A pilegesh in Brooklyn.

B”H
[...]
Two days later, I receive a call from a Jewish woman. “My name’s Sarah,” she says. “I’m the concubine from Brooklyn.” [...] She tells me that she is a speech therapist, 32 years old and single. She was brought up in a strictly observant Jewish world in the heart of Brooklyn: a world where marriages are arranged by matchmakers. Most of her friends were on their third child while still in their twenties. “I was considered a freak, because I was in my thirties and single. The matchmakers had introduced me to hundreds of men, but I never found one where I could say, ‘Yes, this is the one.’ ” Last year she befriended David and Deborah, the parents of one of her pupils. “They invited me regularly for dinner. I could see there was a spark missing in their marriage. One day David called me into his study. He left the door open – an Orthodox Jewish man and woman are not allowed to be behind closed doors, unchaperoned, until the parameters of their relationship are set – and he said, ‘Sarah, have you heard of the concept of pilegesh – a concubine? I would like you to become my concubine.’ ” Sarah was both flattered and shocked. She had a vague recollection of the posters she had seen on trees, but the proposition still seemed frighteningly improper. Yet it was also tempting. She had accepted for some time that her marriage prospects were minimal; this might be her only chance of ever enjoying a sexual relationship. In an Orthodox community like hers, normal social interaction with the opposite sex, as it exists in the secular Jewish and Gentile worlds, is out of the question. Physical contact, even the holding of hands, is forbidden outside marriage. Sarah went away to consult her rabbi, who reassured her that it was perfectly acceptable for her to become a concubine. Her next concern was for Deborah. The two women had, after all, become friends. But David allayed her fears: not only did Deborah know of her husband’s intentions, he told her, but she fully supported them. “I insisted on meeting with all three of us together,” says Sarah. “I was trembling when I walked in. But Deborah put her hand on my arm and said, ‘It’s OK with me. This is what I want.’ She felt bad that she was not satisfying David’s sexual needs. This way she alleviated her guilt.” Ten months ago Sarah gave up her own apartment and moved in with David, Deborah and their three children. She has a separate entrance to the Brooklyn mansion, but inside, her bedroom is only feet away from theirs.[...]
[...]
Far from seeing herself as a home-wrecker, she says, “I really think I’ve done good things for David and Deborah’s marriage. Deborah no longer bears the burden of having to sexually satisfy David. “I’m in a much better position than Deborah,” she adds. “If I want to leave David, I don’t have to wait for him to grant me a ghet. I can just go. But I can’t see myself doing that. I think I’ll live with my spouse and his wife, their children and, God willing, my children, for many, many years.” ![...]
Reprinted from:
“THE CONCUBINE CONNECTION”

The Independent – London
Date:
October 20, 1996
Author:
SUZANNE GLASS
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4826676.html
To find a pilegesh or become one check out http://www.pilegeshpersonals.com

Friends With Benefits, and Stress Too

B”H
Friends With Benefits, and Stress Too
By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times

Related
Web Link
Negotiating a Friends with Benefits Relationship (Archives of Sexual Behavior)

To some, it may seem like an ideal relationship, less stressful than an affair, longer lived than a fling or that elusive one-night stand. You can even sit around in your sweats and watch “Friends” reruns together, feeling vaguely reassured.

Yet relationships in which close friends begin having sex come with their own brand of awkwardness, according to the first study to explore the dynamics of such pairs, often called friends with benefits, or F.W.B..

The relationships tend to have little romantic passion, but stir the same fears that stalk lovers: namely, that one person will fall harder than the other.

Paradoxically, and perhaps predictably, the study suggests, these physical friendships often occlude one of the emotional arteries of real friendship, openness. Friends who could once talk about anything now have an unstated taboo topic — the relationship itself. In every conversation, there is innuendo; in every room, an elephant.

The research, conducted among Michigan State University students, confirmed previous findings that most college students report having had at least one such relationship. Although that is undoubtedly true of many couples throughout history, “friends with benefits” have become a cultural signature of today’s college and postcollege experience.

“The study really adds to the little we know about these relationships,” said Paul Mongeau, a professor of communications at Arizona State University who was not involved in the research. “One of the most interesting things I get from it,” he said, “is this sense that people in these relationships are afraid to develop feelings for the other person, because those feelings might be unreciprocated.”

In the study, appearing in the current issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, Melissa Bisson, a former graduate student at Michigan State, and Timothy Levine, a professor in the communications department, surveyed 125 young men and women and found that 60 percent reported having had at least one friend with benefits.

One-tenth of these relationships went on to become full-scale romances, the study found. About a third stopped the sex and remained friends, and one in four eventually broke it off — the sex and the friendship. The rest continued as friends-with-benefits relationships.

In a follow-up study, the researchers gave 90 students who reported having at least one such relationship a battery of questionnaires asking about passion, commitment and communication.

“We found,” Dr. Levine said, “that people got into these relationships because they didn’t want commitment. It was perceived as a safe relationship, at least at first. But also that there was this growing fear that the one person would become more attracted than the other.”

Yet, he added, the overall qualities of the relationships appeared to be true to the name. On standard psychological measures, they appeared more like friendships than romances.

Friends with benefits scored in the middle on a scale assessing intimacy and low on passion and commitment, the study found. “When scores were compared to previous findings with romantic couples, scores on all three dimensions were lower, with the largest differences observed in commitment followed by passion,” the authors wrote.

The relationships may be less common than reported. “Friends with benefits” appears to have become an umbrella term for a wide variety of sexual arrangements, some of which are quite familiar, Dr. Mongeau said.

In addition to budding romances, he said, the “friends” may also be former lovers who occasionally see each other or they may be people who hang out at the same places and now and then end up wrapped around each other, even though they are not really friends.

Dr. Mongeau said the study seemed to have captured the dissonant, circular thinking that characterized what it felt like for a friendship to enter treacherous territory.

“There’s clearly a strong desire to be with this other person, who fills important needs,” he added. “But at the same time, it’s as if I’m saying, ‘O.K., I’m not going to get passionately involved — because then it’s at risk of being a real romance.’”

Torat Hashem T’mima – G-d’s Law is perfect.

B”H
Torat Hashem T’mima – G-d’s Law is perfect.

The fact that Torah allows different types of relationships between men and women is part of the Divine will.
It takes into account the variety of situations people are in and different intentions men and women have when they decide to live together or get married.
Whenever people attempt to do some social engineering by amending Torah law or misinterpreting it to fit the current moral zeitgeist it creates many unintended consequences.
Forcing people to accept set level of responsibilities when entering a marriage (a contract whose substance should really depend on the couples personal individual wishes and circumstances) discourages them from marrying in the 1st place. Discouraging pilegesh relationships as something wrong or immoral increases adultery. There are ads on Craiglist of “frum” (ultra-Orthodox religious) married Jewish men seeking frum married Jewish women to sleep with to avoid being blackmailed (as both would have much to lose in such a case). A situation that will not exist when rabbis will teach truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The rabbis who don’t care about their followers violating isurei kores – Torah prohibitions punishable by excision of the soul (such as committing adultery or having
sexual intercourse with a niddah because of the perpetuation of the barbaric Ashkenazi custom not to allow single women to use mikvah and misleading people about the status of a pilegesh relationships in our time should do a serious heshbon ha’nefesh – soul searching and some research of what actually goes on in their communities and see that they achieve the opposite of what is being intended.
Discouraging pilegesh relationships among singles increases depression among those who have the most faith in the words of the rabbis. It increases the numbers of people addicted to pornography (as this is a temptation that can be indulged in privately without facing social stigma).
Promoting a marriage contract to Noahides ( http://www.asknoah.org/HTML/noahide_marriage.html ) that includes unconditional obligations that are not required by either Torah law or law of the land discourages more intelligent among them from getting married in Noahide ceremony while having the potential to inflict extra pain on men entering such an agreement in case of a divorce later on.
(Please don’t misunderstand this is not a critique of the marriage contract presented on AskNoah.org nor the site itself which is an excellent resource just the way it is presented .)
I believe people who want to observe Torah – the word of G-d should be honestly presented with all permitted options and given an ability to choose what is appropriate for them.
To write:

“In traditional commentaries on the book of Genesis, it is explained that in Biblical times, the strongest category of marriage relationship was established by the husband and wife making a marriage contract. For instance, Laban had a marriage contract with his wife who bore Rachel and Leah, but he did not make a contract with his wife who bore Bilha and Zilpa.”

as Rabbi Immanuel Schochet or the staff of http://www.askNoah.org does displays elitism and lack of vision. Women like Bilha and Zilpa (or those like them in our time) would have no husband if a marriage contract would be demanded. In fact they wouldn’t even be born as Lavan wouldn’t marry their mother. By disallowing such relationship we would have erased more than half of the tribes of Yisrael who were born to them and are removing such people and their descendants from the ranks of Noahide or Jewish communities.
Similarly Rabbi Gil Student on his popular Jewish blog Hirhurim has a discussion on the permissibility of pilegesh relationships in our time and concludes that the bottom line is he would want his daughter to be Sarah not Hagar a wife not a pilegesh.
This arrogant shortsighted elitist attitude common to Christian clergy and many in the Ashkenazi Rabbinate leads to a many unintended consequences for the society.
It perverts normal interaction between men and women. It creates a type of Jewish community that looks down on people who do things that the Torah allows which are frowned upon in the hypocritical Christian society.
A relationship between man and woman that Torah allows, should not be actively discouraged. Both marriage and cohabitation (pilagshut) a monogamous one or a polygamous one are permitted in the Torah. One shouldn’t try to be smarter than G-d and force or trick people into accepting a supposed “higher standard” that may not be appropriate for them.
There is no longer any reason to do this in a free society that we live in.
This is especially so when we are dealing with Noahides people who come out of Christian background rejecting it. To present the “Torah of the exile” to them is unwise. To achieve the true redemption for ourselves and the world the rabbis and rabbinic judges of Yisrael must embrace Torah morality that provides different options for different people in different situations allowing as many people as possible to be a proud part of our community. It is not our job to try to force everyone to become angels causing many to become burned out hypocrites people who fulfill the Torah by rote as an instruction of men if at all.
Each one of the 12 tribes of Israel has a different blessing various nations among the descendants of Noah also have different blessings. Some are suited to be Torah scholars , some artists some merchants some are doctors some are warriors etc. One shouldn’t present one particular type of relationship “strongest category of marriage” as AskNoah.org calls it as an ideal for all these different people in different stages of life.
We shouldn’t present Judaism as a turnkey canned system with a cookie cutter morality.
The Creator of the Universe made Torah to be an instruction for living in this world not a set of pointless decrees. Torah is an instruction for living as a Jew or as a Noahide it is not an instruction how to out-Christian the Christians or out-Muslim the Muslims out-Conservative the Conservatives or out-Liberal the Liberals. It is not the job of the rabbis in the time of redemption to create brainwashed slaves for various Pharohs. We must teach people to be leaders to proudly obey G-d’s law without trying to conform to some artificial man made standard that seems to be currently more popular. By blindly adopting the standards of others as ideal standards for marriage , divorce etc. we adopt the shortcomings and unintended consequences of these standards.
May G-d Almighty grant wisdom and courage to us and or leaders to do what’s right in His eyes to merit to see complete and final redemption with our righteous Moshiach speedily in our days.

Poygamy tolerant rabbis list.

B”H
I am compiling a list of rabbis and Jewish communities tolerant of people
living in polygamy and or pilegesh relationships.
The list will also include kosher mikvahs that respect women’s privacy and don’t ask women if they are married as a condition of mikvah use.

(It has unfortunatly been a custom in many Ashkenazi communities to dictate Christian influenced morality and forbid un-married women from using the mikvah. Chaya mentions this issue in her story here: http://pilegesh.blogspot.com/2007/10/confession.html )
Please send your info to rabbi @ pilegesh.org or post it as a comment to this post.

New Jewish Pro-Polygamy web site.

B”H
The main posek (rabbinic adviser) ofthe pilegesh blog and personals has started his own web site http://emeslyaakov.com
He also has a blog http://jewishpolygamy.blogspot.com/
and his articles on polygamy from the point of view of Torah and Jewish tradition have been published on other sites such this blog and http://www.polygamy.com
He is an Ashkenazi born in America and is currently a Dayan (rabbinic judge) specializing in matters of marriage and divorce living in Jerusalem.

Purifying Waters

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Purifying Waters
Family Purity

By Tzvi Freeman

There is nothing more holy in this world, nothing more precious to its Creator, than the union of a man and a woman. It is, after all, the fountain of life. What could be more precious than life — other than the source from which life comes?

And it is holy — because the first, pristine creation of a human being was as male and female as a single whole. That is the way we exist in G-d’s mind. And so, none of us can achieve wholeness until we regain that original oneness in both body and soul.

Precious things are kept in sealed boxes. Roses hide behind the thorns. There are clothes you wear to work or play, but there are also treasures in your wardrobe so beautiful, of such value, that they come out only at special The union of a man and a woman is so precious that if it is treated casually, without conditions or boundaries, it becomes ugly and even destructive times, under specific conditions. The union of a man and a woman is so precious that if it is treated casually, without conditions or boundaries, it becomes ugly and even destructive.

Which all goes to explain why in the Jewish way of life there is a cycle of union and separation between husband and wife. And why the most important institution of Jewish life, next to the home, is the mikveh that stands at the vortex of that cycle. Because precious things only stay beautiful when you follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

Enhancing Marriage

There is a very practical reason, as well, to keeping these rules: They keep things sparkling. After all, even swimming with tiger sharks can get pretty dull if it’s the daily fare. On the other hand, a plain stone, if it’s withheld for a while, becomes a coveted jewel. Modesty and the period of separation inject that flavor of the forbidden into a relationship.

Consistently, couples report their relationships rejuvenated when they start living by the rules of separation and mikveh. Perhaps that’s why mikveh parking lots have become so crowded in the past few decades as more and more young couples make it a part of their lives — some who have no other formal Jewish observance.

A Spa for the Soul

Today’s mikveh looks more like a fashionable spa than a ritualarium. Luxurious bath and powder rooms, complete with commode, bathtub and vanity have become the standard. Fresh towels, disposable slippers, a comfortable robe, soap, shampoo, nail clippers and all the other essentials necessary are usually provided.
The Kabbalists say that the spiritual state of the world depends on the sanctity of our relations as men and women

Many women talk about the immersion in the mikveh as a spiritual high, a state in which nothing stands between you and your G-d; a return to the innocence of birth; a sanctification of all that is feminine. In fact, it’s not just your soul and body that become spiritually uplifted — it’s your entire family and home.

Your Child’s Soul

There are three partners in the conception of every child: the mother, the father and the One Above.

The Talmud explains that the mother and father create the body, and One Above provides the breath of life. The Kabbalists take this a step further: also the spiritual self is a product of the tree-way partnership. For the G-dly soul is too lofty, too holy, to be contained within a physical body without protection. Just as an astronaut needs a spacesuit and a deep-sea diver needs an armored diving suit, so the soul needs an outfit that will allow it to survive and communicate with the body and the outside world. That survival suit is provided by the mother and father. It is fashioned according to their thoughts and conduct before and during conception, their modesty and their adherence to the rules of separation and immersion.

All the good deeds and thoughts a person accomplishes in a lifetime are through the medium of that “suit.” Even the life and blessings that a person receives from Above must come through it. The soul itself may be pure and luminous, but if its suit doesn¹t match, that light will have great difficulty breaking through.

That is why the Kabbalists say that the spiritual state of the world depends on the sanctity of our relations as men and women.

Where to Begin

The best way to learn about the mikveh is to consult your local rebbetzin or mikveh attendant. Men can talk with a rabbi. Visit www.mikvah.org for more information and essays, as well as a worldwide directory and photographs and virtual tours of mikvehs around the world.

Ask the Rabbi: The waiting game

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Ask the Rabbi: The waiting game
SHLOMO BRODY , THE JERUSALEM POST
Q I am not strictly observant, but like to think that I keep a modicum of kashrut. I’ve been asking religious friends how long to wait between eating milk and meat, and meat and milk. Their answers have been really conflicting. Is there a normative response?

A The confusion stems from the fact that this law represents an unresolved rabbinic debate that led to a plurality of legitimate practices. The different customs reflect historical development and geographical divisions and transcend contemporary denominational rifts.

While the prohibition of eating meat and milk together originates in the Bible, the rule to wait after consuming meat only appears in the Talmud. The first explicit discussion of this tradition emerges in the Amoraic period (200-500 CE), and ostensibly derives from a pious attempt to distance oneself from consuming milk with meat stuck in one’s teeth or its fatty taste lingering in the mouth. (The alleged fear of digesting both types together rarely appears in rabbinic sources.) Although some medieval scholars believed these concerns only applied to fleshy beef but not to chicken or meat extracts like soup broth, the scholarly consensus concluded not to distinguish between different meat products (Rema YD 89:3).

In the Talmudic passage, different sages discuss whether one needs to wipe his hands or wash his mouth before consuming the opposite type of food (Hulin 104b). Later in the Gemara, a recent oleh from Babylonia, from where this custom seemingly emerged, asked the sage Rabbi Yohanan how long he waited to eat milk after consuming meat. He responded, “I don’t wait!” The Talmud expresses bewilderment at this answer, and reinterprets him to state that one does not wait to eat meat after cheese.

Based on this statement, many conclude that there is no need to wait after consuming dairy, beyond a peripheral rinsing of the mouth. The first authority to explicitly mention waiting after eating cheese was Rabbi Meir of Rottenburg (13th century, Germany), who took on a personal stringency after once finding cheese stuck between his teeth. Although Rabbi Shlomo Luria spurned this practice, his younger 16th-century contemporary Rabbi Moshe Isserles ruled that one should wait to eat meat following the consumption of hard cheese, because its thick and fatty texture might cause similar problems as meat. This encompasses uncooked cheese that was aged for six months, like Parmesan.

The most important section of the Gemara records Mar Ukva’s confession that while his pious father waited 24 hours after consuming meat before eating dairy products, he only waited “until the next meal.” Mar Ukva did not quantify this standard, leaving a normative ambiguity that was interpreted differently by commentators around the world. Maimonides – followed by Spanish and Provencal sages – ruled that one must wait “about six hours” before eating dairy, basing himself on the ancient practice of consuming two meals a day (Shabbat 10a). While Rabbi Yosef Karo understood this to mean a complete six hours (Shulhan Aruch YD 89:1), others, like R. Menahem Hameiri (Magen Avot 9), spoke of waiting five to six hours, colloquially known as “into the sixth hour.” A compromise interpretation asserted that without formal clocks, Maimonides could not demand an exact time, and therefore five and a half hours was sufficient.

The medieval sages of Germany and northern France (Tosafot), however, understood “until the next meal” literally. They asserted that once a person recited grace after meals, cleared the table and rinsed his mouth, he could immediately begin another meal with dairy products. Their 15th-century successors, such as Rabbi Yisrael Isserlein, declared to wait one hour, a practice that Dutch Jews still follow. As Ashkenazic Jewry moved to Eastern Europe, however, many sages strongly urged their followers to observe Maimonides’ ruling. This stringency ultimately became the dominant Ashkenazic practice.

German Jewry took a middle position to wait three hours. This might represent the amount of time between meals in their locality, or a compromise between the different opinions. Textual references to this custom, however, remain very sparse. In a recent article, Aviad Stolman has traced the first record of this practice to a 1492 manuscript. (An alleged earlier citation by Rabbenu Yeruham appears to be a scribal error.) Much to the chagrin of contemporary authorities, many Jews of Eastern European and Sephardic origin adopted this custom, sometimes out of convenience. While Rabbi Shlomo Auerbach ruled that all Jews should abandon this custom, this practice appears well established in select communities.

When a person does not have a firm family custom, I would recommend waiting at least five hours. For someone who desires only to “keep a modicum of kashrut,” however, some rabbis might recommend a shorter option to help you maintain a legitimate minimum standard. Please consult with a local rabbi to determine the most appropriate practice for you.

The writer, a rabbi, is the online editor of TraditionOnline.org and teaches in Jerusalem, where he is pursuing a doctorate in Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University. upfront@jpost.com

Father of 67 Seeks Ninth Wife

B”H

Father of 67 Seeks Ninth Wife

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(IsraelNN.com) According to an article in Yediot Acharonot, 58-year-old Israeli Arab Shahdah Abu Arar, the Israeli citizen with the most children, is looking for a ninth wife. Abu Arar currently has eight wives, 67 children, and 20 grandchildren. While Israeli law prohibits polygamy, many Muslim men marry multiple women in Islamic ceremonies.

Abu Arar said he does not spend much time with his older wives, and that his wives stay at home while he and the children work. Two of his younger wives are pregnant, he said.

The Interior Ministry recognizes 53 of Abu Arar’s children, while 14 are not Israeli citizens. The Israeli citizen with the second highest number of children is Omer Gavar, an Arab Muslim with 39 children by several wives.

The Confession

It’s all well and good to talk about the concept of pilegesh in theory. But I am one, so I know what it’s like in the real world.

I’d like to say up front that I do not agree with married men having a pilegesh. It’s not necessarily about halacha but because when people get married nowadays, implicitly they have made a promise to be monogamous to that person. And that promise is binding until that marriage ends.

Also, it upsets me when people use the framework of pilegesh to justify promiscuity. In order to be a pilegesh, you need to keep the rules. Taharat hamishpacha and all that entails. Making sure there is a three month gap between relationships.

I’ve been a pilegesh for three years with two different men (not at the same time obviously). I keep all the rules. If you saw me in the street I’d look the same as the other girls. The desperate, naive shidduch daters. I’m frum. I went to a religious high school. So you’re probably wondering why I decided to be a pilegesh to begin with.

It wasn’t something I planned on. Once I turned eighteen, it seemed I would have to get married to be able to act on the feelings I’d been having for a few years. I didn’t like the idea of having to settle down, but it didn’t seem I had a choice. Then I met a girl who changed my life. She was a few years older than me and introduced me to the idea. Not long after, I met my first boyfriend. And that’s it in a nutshell.

There have been a few major challenges. I had to find a mikvah where no one would question me or recognize me. That didn’t turn out to be so hard. I had to learn the halachos out of books instead of learning it from a kallah teacher. And of course, I have to keep it a secret. What I’m doing is not acceptable in the frum community. I understand why it can’t be. If everyone did this, chaos would ensue.

It’s hard sometimes. I wonder why I bother. If it’s not a kosher relationship, why follow all the rules? The answer is that I believe what I’m doing is halachically valid, even if it’s not accepted. I’m glad that I don’t have to get married in order to have this kind of relationship. Sure it can be difficult, but on the whole I feel it’s liberating.

Help yourself and Pilegesh.org

B”H
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