Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Orthodox tackle premarital sex dilemma

Orthodox tackle premarital sex dilemma

"Orthodox lay leaders and rabbis met in Jerusalem Monday night to discuss the growing phenomenon of premarital sexual relations among religious couples."

This is where the modern orthodox have gone completely astray. This is both against halacha and against the spirit of Judaism. This is the western culture of gratification taking over. The answer is not to give in and condone improper behavior but to educate and teach people proper behavior.

R' Shachter has said many times that chazal when they found that people were violating an עבירה or not being careful about something made a גזירה to move people further away from the עבירה, today the modern orthodox answer is the opposite, permit it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And did it work back then?

Eli said...

As an orthodox that lives in Israel I think the article your quoting is misleading.
The people in נאמני תורה ועבודה are a fringe group and not mainstream orthodox.

That said you must understand that all Jews in Israel are under the supervision of the rabanoot even those that are not religious.

In the general none-orthodox population premarital sex is quite common.
It is quite common for couples to live together for several years before marrying.
many of the semi-religous people might observe nidda if you would allow them to.

So your mission should you accept it is to decide what is worse, allowing people to live with a פילגש which according to some ראשונים is OK and by others not, and reduce the incidents of ממזרים and niddah problems, Or you could say מותב יהיו שוגגים ואל יהיו מזידים.
anyway you look at it it is not a simple problem.
And you don't have the option of saying this is someone else's problem.