Kol Isha Tzricha Kavana?
One has to wonder if the rules aren't creating the problem in the first place. Lets look at "Kol Isha'.
Now if I suggest to a complete stranger that listening to a woman's voice causes unwarranted sexual arousal, I would get the same look back that my dog would give me if I tried to explain it quantum mechanics. Nobody normal would ever suggest that we would have a better society if all men were forbidden to listen to female vocals. (The exception would be made for Celine Dion. Truly, a pact with Satan if I ever saw one, and she must either go away or be killed.)
No offense to the ladies who may be reading this, but there isn't one among you that could bring me to a state of arousal just by singing, even if you have a lovely voice (and I’m sure some of you do.) I just don't operate that way, and frankly I also don't know of anyone outside of the frumme/heimishe veldt that runs for cover at the sound of Aretha Franklin asking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
When you start associating KOL ISHA with ERVAH, you are defining KOL ISHA as ERVAH, and every time you think of KOL ISHA, you will in fact be thinking of ERVA. It doesn't have to be empirically true for one to believe it, but so long as one can scare the pants back on someone else because of ERVA, one will also be afraid of KOL ISHA.
The Gemara in Brochos says “Ha mistakel ba’erva kashto nineres” (if you look at nudity it causes impotence), and it is followed by a Tana saying, that “even looking at the ankle of a woman in passing” constitutes ‘mistakel ba’erva’. Whew! That was one horny mutha fucka! Did he just get out of prison? (That kind of thinking reminds me of the Taliban.)
So this is what ensues from all this. You ingrain it into the poor bastard’s psyche that looking anywhere near a woman causes impotence. So this fellow now has to spend every waking hour, and probably worries in his dreams, too, that he has somewhere, somehow seen a shtickle erva in someplace, and because of that his shmuck won’t work right when the time finally comes to use it. So now you have planted the idea of ERVA in his head as a constant vigil, along with the anxieties of erectile dysfunction! What began as a regulation to deter unwarranted sexual thoughts has now blossomed into a psychological disorder, and what’s the result? What does he think about all day? Using his shmuck!
By calling something ERVA, one, by proxy, creates the ERVA. A woman’s voice is just a woman’s voice. If the words are suggestive in nature, then even if it were a man singing, I would agree that its probably not best to listen to it if it offended one’s moral sensibilities.
WARNING! If any of the men reading this have experienced an erection while listening to Ethel Merman belting out the Star Spangled Banner, please call this hotline right away. 1-800-KOL-ISHA.
Mashgichim are standing by to assist you in your time of arousal.
posted by Shlomo Leib Aronovitz @ 7:25 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
CORRECTION!
Someone pointed out to me that the passage "hamistakel ba-erva' is not in Gemara Brochos, but in Sanhedrin.
Thanks. Next time I look it up first. I'm still right about the rest of it. Phbbt!
I masturbate to the voice of women. I think its sexy.
Don't get out much do ya?
Ok. A lot of people over at Hassid & heretic have really been giving me a hard time over this, so I decided to post the Sgya in Sanhedrin 92B, and show why it's all bullshit.
ואמר רבי אלעזר כל המסתכל בערוה קשתו ננערת שנאמר (חבקוק ג) עריה תעור קשתך
Ok. Here is the whole bit straight from the Gemara in Sanhedrin. I know that I was thinking of another place in Shas re: seeing just an ankle. And I intend to find it, and I DO believe that it is in Brochos. Here is the Gemara Sanhedrin דף צב,א Enjoy it, because my case now gets much stronger for other reasons. This is another case of the sages saying something which is really stupid and justifying it by making specious interpretations from verses in Tanach that have NOTHING to do with what they are talking about in Gemara. I am also going to debunk the rest of that little sugya, too, just for laughs, because it deserves nothing less than side busting laughter.
And Rabi Elazar says “Anyone who looks at nudity his bow (virility) becomes emptied”, as it says in Chavakuk (around 700 BC) 3: 9 “And You uncovered you bow, it is bare.” What Rabi Elazar is trying to do is make word associations between the phrase ERYA TAYOR in Chavakuk and the word ERVA in general. This is a word game played by delusionals. He is also assuming that the word KASHTO, which from its context in Chavakuk can also be taken to mean a penis.
Chavakuk is telling us about how HaShem has instilled fear on everyone by waging war on the peoples of the southern lands. 3:9 is saying us that Hashem’s bow has been unsheathed and is already awaiting more arrows. That is the context of the Prophecy. Chavakuk’s time was during the Assyrian invasion of the North and the captivity/exile of the Northern tribes. It was in this time that Assyria attempted to take control of Egypt, lost it, but eventually took over in Babylon until 620 BC when the Assyrians were defeated at Nineveh. Those were very crappy times, and warfare was the topic of the period. Unsheathing an empty bow as part of warfare, the bows were kept in leather sacks to keep them in good condition and then taken out for battle.
Now if we say that KASHTO in Chavakuk can also mean virility, then maybe everywhere in Tanach that we find the word KASHTO, or KESHET, it could also mean virility! The obvious place to look is in Parshas Noach. In Bereshis 9:13 it says “ My bow (kashti) I will place in the cloud….” Is this the same KESHET? Is there any way that we can, using Rabi Elazar’s method and miscombobolate the meaning in Bereshis with that of Chavakuk? Especially since neither context refers to nudity or looking at naughty things. If we could take Rabi Elazar’s method and apply it (since he doesn’t seem to worry about context) then we would end up making a brocho (Zochayr HaBris) every time we saw an erection! Hey! Maybe that’s why we call the KESHET in Bereshis a BRIS! Because it HAS one!
The Chachomim are notorious for taking posukim out of context when they want to play their word games, and in this case it goes so far out of line that it even flies in the face of reality. But reality never stopped the rabbis then, and it doesn’t now either. I know that Rabi Elazar was just a minor Tana with his own ideas, but those ideas made it into Shas, and lots of people take them very seriously, and perhaps should NOT.
Now that the Gemara in Sanhedrin has talked about the male member, it then proceeds, perhaps out of fairness to take a closer look at the female genitalia. The male organ was compared to a bow, a strong, tight weapon of incredible power and strength. That’s quite a compliment. But what do they compare the vagina to? The GRAVE! Oooooo. That’s not flattering at all. Perhaps they never thought their wives would see that, or they never cared one way or the other.
אמר רבי יאשיה מאי דכתיב (משלי ל) שאול ועוצר רחם ארץ לא שבעה מים וכי מה ענין שאול אצל רחם אלא לומר לך מה רחם מכניס ומוציא אף שאול מכניס ומוציא והלא דברים קל וחומר ומה רחם שמכניסין בו בחשאי מוציאין ממנו בקולי קולות שאול שמכניסין בו בקולות אינו דין שמוציאין ממנו בקולי קולות מיכן תשובה לאומרין אין תחיית המתים מן התורה
Rav Yashiya asked “what about what is written in Mishlei 30:16?”, “ The grave, a closed womb, arid soil, and fire that cannot ever say “Enough!” Why does it mention the grave and the womb together? To tell us that just as the womb takes in and gives forth, so does the grave take in and give forth. (the Gemara continues by adding some ‘logic’) But isn’t this already known by way of kal V’chomer? If the womb, where things enter quietly and leave it noisy, the grave, where things enter with noise; doesn’t it seem right that would leave it with even more noise? From here we have our answer to those who say that Techiyas HaMaysim is not from the Torah.
Ok. How many of you are convinced? Here’s the little problem with the “logic”. First of all, and if you didn’t notice this you need to get some remedial tutoring, is that IF Shlomo HaMelech was making a comparison between the grave and the womb, he a) already stated in the previous posukim what that comparison was, and b) what about the other two things included in 30:16? (Seems that our Sages only like mentioning the risqué.) Why leave those out of the equation? The context of chapter 30 is all about things that take and don’t give back.
Those aren’t even important points really. The biggest problem is that the whole drosho here that wants to prove techiyas hamaysim from Torah is based upon the comparison between womb and grave, yet don’t seem to notice that Shlomo Hamelech isn’t drawing a comparison between a fertile womb, that living things come out of, and the grave, but a BARREN/CLOSED womb! If we are to learn anything from Shlomo’s comparison of graves to wombs, then we would have to conclude that there is NO SUCH THING as techiyas hamaysim! One would think that the Sages of our beloved Talmud would know how to read a simple posuk in Mishlei. What bothers me more is that an apikores and assumed am-haaretz like myself can notice this within seconds, and 1000s of the faithful just seem to give it a pass. No wonder I “fried out.”
Tiyuvta d’alle shmendriks tiyuvta!
I fully expect TOT to be speaking out against the horrible nasty anti-female statements made by the Sages of the Talmud.
מסכת ברכות פרק ג דף כד,א
Many many thanks to Xchussed for finding this for me!
א"ר יצחק טפח באשה ערוה למאי אילימא לאסתכולי בה והא א"ר ששת למה מנה הכתוב תכשיטין שבחוץ עם תכשיטין שבפנים לומר לך "כל המסתכל באצבע קטנה של אשה כאילו מסתכל במקום התורף" אלא באשתו ולק"ש אמר רב חסדא שוק באשה ערוה שנאמר (ישעיהו מז) גלי שוק עברי נהרות וכתיב (ישעיהו מז) תגל ערותך וגם תראה חרפתך אמר שמואל קול באשה ערוה שנא' (שיר השירים ב) כי קולך ערב ומראך נאוה אמר רב ששת שער באשה ערוה שנא' (שיר השירים ד) שערך כעדר העזים
Now, if you think that this kind of word play ISN’T serious, then you have to tell me why every little bit of wordplay in the above sugya has made it into the Shulchan Aruch. We have
SHOK BEISHAH ERVA = dresses below the knee (or further)
KOL BEISHAH ERVA= (we’ve already been through that)
SAYAWR BEISHAH ERVA = covering the hair (but not with a Hindu Sheytl)
Another teyuvta! Do any of you know how good I feel right now? LOL
Let’s start with the last statement of Rav Sheyshes. “Hair of a woman is nakedness”, because it says in Shir HaShirim, 4:1 “Your hair is like a flock of goats.” WHAT? When was the last time any of the guys here were turned on by a flock of goats? And which one of the ladies in the room think that having their beauty judged by a comparison to goats to be complimentary! Taking the nieces and nephews to the petting zoo will never be the same. LOL
Rav Chisda says “the thigh of a woman is nakedness” because it says in Yeshayahu 47:2-3 “Strip off your dress and bare your leg. Wade through the rivers. Your nakedness will be uncovered.” THIS I have no argument with. I happen to be leg man anyhow. Here Rav Chisda makes no claim from the posuk that isn’t beyond the actual context of the posuk. Thank you Rav Chisda.
Lastly we will deal with Rav Shmuel. The whole verse in Shir Hashirim reads (3:14) “……Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. Your voice is sweet and your face is pretty.” Aside from that being a really bad pick-up line at any bar, it’s kind of lame, especially for a reputed love machine like Shlomo HaMelech. (Forgive me for saying this, but I think all those women loved him just for the shekels.) C’mon, this is the same guy who said that a flock of goats gets him aroused! (see above)
AND why aren’t we also covering faces? If we are to take Shlomo’s words at “face” value (Shtern, THAT was just wordplay. OK?), then we would have to conclude that if both voice and face are beautiful, and if voice is ERVA, then doesn’t it follow that face should be ERVA, too? Why a gezeyra shaveh for one, but not the other? According to Rav Shmuel’s logic, the woman should also be required to cover her face.
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