(urth) Building up yang through 10 lifetimes (was Re: Urth & Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe"))

brunians at brunians.org brunians at brunians.org
Sat Jun 5 06:02:04 PDT 2010


It was a mistake for me to even bring this up.

I am sorry I did it.

I'm done now.

.


> I'm afraid I don't follow.  Who is "this guy"?  What do you mean by
> "spends half his time not having sex and not masturbating"?  Half his
> life?  And if we're talking about a real person such as Ben Azzai, I
> believe people who are forbidden by their religion to have sex sometimes
> do anyway, and even more so for masturbation, so I couldn't even guess
> whether someone abstained from orgasms.
>
> The sentence with "week" and "month" makes no sense to me.
>
>
> Whoever it is, if he's an Orthodox Jew, he probably does say the normal
> prayers and put on phylacteries ("lay tefillin", as many American Jews
> say) every day.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Sent: Fri, June 4, 2010 11:00:20 PM
> Subject: Re: (urth) Building up yang through 10 lifetimes (was Re: Urth &
> Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe"))
>
> So basically, this guy spends half his time not having sex and not
> masturbating.
>
> He goes for one good week without having sex every month.
>
> He's still wrapping phylacteries every day isn't he?
>
> Still saying the normal prayers?
>
> .
>
>
>> As I said, I don't object to anything in that reply to me.  I don't
>> think
>> you have anything to apologize for.  I'm sorry to hear you're in pain,
>> though, and I hope it goes away.
>>
>> As far as I know, what we're talking about is whether Judaism has the
>> idea
>> that men who don't have orgasms attain spiritual capabilities
>> unavailable
>> to other men.
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
>>
>>> In all of the following questions, the term 'a Jew' refers to a Jewish
>>> man
>>> who is conforming to halacha (ie, is orthoprax).
>>
>>> With whom may a Jew have sex?
>>
>> His wife.  Most men are obliged to marry by the age of 20, but I'll
>> mention exceptions below.
>>
>>> May a Jew have any kind of sex?
>>
>> No.
>>
>>> When may a Jew have sex?
>>
>> Any time, as long as he doesn't do it in the street and frighten the
>> horses.  (Apparently it's not allowed in the presence of any creature.)
>>
>>> May a Jew masturbate?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> You left out: How often must a Jew have sex?
>>
>> As often as his wife asks for her conjugal rights, up to a maximum that
>> depends on his job, from every night for men who do not-too-demanding
>> physical work in the city where they live, to once every six months for
>> a
>> sailor.
>>
>> There are some interesting glimpses of Maimonides' statements on this
>> subject on limited preview at
>>
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=JFny1k_bv5cC&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false
>>
>> It says he thought that a student may delay marriage--not for any stated
>> spiritual reasons, but to avoid distractions.  He also seems to said the
>> rabbi Ben Azzai (who said being childless was as evil as shedding blood)
>> was permitted not to marry at because Ben Azzai was interested only in
>> study, not in sex, though other authorities of the time thought Ben
>> Azzai
>> was sinning.  In general, Maimonides seems to have seen sexuality as a
>> distraction, though a required one.
>>
>> Jerry Friedman
>>
>>
>>
>>
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