive. He taught that a husband may act with his wife in any manner whatsoever, and kiss any organ of her body he wishes, and have intercourse naturally or unnaturally. He advises couples to use different positions while making love, including entry of the womans vagina from behind (interesting from a sex therapists point of view, since the exposed clitoris provides possibilities for greater pleasure).