Part 6 in Jewish Wisdom for the Everyday Man: a guide through the modern maze of morality from ancient Jewish Sages.

Society is obsessed with sex. Attitudes, morals and even definitions of sex are changing radically. Jewish values, by contrast, have hardly changed at all, and for good reason.

Holy sex

Like everything in Jewish thinking that was created by God, sex cannot be bad, moral or immoral by itself. The time, place and purpose of any action determines whether it is ethical or unethical. When the sexual act is performed in a proper, God-given way, it is an act of holiness, and actually called kiddushin (holiness) in Hebrew.

According to the Talmud, God himself is present with husband and wife during sex, and that’s a beautiful thing. During the Jewish wedding ceremony, family and friends all sing together out loud in celebration of the joy the newlyweds are about to experience in the wedding bed. A far cry from the stalwart absence of...

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