This week, we sit shiva for our shattered world.
This week we mourn our broken homes.
Our temple was destroyed, and even now we continue to watch the walls burn around us.
The Churban didn’t just happen millennia ago, but we are taught by Chazal that the damage is ongoing.
Hatred, strife, and ignorance fan the flames of destruction, pain, abandonment, and abuse.
We don’t see the fire and violence engulfing the actual Temple today, but we see countless metaphoric reverberations. Our homes are not safe here either.
When the enemy invaded our Holy of Holies, the Talmud in Yoma 54: describes, they beheld the holiest spaces, the top of the Ark, where the Cherubim were embraced in sexual intimacy. They misunderstood that erotic love, described in Song of Songs and dubbed: Holy of Holies, not only has its place in service of G-d but is used as the quintessential symbol of this sacred connection. The Holy of Holies was called “the bedroom of the sanctuary.” Love is meant to be Divine.
The enemy soldiers snatched the Keruvim from their private place. They joyfully mocked and scoffed and paraded our holy “nudity” through the marketplace (Eichah 1:8). They cried: “Look what these Jews, whose blessings are blessings and whose curses are curses, busy themselves with?”
The emperor Titus bedded a prostitute in this sanctuary, causing the curtain to the Holy space to bleed.
Their ignorant cruelty echoes in our confusion to this very day.
To this very day, holy sexuality continues to be contorted and ripped from the inside out, from the inner chamber of holies to the gritty, dirty marketplace. Our bodies are being exiled from our souls.
Instead of the mutual, consensual intimacy between committed partners, its wisdom and beauty conveyed lovingly from parent to child, in the context of home and heart, that connection and safety has been all but snuffed out.
Children and teens are not taught holy, integrated physicality, so they are relegated to the digital marketplace of distorted, corrupted exposure. They learn to hate their bodies, ignore their hearts, trade trust for lust, and barricade themselves from authentic love. And they become adults who are filled with sexual shame and confusion and shut down. Cut off from themselves, from others, and from G-d- the ultimate deprivations of intimacy and connection.
Instead, nudity, both voluntary and forced, are paraded through our marketplaces, entire industries devoted to seducing eyes and hearts, away from ourselves, our G-d, and our loved ones, away from basic human respect and decency.
At this online marketplace, women and children are routinely objectified and exploited and sold, while men are deliberately targeted by mainstream media, invited, drafted to join the army of debasement, seduced to feed this cycle of sinister consumption and humiliation of innocent humanity. And then it leaks from virtual to actual, the same pathology on the ubiquitous screens reflected and refracted through the smeared windows of our eyes and unholy abodes, and then through tears of anguish.
Why did the enemy say of the Jews in the Gemara above: “Whose blessing is blessing and whose curse is a curse?”
Perhaps because that is the dichotomy of sexual experience. One who is fortunate to find a partner with whom to share authentically, emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually, has truly been blessed. There is no greater joy. For this couple, their love is indeed a great blessing and can yield the greatest blessings of all: connection and children.
But when sexual contact turns evil, becomes assault and abuse, there is no greater curse. The connection and the children become marred. Ask any survivor of sexual trauma; it is perhaps the hardest to heal. The word Neshek in Hebrew means both kiss and weapons.
Avoda zara is confusing because it can be mistaken for the worship of G-d but is the exact opposite. Pornography, licentiousness, extremist repression, human trafficking, and sexual abuse are the idolatry of sexual holiness.
They stole our blessing and turned it into a curse.
But we allow it to continue.
Our homes are often devoid of holy sexual education. This ignorance is a breeding ground for unholy exploration and abuse – both among children and teens, and into adulthood.
And just as the pre-Churban was filled with ignorance and denial, many in our communities today, vehemently reject the reality of our ongoing churban. There is somehow this sense of “if we don’t discuss it, it doesn’t exist.” But it does exist. Just ask the therapists, the hotlines, the treatment centers, and the thousands of silent, stoic survivors. The incestuous abuse, the institutional complicity and enabling, the mikvaos, chadarim, and batei knessios that, instead of being places of purity, harbor the most heinous of crimes.
Our broken, burning homes.
When will the safety of our children, our future, take precedence over our communal image-based ego?
How do we rebuild? What is the tikkun of this sin so awful that we make excuses to avoid addressing it?
How do Jews repair anything?
We face the truth.
We turn to G-d and humble ourselves.
We acknowledge the cognitive dissonance.
Teshuva. Confess. Admit this happens. Remorse. Repent. Do better. Much better.
We protect the next generation, by arming them with knowledge and boundaries.
Hold predators accountable, and support reporting.
Cameras in every classroom, monitored and attended.
Don’t bless young people to build a “bayis ne’eman b’yisrael” but then give them faulty bricks.
Teach whole, real Torah sources, with nuance, compassion, and breadth, not radical distortion and systemic pathology.
Teach children and teens about their feelings and bodies, how to respect theirs and others’ and how they work.
Teach autonomy and consent.
Teach young people communication and relationship skills, so they can create healthy families.
Let’s get to work healing and rebuilding all our homes so we can finally go home.
Have you ever wondered how often people engage in sexual activity?
Or how often is optimal for healthy, happily married couples to aim for?
(I purposely used the euphemism “be intimate” in the title because often, people who ask this question in the framework of “supposed to” are uncomfortable with the more direct language of “have sex.” They may prefer to say things like : “be together, do it, make love, have relations, etc.” Whatever works:)
Couples therapists get this question a lot, especially from people who feel like they didn't or don't have enough information in the area of sexuality education.
It’s a legitimate curiosity, but the answer may be unsatsifying.
Firstly: “supposed to” is not a great framework for healthy sex. It works better when the focus is on mutual pleasure, not obligation or comparison.
Second: Frequency is not something that is mandated. Not psychologically, not legally, not Biblically.
It’s determined by and customized to each couple.
There is a Medrash that describes this, and is quoted by Rashi in this week’s Torah portion (I’m writing this the week of VaYishlach, but you can read it any week:)
When Yaakov sent gifts of livestock to his brother Esav, the Torah lists in great detail, the numbers and species of all the animals in the caravan.
Why do we care how many he-goats and she-goats there were?
The answer offered is that the ratio of male to female animals was determined by how often they needed to mate, which was determined by how strenuously they worked. The Medrash extrapolates an analogy to human mating schedules. (The paradigm used by the Talmudic literature is phrased in terms of a husband’s requirement to be available for his wife, not the reverse, but sex should always be consensual both ways.)
The Medrash says that men of leisure might be available daily, laborers twice weekly, donkey drivers once a week, camel drivers ones a month, and sailors/ those who travel for work, every six months.
Of course these are just some examples but Rashi goes on to explain:
“From here we learn that this need is not equal to every person [or couple.]” It depends on the couple’s individual schedules, emotional, and physical limitations and needs.
I’ve heard many people say that they were initially under the impression that couples only have sex when they want to conceive a baby. They were genuinely shocked to learn otherwise. This is not so ludicrous, when you consider the fact that many young people are taught about sex only in the framework of “how babies are made” if that much. Of course, most couples have far more sexual activity than they do children or attempts to conceive them.
It’s a legitimate query to ask how often couples have sex, but there isn’t a one size fits all answer.
Naturally there are some broad, cultural averages, and data. The most commonly quoted one is approximately once a week, but the numbers range significantly, and fluctuate within each couple based on many variables, such as stages of life like pregnancies, having babies and young children, medical or situational factors, and other variables that often make it challenging or more feasible. So please do not use that average to shame yourself or your partner for wanting more or less than that!
The healthiest answer to "how often should a couple be intimate is “as often as works well for both of them at each stage and season of life.”
Desire discrepancies and changes in libido over time are normal, but if you're finding that yours or your partner's are feeling disruptive to your relationship, please take the time to have a loving, strategizing conversation about it with your spouse, read up on the subject, and if necessary reach out for help.
Check out my course!
A Religious Families Guide to Healthy Holy Sex Education: Sacred Not Secret
Elisheva Liss, LMFT is a psychotherapist in private practice. Her book, Find Your Horizon of Healthy Thinking, is available on Amazon.com. She can be reached for sessions or speaking engagements at speaktosomeone@gmail.com More of her content can be found at ElishevaLiss.com