New Article: Rabbi Eli Mansour Moves Ever Closer to Christianity: Ben Azzai and Sexual Abstinence
David Shasha
Rabbi Eli Mansour Moves Ever Closer to Christianity: Ben Azzai and Sexual Abstinence
It has been a while since we last checked in with Rabbi Mansour, who was then vehemently ordering us to bless Donald Trump in a formal legal ruling, driven by the latter’s triumphant fundraiser in the SY summer enclave in Deal, New Jersey:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/zAcjcLyHO6o/m/B6JFGfmxBAAJ
Like his philandering hero, Mansour has had a long history of adopting the magical occult and saint worship:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/trEbcWhJpfk/m/ASOK8SK4ykwJ
In his new article on the Talmudic sage Ben Azzai he takes a timely look at the matter of sex in the Jewish tradition:
The complete article follows this note.
The article does not refer to the famous story of the Four Who Entered Pardes, which provides some context of Ben Azzai’s difficult position in the pantheon of ancient rabbis:
Here is a review of that wacky story:
Talmudic aggadah connects exposition of the Merkabah with the descent of fire from above which surrounds the expositor. In the literature of the heikhalot other and more daring expressions are used to describe the emotional and ecstatic character of these experiences. Distinct from the exposition of the Merkabah which the rabbis gave while on earth below was the ecstatic contemplation of the Merkabah experienced as an ascent to the heavens, namely descent to the Merkabah, through entering pardes ("paradise"). This was not a matter for exposition and interpretation but of vision and personal experience. This transition, which once again connects the revelations of the Merkabah with the apocalyptic tradition, is mentioned in the Talmud alongside the exegetic traditions (Ḥag. 14b). It concerns the four sages who "entered pardes." Their fate demonstrates that here we are dealing with spiritual experiences which were achieved by contemplation and ecstasy. *Simeon b. Azzai "looked and died"; *Ben Zoma "looked and was smitten" (mentally); *Elisha b. Avuyah, called aḥer ("other"), forsook rabbinic Judaism and "cut the shoots," apparently becoming a dualistic Gnostic; R. *Akiva alone "entered in peace and left in peace," or, in another reading, "ascended in peace and descended in peace." So R. Akiva, a central figure in the world of Judaism, is also the legitimate representative of a mysticism within the boundaries of rabbinic Judaism. This is apparently why Akiva and *Ishmael, who was his companion and also his adversary in halakhic matters, served as the central pillars and chief mouthpieces in the later pseudepigraphic literature devoted to the mysteries of the Merkabah. In addition, the striking halakhic character of this literature shows that its authors were well rooted in the halakhic tradition and far from holding heterodox opinions.
According to the legend, Ben Azzai is overwhelmed by his visit to the magical orchard – and dies!
The rabbinic idea here is to warn Jews against abstruse mystical speculation, which presents a mortal peril to those who engage in it.
Our anti-Sephardi friend Moshe Idel expounds on the story in his reckless article “On Paradise in Jewish Mysticism”:
https://www.zefat.ac.il/media/3585/on_paradise_in_jewish_mysticism_journal.pdf
Famously, Ben Azzai’s fellow Pardes traveler Elisha ben Abuyah was thought to abandon Judaism and adopt binitarian Christianity:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5685-elisha-ben-abuyah
Hardly a recommendation to take the trip!
The following article examines the apocryphal Enoch-Metatron tradition and cites the cautionary tale of that famous Jewish apostate, who came to be known as Aher, the notorious Jewish Other:
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/metatronscribe.html
The Talmudic text cryptically claims that he “cut the shoots”:
Aher mutilated the shoots. Of him Scripture says: Suffer not thy mouth to bring thy flesh into guilt. What does it refer to? – He saw that permission was granted to Metatron to sit and write down the merits of Israel. Said he: It is taught as a tradition that on high there is no sitting and no emulation, and no back, and no weariness. Perhaps, – God forfend! – there are two divinities! [Thereupon] they led Metatron forth, and punished him with sixty fiery lashes, saying to him: Why didst thou not rise before him when thou didst see him? Permission was [then] given to him to strike out the merits of Aher. A Bath Kol went forth and said: Return, ye backsliding children – except Aher. [Thereupon] he said: Since I have been driven forth from yonder world, let me go forth and enjoy this world. So Ah9er went forth into evil courses.
All of this mystical speculation is thought to be about the Two Powers in Heaven heresy, in Hebrew Shetei Reshuyot, as Daniel Boyarin discusses in the following article:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RJKYDB8z4MzcTaVN8ojqZkf-nZ9CL4Pj/view?ths=true
The idea, as expounded by both Idel and his ally Boyarin, two of the most essential voices in the “New Talmud” school that seeks to undermine the classical rabbinic tradition and replace it with a neo-Christian pagan-based understanding of the Jewish heritage, is that there is really no such thing as Jewish Monotheism.
It was just something that the Sephardim invented!
Indeed, according to Boyarin, the Christian understanding of a pluralistic godhead is essentially a Jewish one:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1NQdm28qvvXbmt4dmNVSEotUXM/view?ths=true
His tendentious article on Daniel 7 reads the apocalyptic throne vision as essentially confirming the Christian view of the “Son”:
The analysis I offer here thus enables both traditional views about the One like a Son of Man to stand: on the one hand, the clearly correct view that the One like a Son of Man as he appears in the vision itself is a divine redeemer figure, and, on the other hand, the equally clearly correct view that the author of the book of Daniel has dethroned and demythologized this figure and turned him into a symbol for the faithful, holy, people of Israel. I believe that I have accomplished three things in this analysis so far: First, I hope I have shown that chapter 7 of Daniel is the work of a single author (with the possible exception of the eleventh horn, which conceivably is the work of a second hand) who has shaped traditional mythical materials by combining them into a demythologized historical apocalypse. His work on producing the pesher on this newly produced (by him) apocalypse is consistent with the semantic effect of combining the two pre-existing texts into one and supports it. Second, I hope to have shown how we might now study the existing text as diachronic evidence, notwithstanding very effort of the author of Daniel to demythologize it, to dethrone the young God with the appearance of a Son of Man and turn him into a mere symbol of the people of Israel. Third, we can see more clearly how synchronically the text makes itself to available be read in the fashion that it was in the Similitudes of Enoch and the Gospels as producing a second divine figure, the Son of Man, in heaven together with the Ancient of Days.
In order to connect Daniel’s heavenly vision to Christianity, he mistakenly reads the plural for thrones as a dual.
Here is the original text with all the necessary details that Boyarin alludes to:
Daniel 7:9-14 (JPS)
I beheld till thrones [Aramaic, karsevan] were placed, and one that was ancient of days did sit: his raiment was as white snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld at that time because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke, I beheld even till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given to be burned with fire. And as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and he was brought near before Him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Here is a discussion on the use of the dual in Aramaic, which corresponds to the YM suffix in Hebrew, as in the word Yadayim, hands:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/dual-in-aramaic.3197445/#post-16181190
If Boyarin’s reading of the word was correct, it would have to be “karsevayan” and not “karsevan.”
But what are a couple of letters between friends?
Indeed, we can see clearly how New Talmudists like Boyarin read Christian ideas back into the Hebrew Bible via Apocryphal forgeries like Enoch, which are then conceptually-religiously prioritized over the rabbinic literature, seen as being belated and “apologetic” when it comes to Monotheism and Christian binitarianism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binitarianism
In yet another piece of Christian apologia, Boyarin marks the Johannine Logos, Jesus Christ, as an authentic Jewish concept identical to the Rabbinic Memra:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1NQdm28qvvXNmE5elVBekRkSFU/view?ths=true
And Idel, as we have previously noted, has vigorously promoted the idea of Sonship as a Jewish idea:
https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Sonship-Mysticism-Library-Studies/dp/0826496660
It is all consistent with the views of Christian extremists like Jimmy Swaggart:
https://www.jsm.org/what-we-believe
It is what they all believe as the authentic fulfillment of Jewish prophecy:
In the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Virgin Birth, in His Sinless Life, in His Miracles, in His Vicarious and atoning Death, in His Bodily Resurrection, in His Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father, in His personal future return to this Earth in Power and Glory to rule a thousand years.
The binitarian idea of Two Powers is reviewed in the new book by Peter Schafer, Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity:
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Gods-Heaven-Concepts-Antiquity/dp/0691181322
The Pardes story and its Christian subtext is critical to understanding Mansour’s bizarre article, which asks whether a Jew can avoid the command to procreate:
The Gemara relates that Ben-Azzai’s students approached
him and charged that he was "Na’eh Doreh Ve’eno Na’eh Mekayem" – that
he taught well, but did not fulfill his own teaching. Although Ben-Azzai
sharply condemned those who did not involve themselves in the Misva of
procreation, he himself never married, and thus never begot children.
Ben-Azzai replied to his students, "What can I do? My soul desires Torah.
The world can be sustained through other people." He felt that because of
his fierce love for Torah learning, to which he would be unable to devote
himself fully if he assumed the responsibilities of a family, he was exempt from
this obligation, and the world’s population would be increased by others.
Accordingly, the Shulhan Aruch (Eben Ha’ezer 1:2) writes that one whose
"soul desires Torah" ("Nafsho Hasheka Ba’Torah") is allowed
to refrain from marrying. The Shulhan Aruch adds that this applies only if
"En Yisro Mitgaber Alav" – his passions do not overcome him. If
refraining from marriage causes improper thoughts and the like, then he is not
allowed to excuse himself from the Misva of marriage of procreation.
The obvious question arises as to the nature of this
unique exemption. Why should somebody be exempt from a clear Torah command
simply because he prefers learning Torah?
Though he never says the word, preferring the term “improper thoughts,” Mansour is actually talking about sex!
I discussed the thorny problem of sex and religion in Christianity in my article on the movies “Doubt” and “Spotlight,” with their very troubling depictions of Catholic child molester priests:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/2sqSNBSM6q0/m/ux5rntnsDAAJ
Christianity has some big issues with sex, largely because both Jesus and Paul were purportedly celibate.
Paul has conflicting teachings on the matter, which has led to a very unhealthy legacy of biological denial that is alien to normative Judaism:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/traditional-sources-on-sexual-pleasure/
We will of course recall that Judaism’s greatest “saint,” Moses, was a man who married and had sex, with two different wives:
https://www.biblesprout.com/articles/bible/moses-family/
There is some contentiousness about the second wife, a “Cushite” woman, understood to be Ethiopian:
In any case, Moses is not presented in the Hebrew Bible as celibate. It is an important point when we look at the Christian situation.
Here is my conclusion to the Child Molester Priests article:
There has been much blather of late from scholars about how Paul did not really seek to end the Covenant of the Law, but it has been clear for many centuries of Church history that his pronouncements were taken quite literally; forming a doctrinal orthodoxy that has led us to aberrant sexual values among the “holy” orders. We must never use the ambiguities of ancient history to distort religious reality in the practical sense.
Rather than embracing the natural impulses of human biology in a reasonable manner, Christianity has sought to set out a magical process of the mystical occult which turns carnal sexuality into a zone of moral incoherence and religious mystification.
From a God who impregnates a virgin woman, to a “son” of God who has sexual organs but is said not to use them, to an apostle who counsels the unmarried to remain so, the Church has demonized the erotic while at the same time, as Leo Steinberg has expertly shown in his controversial book, elevating a denatured sexuality that extols the “holiness” of an Incarnate god/man who has served as a model for those who wish to turn copulation into a sacred mystery.
It is therefore only “natural” to find out that the Church has had such a long and tortured history of sexual deviancy, which has finally been exposed to the public, allowing its victims to achieve Justice in the face of a corrupt power hierarchy.
Those Jews who continue to embrace the Christian Fundamentalists and seek to make doctrinal connections between the two religions should keep these things in mind as their movement subverts the integrity of our Torah and its sacred moral values.
Yet, as we continue to see, the borderline between Judaism and Christianity continues to be blurred among academics like Idel and Boyarin, and religious fundamentalists like Mansour.
Mansour sees the command to procreate as conflicting with the command to study Torah:
If so, then we can perhaps suggest an explanation for why the Shulhan Aruch brought this ruling of Ben-Azzai, despite its being impractical. Clearly, there is and will never be a person like Ben-Azzai, who is so passionately committed to Torah learning that he does not experience normal human desires, and therefore, this ruling seems entirely theoretical. We might wonder, then, why the Shulhan Aruch – a practical halachic code – found it necessary to mention it. The answer, perhaps, is that this ruling can serve as a source of comfort for those who are unable to beget children. Such people can be assured that if they cannot beget children, this must be because – as in Ben-Azzai’s case – they had already reproduced in a previous Gilgul, and so they need not be troubled by their current inability to reproduce.
After a PILPUL that exonerates Ben Azzai of the command to procreate because other people do it anyway, Mansour goes his usual route and answers the question of Ben Azzai’s celibacy with even more mystical occultism:
A final answer emerges from the teaching of the Kabbalists that Ben-Azzai was a Gilgul (reincarnation) of a figure from the past. (Rav Haim Palachi brings a tradition that Ben-Azzai was a Gilgul of King Hizkiyahu.) The Hida (Rav Haim Yosef David Azulai, 1724-1806) writes that Ben-Azzai knew that in his previous life, he had begotten children, and for this reason he felt it was legitimate for him not to marry and reproduce, as he had already produced offspring in an earlier Gilgul.
The Mansour article unwittingly links Christian sexual asceticism to a binitarian framework as seen in the Pardes story, by deploying an enchanted magical sensibility that is contrary to the classical Sephardic tradition of Religious Humanism.
So, once again, Mansour allies himself with the religious extremists, and brings Judaism ever closer to the Christian ascetic “ideal.”
It is indeed interesting that he neglects to mention the Pardes story from the Talmud, and the way in which Ben Azzai was thought to lose his life. Perhaps he thought that would not help his saintly hagiography with its fanatical anti-rationalist beliefs.
In the end, we can indeed wonder what led Mansour to choose the topic of sexuality and procreation in his daily halakhic lesson in the first place.
And that is a question worth pondering!
David Shasha
Can a Torah Scholar be Exempt From the Misva of Procreation?
By: Rabbi Eli Mansour
The Gemara in Masechet Yebamot (63) cites Ben-Azzai as
teaching that one who does not involve himself in the Misva of procreation
"is considered as though he spills blood, and diminishes from the [divine]
image." As human beings are created in the image of G-d, one who does not
try to produce children is considered to be diminishing the divine image in the
world.
The Gemara relates that Ben-Azzai’s students approached him and charged that he
was "Na’eh Doreh Ve’eno Na’eh Mekayem" – that he taught well, but did
not fulfill his own teaching. Although Ben-Azzai sharply condemned those who
did not involve themselves in the Misva of procreation, he himself never
married, and thus never begot children.
Ben-Azzai replied to his students, "What can I do? My soul desires Torah.
The world can be sustained through other people." He felt that because of
his fierce love for Torah learning, to which he would be unable to devote
himself fully if he assumed the responsibilities of a family, he was exempt
from this obligation, and the world’s population would be increased by others.
Accordingly, the Shulhan Aruch (Eben Ha’ezer 1:2) writes that one whose
"soul desires Torah" ("Nafsho Hasheka Ba’Torah") is allowed
to refrain from marrying. The Shulhan Aruch adds that this applies only if
"En Yisro Mitgaber Alav" – his passions do not overcome him. If
refraining from marriage causes improper thoughts and the like, then he is not
allowed to excuse himself from the Misva of marriage of procreation.
The obvious question arises as to the nature of this unique exemption. Why
should somebody be exempt from a clear Torah command simply because he prefers
learning Torah?
One possibility is that for somebody like Ben-Azzai, full-time Torah learning
was truly a matter of life and death. The Gemara tells that when Rabbi
Yohanan’s study partner, Resh Lakish, passed away, Rabbi Yohanan was so
troubled that he could not function, and he eventually died. For scholars of this
stature, Torah is like oxygen. Perhaps, then, Ben-Azzai exempted himself from
the obligations of marriage and family because the loss of Torah study would
have actually threatened his physical wellbeing.
However, a careful reading of Ben-Azzai’s response to his students leads us to
two other possible explanations.
First, Ben-Azzai mentioned his fierce "desire" for Torah –
"Nafshi Hasheka Ba’Torah." Unlike all other Misvot, the Misva of
procreation cannot be fulfilled unless one has a specific desire. A man must
have a desire for intimacy in order to produce children. Other Misvot, of
course, do not require any particular kind of desire. Ben-Azzai perhaps was
telling his students that he, unlike the vast majority of men, had a desire
only for Torah, and not for an intimate relationship, and thus he was exempt
from the Misva of procreation.
Another possibility arises from the second part of his response – "The
world can be sustained through other people." The Misva of procreation is
introduced in two verses: the famous command of "Peru U’rbu"
("be fruitful and multiply"), and the verse in Yeshayahu, "Lo
La’tohu Bera’ah, Le’shebet Yesarah" – "He did not create it for
nothingness; He brought it into being to be inhabited." Ben-Azzai perhaps
felt that the Misva of procreation is not a personal obligation, but rather a
societal obligation, requiring that we ensure the continued habitation of the
earth by human beings. As such, it is legitimate for somebody with an exceptional
passion for Torah learning to excuse himself from this obligation so he can
fully devote himself to his studies, and the world will be sustained by others
who marry and reproduce.
A final answer emerges from the teaching of the Kabbalists that Ben-Azzai was a
Gilgul (reincarnation) of a figure from the past. (Rav Haim Palachi brings a
tradition that Ben-Azzai was a Gilgul of King Hizkiyahu.) The Hida (Rav Haim
Yosef David Azulai, 1724-1806) writes that Ben-Azzai knew that in his previous
life, he had begotten children, and for this reason he felt it was legitimate
for him not to marry and reproduce, as he had already produced offspring in an
earlier Gilgul.
If so, then we can perhaps suggest an explanation for why the Shulhan Aruch
brought this ruling of Ben-Azzai, despite its being impractical. Clearly, there
is and will never be a person like Ben-Azzai, who is so passionately committed
to Torah learning that he does not experience normal human desires, and
therefore, this ruling seems entirely theoretical. We might wonder, then, why
the Shulhan Aruch – a practical halachic code – found it necessary to mention
it. The answer, perhaps, is that this ruling can serve as a source of comfort
for those who are unable to beget children. Such people can be assured that if
they cannot beget children, this must be because – as in Ben-Azzai’s case –
they had already reproduced in a previous Gilgul, and so they need not be
troubled by their current inability to reproduce.
From Daily Halacha, December 20, 2020