Aristotelian Specificity in Jewish Ethics: The Two Pleasures and the Path to Temperance

Introduction: The Scope of Temperance

Instructor: Okay, so today’s shiur [shiur: Torah lecture/class] is about how to bring Moshiach [Moshiach: the Messiah]. Of course, like every other shiur, I don’t know, you’ll tell me how. But of course, it’s about the most exciting subject, which brings Moshiach, which is sex.

So since we discussed last shiur about eating, and we discussed that the midah [midah: character trait/virtue], perishut [perishut: abstinence/separation], or temperance, or kedusha [kedusha: holiness], or whatever you want to call it, relates only to specific physical pleasures, pleasures of the sense of touch. Turns out there’s only two of them. Right? And those are food and a bed [euphemism for sexual relations].

Why Only Two Pleasures Count

Why is there only two? There might be other sensory pleasures. We talked about this a little bit, did we? But they don’t count. Because they’re good pleasures. So, in other words, nobody says someone is not temperate because they like to work out too much.

Or even… working out—no physical pleasure? Yeah, getting massages, working out with taste, going to the shower or to the bathhouse, things like that. They are pleasures of the sense of touch, but they don’t count for our purposes.

Student: Did you ever hear of like a big ba’al ta’avah [ba’al ta’avah: one who pursues physical desires] about…?

Instructor: Yeah, I go to the bathroom—another example. Yeah, I mean there’s some pleasure in it and it’s something that you feel in your body, literally in the sense of touch, but it doesn’t count. Lama kach [lama kach: why so]? Did you ever hear of someone like saying a big ba’al ta’avah goes to the bathroom a lot and enjoys it too much? I never heard of someone saying that. Did I ever hear of someone saying a big ba’al ta’avah goes to the mikvah [mikvah: ritual bath] too much? Okay, whatever. People do say that. Right? But it’s still not the same.

It’s not like you’re not a… you’re not like a… I don’t know, how do you call someone that’s too… too big ba’al ta’avah in Yiddish. I know how to say it in Yiddish. You’re not too dissipated or something if you hang out too much at the bathhouse. Unless people mean other things by that.

In general, we don’t say that, do we? There are some like real chanyakas [chanyakas: overly pious/ascetic individuals] that say that taking a shower is too gashmi [gashmi: physical/materialistic], so you shouldn’t take showers too much. But I don’t actually think that’s correct. Those same chanyakas, they go to the mikvah all the time, and a mikvah is supposed to be just being clean. Of course, if the mikvah is dirty, then it’s like only a lam’deshim [unclear term] mikvah, it’s not a real mikvah, it’s only a bedan [unclear term]. But still, you see that there’s a dissonance here, right?

Anyway, that’s not our discussion. But Aristotle said that those don’t count. Those are pleasures of free men. We’re talking about only these two pleasures are pleasures of slaves.

I don’t think you could find, like, you might find, like I said, some people… I don’t think you could find in places like what people call Chazal [Chazal: the Talmudic sages], I don’t think you could find anything against using the shower too much. Actually, even against the pleasure of, like, sports.

The Sports Digression: Distinguishing General from Specific Discussions

I know a lot of people give this drasha [drasha: sermon/homily] about Hanukkah, that sports is about the body, and so on. And that’s a very old religious act, we used to say it already. But it’s still not about temperance. It’s about some more general discussion, which we’re not talking about today.

Nobody would say it like a ta’avah [ta’avah: desire/lust]. They would say you shouldn’t be taking too much care of your body, there’s a limit to that, things like that, which belong to a very general discussion, which is very important. We discussed this already in Tushim [unclear reference].

The Methodological Foundation: Specificity vs. Generality

It’s very important to distinguish between the very specific discussion that we’re having now and the more general discussion, which this can be subsumed under, but what we’re trying to do is get away from that, right?

It’s like a very general discussion where you could make temperance or this question of relation to the body and its pleasures as the central… includes everything. Like, kol ha’perakim [kol ha’perakim: all the chapters/all of life] is about going after your soul and not after your body. That’s what it says in Tanya [Tanya: foundational text of Chabad Hasidism]. That’s what Plato said sometimes.

But we’re trying to get away from that, right? We’re trying to be very specific. Like Aristotle said. And like, who else was on this shit of being very specific? Very specific about…

Student: Now, like, ethics in general, like, not really?

Instructor: No, yeah, not a goy [goy: non-Jew].

Student: Moshe [Moses].

Instructor: Exactly, Moshe. The halacha [halacha: Jewish law] doesn’t ever talk in generalities, never says you should love your soul and not your body. It gives all these details. You should eat shalosh seudos [shalosh seudos: three meals] only on Shabbos [Shabbos: the Sabbath] and not on the weekdays. It doesn’t literally say that, but things on that level of detail.

And you should use the shower, but not when you’re an avel [avel: mourner] and not on Tisha B’Av [Tisha B’Av: the Ninth of Av, a fast day] or things like that, right?

Halacha as Aristotelian Method

So the halacha is actually Aristotelian in that sense. It does not very much believe in generalities, believes very much in speaking about very specific things, and the good and bad is always defined, like Aristotle would say, in the how much and the what and the what object and in which times and which place and for which person and with which people and in which ways. Those are the four, five, six different definitions that he gives for how do you know good and bad, right?

That’s a very important point. It’s an aristocratic definition in some sense.

Student: Aristocratic in the sense of that we’re going to talk about like the correct foods…

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s true. But in general, it’s a lot more general. It’s like instead of saying… like this is the Ramban’s [Ramban: Nachmanides, medieval Torah scholar] complaint about halacha, right? It assumes a certain variety of experience, right? There is a variety… slaves for example, right, right. Slaves because… because so slaves or very poor people…

But let’s, let me… we’re jumping back to where we were last week. I’m just saying the very general point that if there’s like this conflict and we’re trying to get away from that. I’m saying we’re talking about a very specific thing, and so we’re going to talk… I’m going to try to give very specific examples, although it’s not mustard [unclear—possibly “standard”] philosophy. We’re not supposed to talk about the very specifics.

Why Specificity Matters: Ethics as Practical Art

But the reason for this is because there’s this opinion here, a very important opinion or method, that says that, like we said, since ethics is a practical art, it’s not a theoretical art, what we look after is things that help us practically, that we can use. And since all human actions exist in the world of particular things, nobody loves women, they love a woman.

You’re not friends with man, you’re friends with a man. There’s a difference in a particular, in a… what do you call it… a genus, a universal. Like the difference between between a Yid [Yid: Jew] and a goy. A Yid hates every Yid but loves the Yid [the specific individual Jew]. And the goy, all love the Yid [Jews in the abstract] but they hate the opposite—they hate the Jews [as individuals] but they like… this Jew is good.

So anyways, loving people means loving specific people, not the generalities of them, because that’s not very useful. So, right.

The Uselessness of Abstract Hashkafah

This is also why, like, having the correct hashkafah [hashkafah: Jewish philosophical worldview] is useless, because hashkafah is all about generalities. Like, “I love the Torah.” Okay, so which masechta [masechta: Talmudic tractate] do you like best? You don’t really know, you don’t really love the Torah too much. That’s the important point.

If someone says, “I love Yiddishkeit [Yiddishkeit: Judaism/Jewish life] so much,” you say, okay, so which Yom Tov [Yom Tov: Jewish holiday] is your favorite? That’s… because love, human love, like again, on the level of the body and the body’s soul composite, like the human being that we’re talking about right now, not the soul as it is before it came down to earth or whatever, right?

You have to love things that are embodied, that are particular. You can say emotional, but still emotional—our emotions are human emotions, are always pertaining to particulars. Almost nobody has emotions about like the concept of something. You have emotions towards specific things.

Like we’re going to get to about the pleasures, to how they can be specific. That’s my point for today. But is that what I’m saying?

Okay, this is the back, but I’m just saying that this is like an Aristotelian point, the big insight, one of the big insights of Aristotle on everything, but also on ethics, is that talking about the good in very general, or very general terms, of like you should go after the things of the soul, of the intellect, not of the body, doesn’t help you as much as talking about specific things.

Of course, there is… Do you get… We’re on this. We get this.

The Platonic Critique and the Ramban’s Complaint

Okay, there’s of course a criticism of this that Plato makes in the Phaedo [Plato’s Phaedo: dialogue on the immortality of the soul], and says that that moderation ends up being only switching one pleasure for another at the end of the day.

You can hear this from Mashgiach HaMasah [unclear reference—possibly a specific Torah authority]. Like if someone…

Student: What? Yeshayahu [Isaiah]?

Instructor: I don’t think Yeshayahu said that. Why? Why do you say that? Is that his critique of shavtzei ha’mashgiach ha’masah [unclear phrase]?

Student: No, no, I don’t think so.

Instructor: I’m not sure. I don’t know how you would get to… I’m not sure where you… No, but the point would be like… Because what we’re saying is that… Like the halacha said, right? The halacha never says you should not enjoy pleasures of the body, pleasures of the flesh. What it does say is that you should only enjoy it in a specific time, in a specific place, with the correct person. Like, right?

There’s no halacha that says one should enjoy sex less. It says you should only do it with…

Student: Are you sure whether it resonates in the person ultimately? Like, if your ethics is a contextual ethics, which is…

Instructor: No, it depends. No, but wait until I’m finished. This is how the halacha works. Is that true? Right.

The Ramban’s Objection: Naval Bi-Reshut HaTorah

And this is the Ramban’s complaint about halacha, alright? Ramban literally comes on the beginning of Parashat Kedoshim [Parashat Kedoshim: the Torah portion “You shall be holy”] and complains about it, and says that you could still end up being a bad person because you love the body, and you’re a big ba’al ta’avah, just you never eat something non-kosher, or you never sleep with an ervah [ervah: forbidden sexual relation], but you’re still… he literally calls it, you’re still… where’s Ari that came with the lashon [lashon: language/wording] of Ramban last week?

He still calls it, “shoteh bi-zimas ishto” [shoteh bi-zimas ishto: literally “debauched with the licentiousness of his wife”]. Which is a very weird formulation, because the definition of znut [znut: sexual immorality] in halacha is not ishto [ishto: his wife]. Zimas ishto doesn’t really make sense in the original language.

But Ramban, since he’s a kind of a Platonist, he’s like, well, the whole point of all of this is to get away from the pleasures of the body. And you’re telling me that some pleasures of the body are good.

The Deeper Platonic Objection

And here there’s an even deeper criticism, which Plato might make. You could say, okay, and even if you say, well, you should do it in moderation, everything in moderation. You say, why? Because if you lust after too many women, you’ll end up losing your wife. And then you won’t have any pleasure. Something like that. So it turns out it’s all in the service of pleasure. So we’re still stuck in the same loop. He still didn’t get out of the body. And pleasures of the body aren’t the ultimate human good. We’re not at all a human good.

Student: Does Plato have what we call the framework of midah [midah: measure/virtue]? Or does he just have data?

Instructor: He does, but it’s complicated. He doesn’t mean so far as data is… Okay, we’re not doing Plato today. I’m just telling you, you should know this. This is not a shiur of Plato. There is not as much as Aristotle. Aristotle has a lot more. I’ll tell you in a lot more detail about this for this reason.

Of course, there’s this theater [possibly “tension”] between the Republic [Plato’s Republic] and the Phaedo, as I just told you. The Republic has the famous four cardinal virtues. But that’s it. That’s not our shiur.

Conclusion: Setting Aside the General Framework

I’m just saying that to distinguish this question from this. So we’re not doing that. We’re not doing this very general thing where pleasures of the body are bad for some reason. Therefore, yeah.

The Limits of Ascetic Theory and the Problem of Ta’aniyos (Fasting)

The Impracticality of General Discussions About Bodily Pleasure

Instructor: Because that, in some sense, either it’s too general a question, or that’s one criticism they can make, it doesn’t really help me. And as I say, practically, basically as many *drashos* [sermons/lectures] as you hear about the body not being interesting, nobody stops liking pleasures of the body. Not very practical to work on that for most people. That’s one thing.

Student: Maybe this is still off base, but is this all towards the political human?

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, that’s the discussion. Yeah, but yes, the Platonist thing would be to say that you’re not solving the human as he is, you’re only solving the political human. And Aristotle would agree with that, but it’s a different discussion.

Yeah, what I’m saying is that we’re not doing that. And I said that there’s two criticisms of that. One is that it’s not as useful. In my opinion, as many *shi’itim* [lessons] and *rishonim* [early medieval rabbinic authorities] and *mussar* [ethical teachings] that you, as you hear about how pleasures of the body are not good, you still like them. So people never make progress for the most, unless they die, right? Unless they’re—only if you die do you make progress towards that, which is why the *Phaedo* [Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul] says you should always try to die as much as you could, and the *Gemara* [Talmud] of the second *perek* [chapter] says that, right? There’s a *Nedarim* [tractate of the Talmud] said that, to Alexander *Mokdon* [Alexander the Great], the *resha’im* [wicked] and the *tzaddikim* [righteous], same as to *tzaddikim*—you should stop living because living definitely means loving pleasures of the body and that’s a bad thing.

So since we’re talking about, like you say, political people, or in a more different way of saying it, normal people who are not going to get to that, and trying to talk about that, I think jumping levels is not recommended. And there’s a lot, a lot of *drasha* [sermon/lecture] to be said on that point, but this is not either our *drasha* today. So we could skip that and not talk about that.

Two Distinct Criticisms of Abstract Anti-Body Discourse

Like I said, that’s one reason why I think it’s less useful. The other reason why it’s less useful—and just to be clear, that criticism is something that even someone that agrees with the second criticism could agree with, right? Because the second criticism, the second kind of discussion about talking about pleasures of the body in the very general sense, would be coming out of a very general opinion that says that the ultimate good, like you’re saying, is not to live in this world. Living in this world is kind of overrated. Life is overrated. Life in a body is overrated. It’s like a prison, remember? And it would be better off living amongst the stars or something, contemplating the god or something.

But anyways, that’s another opinion. And of course, you can disagree with that whole opinion and say, like, what’s his name? Like, Henry David Thoreau said, “One world at a time.” Okay, first let’s try to have a good life here and we’ll think about that. That’s one way of putting it.

But then you get into discussion: is it true? Like, is the *Mesillas Yesharim* [Path of the Just, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto], first chapter, correct that living in this world is a kind of waste of time? Or is the—who, *Moshe Rabbeinu* [Moses our teacher]—correct, who said that’s kind of a good thing too, right? I don’t remember which is which. It doesn’t matter. They’re both, right? It’s important to have a good life in this world too. So then you can get to that discussion, right?

Even Ascetics Endorse Moderation as the Practical Path

But even, let’s go back, even the people that say that there isn’t a point, the point of the Torah, the Torah didn’t come to give you a good life in this world. Did it? Did it not? Very important question. Ask your *Rosh Yeshiva* [head of the yeshiva]. Do you think you didn’t have a better life in *Olam HaZeh* [this world]? You’ve probably heard of a *midrash* [rabbinic homiletical teaching] that only *Olam HaBa* [the World to Come] has *Olam HaZeh* and so on, but anyways, not for now.

But even if you agree that *Olam HaZeh* is overrated, still not useful for most people to talk about how *gashmi’im* [bodily/material] pleasures are useless. This is why even people that believe that still believe that *Halacha* [Jewish law] allows you to enjoy life with *Olam HaZeh*, only within moderation. Within moderation, because that’s actually attainable and only attainable. Also would be the correct step towards the separation from those pleasures, instead of just jumping levels, which is never recommended. Okay?

Very good. *Kol zeh l’fi HaRambam, perek zayin d’Hilchos De’os* [All of this according to the Rambam, chapter seven of Laws of Character Traits]. I’m unfortunately not *maskil* [knowledgeable/expert] with *l’fi HaRambam*. Not me, I’m not *l’fi HaRambam*, so it’s fine, right?

Well, of course, *l’fi HaRambam* would probably agree with you by saying that most people are not going to be *perushim* [ascetics/separated ones] in his way, and that doesn’t require that. Although there’s a separate *mitzvah* [commandment] called *kedoshim tihyu* [you shall be holy], which does require that, but in practice it’s variable, right? It’s not—what kind of way does it give when people fall under? It’s giving people love the body way, way too much. That’s where they fall under. That’s a whole different *shi’ur* [lesson]. It’s giving people love the body so much that they actually want to make the body different, like really want to work with their body. That’s a different *drasha* [sermon/lecture].

The Problem of Ta’aniyos: Pain Is Not Endorsed by Standard Ascetic Theories

Okay, well, none of this has to do with *ta’aniyos* [fasts], right? *Ta’aniyos* is pain, like specifically looking for pain in the body. According to none of these theories basically promote *ta’aniyos*. Neither the Rambam nor the Ramban [Nachmanides] promote *ta’aniyos*, right? Even the most extreme asceticism that you can find in the Ramban or in *Kabbalah* [Jewish mysticism] and so on would say that pleasures of the body don’t count, but they wouldn’t say that pain of the body is better. Like, why would that be? Why would that one follow?

And you could only understand *ta’aniyos*, like I said, the real way is to understand it as people who love the body way too much. Or maybe they’re correct for that, but I’m switching it. It’s a bodily avoidance. You could say that it’s a question if it works. It’s usually the opposite. Pain makes you care about the body too much.

The Rambam’s Objection: Fasting Increases Bodily Awareness

One of the reasons not to fast—why are we giving this *shi’ur* [lesson]? One of the reasons he said you shouldn’t fast is because when you fast you become too *gashmiyim* [materialistic/bodily focused]. People don’t know this, of course. This is weird. We’ll get to this, but you’ll notice, because when did you ever—you know, people say that in *Yom Kippur* [Day of Atonement] you’re like a *malach* [angel], you don’t feel your body? That’s actually not true. *Yom Kippur* is one of the days where you feel your body more than any other day, right? Right?

Basic problem, because that is—and it’s a *p’kitzer* [unclear term, possibly “paradox” or “difficulty”], and maybe that’s the answer, that it’s meant for that. It’s unlike—we should say, if I get to *drasha* [sermon/lecture] *Yom Kippur*, *Yom Kippur* and *ta’aniyos* are about realizing that you do live in a body. Because if you eat, you’re fine and you could not notice the body too much. But when you don’t eat, you notice, “Wait, I do need a body,” and it’s your body that hurts you.

So being in pain actually makes you lose your *madregas* [spiritual level]. In general, being in pain is not recommended for things. Of course, some people have used it for education of some sorts, and there’s other reasons.

Classroom Discussion: Can Pain Produce Transcendence?

Student: I mean, I thought that part of the idea is that eating causes a certain affinity for the body, and pain causes a certain hate?

Instructor: When you have pain, you hate your body?

Student: If you like so much pain that you’re—

Instructor: Yeah, you can do that with pleasure too. That’s what you think, I think. Maybe, maybe it’s that—

Student: That’s what—can I—no, not being hungry.

Instructor: Okay, so you’re saying that you can get—yeah, you can get like sort of some transcendence. But by the way, you can do that from eating too much too, can’t you?

Student: You can’t.

Instructor: So maybe we never eat enough to get to that.

Student: When you don’t—no, everyone’s mind works better when they don’t eat.

Instructor: I mean, when they eat moderately.

Student: No, that’s not correct. When they eat moderately.

Instructor: When they eat moderately, because if you eat too much, if you eat too much, then you become tired. That’s just a physical problem, and most people we tend over it. But your mind doesn’t actually work better when you’re when you’re fasting. You’re like—you could like get to like these weird, weird states. But then they get into a question, like, do you want to be sober or drunk? Like, that’s a different question.

But anyways, that’s—that would be a theory. But like I said, that’s not specifically a theory of pain. That’s like the *gashmiyus*—I don’t want to say things. The point is, there’s people that do that specifically for pleasure, and it’s just like a way of getting high. Like, pain can get you high. Why not? You get high from pain. From anything that overwhelms you.

Basically, I think the theory is that anything that overwhelms your sensory input system can push you out of that. Whether it’s too much ecstasy, or too much happiness, or too much pain, it doesn’t matter. Any too much, it’s a too much of it. Like, people get dissociated from trauma, things like that. That’s basically what—that depends an amount of—depending on if you think that’s a good thing.

Student: Right, but it’s just an amount of—

Instructor: Okay, moving on.

An Alternative Theory: The Payment Model of Ta’aniyos

Moving on, that would be one theory of *ta’aniyos*. Another theory of *ta’aniyos* would be like the payment theory, right? This is the *Chassidei Ashkenaz* [Pietists of medieval Germany] theory of *teshuvah hamishkal* [penitence through measured recompense], right? Since they had a theory that pleasure in this world is a good thing, right? It’s also based on pleasure being a good thing. It’s a good that you deserve, that there’s a desert in this. You deserve some pleasure.

But if you stole the pleasure, like, you have to pay for the pleasure that you have in this world. And if you had pleasure in sin, then you got stolen pleasure. You have stolen pleasure, so you have to pay back for that pleasure. So you have to balance the accounts by having some pain. That’s the theory of *ta’aniyos*, if you buy that theory.

Critique: This Is an Extremely Gashmiyus Theory

But as I said, that’s a very *gashmiyim* theory. Just to be clear, it’s not an abstract theory. It’s an extremely *gashmiyim* theory. You get what I’m saying, right? Takes bodily pleasure extremely seriously and literally keeps accounts, and you’ll be paying credits and like—

Like, there was a guy that said that *Pinchas Koritzer* [Pinchas of Koretz, Hasidic master], the *Chassidim* [Hasidim] were against this because of this reason, because *Pinchas Koritzer* said that he knew a guy that before the—whatever, in the winter, whenever he was less, less, how do you call it, I don’t know, he wasn’t so, and there’s bodily pleasure.

Aristotle’s Distinction Between Natural and Chosen Pleasures: Implications for Sexual Ethics and Contemporary Materialism

Concluding Remarks on Theories of Suffering

Instructor: If you buy that theory, but as I said, that’s a very Magishim digi [מגושם/materialistic, physical] theory, just to be clear. It’s not an abstract theory. It’s an extremely Magishim digi theory, you get what I’m saying, right? Takes bodily pleasure extremely seriously, and literally keeps accounts and you’ll be paying credits, and like there was a guy that said that Rechach [a Chassidic rebbe] said, the Chassidim were against this because of this reason because Rechach said that he knew a guy that before the, whatever, in the winter whenever he was in the less, how do you call it, I don’t know, he wasn’t so in his bodily pleasure weren’t available so he would fast to get credit for all the HaVadis [pleasures] that he could do the next few months. He wrote down have 40 fasts and I could have 40 HaVadis and then he might as well do it that way. People hold this about Adam HaRishon [Adam, the first man] for the same reason.

Student: Yeah, there’s a—

Instructor: That I’m going to answer that there. Yeah. Okay, so that was all our theories of Suguthim [suffering]. If you’re a Christian that believes in the suffering God, then there’s a different theory of Suguthim which is to participate in the passion of Christ, or if you’re a Jew that believes in Salash Chana [Sabbateanism, a heretical Jewish movement] that would be a different, a third reason for having sycophim [suffering] explicitly. But anyways, this is not generally accepted in most major Jewish theological philosophical movements, they do not accept pain as a goal, even the ascetic ones.

Returning to the Main Topic: The Correct Measure of Bodily Pleasures

Instructor: Okay, so nach leonani [so let’s move on], we’re not talking about that, like I said, because we’re talking about this very particular thing, and this very particular thing called the correct middah [measure] of very specific bodily pleasures, and we said take out even specific some bodily pleasures we take out of this even smell we don’t we don’t not go this and this and we’re speaking specifically about food and sex.

Okay, and now last week we discussed a very interesting hillock [distinction] that Aristotle made. I think has been under-noticed at least I think it’s very useful and connects with a lot of things for me and it’s in your sheet from last week but you can see it there. There’s also a lot of discussion about pain by the way because let’s not get to that. It connects to what we discussed before. Because there’s always pain as the opposite of pleasure, so we have to talk about that. But I want to talk about this.

Aristotle’s Distinction: Common/Natural vs. Specific/Chosen Pleasures

Instructor: What we talked about was this, that Aristotle said that since what he has got after is the amount and the object, the kind, the amount, the setting, all these kind of things, which define the moderation, define the correct amount and the correct way of everything, the right reason, under the correct account. So, we have to first, in order to talk about that correctly, like the primary example of temperance, we have to separate two different parts of desire, right?

There’s those kinds of passion or appetite or desire or tava [תאווה/desire], whatever you want to call it, right?

Student: Is this a passion for pleasure in the sense that, I guess my follow-up question is, assuming pleasure is the alleviation of pain—

Instructor: So wait, so wait, so wait. We don’t believe that pleasure is the alleviation of pain. That is an Epicurean theory, and it’s not the Inflator [Aristotelian] theory or the Platonic theory. There is some pleasure that might be only that, and we’ll see about this in a second.

Student: But food and sex are not that?

Instructor: No, not only that.

Student: Not only that.

Instructor: So listen, no, not only that. That would be the point. So wait.

Student: Wait, wait.

Instructor: Right, so let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about this. Like I was saying, the question of pain, how it relates to this question of pleasure, is an important question, but let’s first talk about this distinction that he makes. It’s a very important distinction that he makes between something that he calls common and natural pleasures, and uncommon, specific, and chosen pleasures. Those are the two terms that we have on the two sides of these things.

We discussed this last week, whoever wasn’t here, or I don’t know if you’re common or specific, whichever it is. There’s common people also, right?

Defining the Two Categories

Instructor: Anyways, the common pleasures are things that humans like by nature and therefore all humans like, right? And then there is kind some pleasures that are not common, they’re specific—only some people like them. You could sometimes say only some cultures like them, only some groups of people like them and therefore seem to be more chosen, right?

So these two distinctions which seem to both trying to cut the same thing, right? There’s like two simonim [סימנים/signs], two signs of there being different levels. Like they talk about the same things that have to be different levels of the same pleasure, right? Ultimately we’re still gonna be talking about food and sex. We’re talking about like a different kind of different thing, but I would like call it different levels of the same thing, right? Which are split by these two signs sort of, right?

One side is something that’s common. If you want to turn on the air-conditioning if it’s a little hot there’s a remote over there on that wall. One is the how would I say something that everyone has which shows I guess that it’s natural because nature is what all humans share, the human nature, general human nature. And the other one would be the specific one which not everyone has.

[Brief exchange about air conditioning controls]

Instructor: It’s fine, don’t worry about me. It’s okay. Put on 71, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s cold over there, so make it not so. I don’t know. No, it makes a rotation. It doesn’t rotate, no?

Student: So, which pleasure is the air-conditioned seed?

Instructor: It’s another question. According to Aristotle, it’s not a problem. Like, there’s some Chaniok [Chassidic rebbe] that doesn’t use air-conditioned, because…

Student: Because it’s Tybus [תאוות/desires], Oedem Haase [of this world].

Instructor: The story of Chaniok is exactly that. No, there’s a story that he didn’t have air-conditioned, but then he realized that at Tzogesh Makda [it was causing him difficulty] he got it, basically. He’s like, you know, we’re just wasting his time.

Student: No, I think there’s a Torah [teaching] that he said that it’s Yishveh Tisrael [ישוב ארץ ישראל/settling the Land of Israel]. He started hating Yishveh Tisrael because it’s so hot over there, so you’ve got to put air-conditioned to not hate the Holy Land.

Instructor: It’s a big problem.

The Moral Significance of Choice

Instructor: Anyways, now, and things that are common are more natural, and we remember that one of our basic rules of morality, ethics, is that it’s more interesting, at least, more relevant to human good when it’s chosen, when it’s not natural, right? Being born with certain innate, so to speak, pleasures and desires, desires, desires for pleasures, right, isn’t very morally relevant, probably more medically relevant in some sense.

But choosing them, even if they choose them by education, right, Aristotle believes very much in education, like Plato, right, this is where the Rambam [Maimonides] Gareth Tanoik Esh-Shanishbi [גדר תינוק שנשבה/the category of a child raised in captivity] thought, they believe in education as almost the terminate of what a person will be. Khenekh [חינוך/education], right, Khenekh al-Alpidak [חנוך לנער על פי דרכו/educate a child according to his way], Uthar Shlomo Melech [King Solomon] believed in this very much. Another thing that doesn’t say in the Torah, but it’s a philosophical thought that we have Gavin Mishlin [from Proverbs] and all ancient philosophers are very big believers in education, right?

But education still counts as chosen, right? Although maybe it’s not a personal choice or for other reasons that we discussed a long time ago. It doesn’t count as non-human activities, although maybe a specific person can be excused for having a bad education in some sense, but that’s not the point, no. Right?

So things that are chosen or specific are more interesting morally because of them being chosen. Right? Those are the two kinds of things. Nachon [נכון/correct]? Stimmt [Yiddish: correct]?

Establishing the Framework

Instructor: Okay. So now, we talked about this last week. Now, it’s Azoy [Yiddish: so]. Now it’s Azoy. What’s the sha’ale [שאלה/question] here about these things? Now it’s Azoy. The question is like this. Which one of these…

So, two questions, right? First question, first thing we have to establish, which maybe we established last week, or maybe not, is that that it’s correct, it’s the correct analysis, it’s the correct understanding to talk about certain desires, which are physical desires, right? Remember, we’re not up to anything non-physical. Desires for physical pleasure, but nevertheless are chosen, right? They’re not the same thing as the natural aspect of them, or the natural level of them, right? They might be bound, bounded somewhat by the natural, like you can’t start liking pieces of rocks in general, but they’re still different enough from the physical not to reduce to them.

Student: Culture is a choice, culture is culture, it’s education, and they literally like them, but it’s a cultural, a chosen thing, therefore it should be more correct to talk about good and bad or correct to measure in those things than in the previous things, make sense?

Instructor: Yes.

The Contemporary Challenge: Materialism and the Reduction of Desire

Instructor: But first, just to be clear, the fact that these things exist is not a question, not in doubt. The question nowadays in like contemporary thought, the question if this should be taken as a separate kind of pleasure, a second kind of desire, is very much in doubt, right? Because of our materialist dogmas, right?

And I actually asked the search and I found that there’s a few books been written about this question already, specifically around the question of sex, because of the whole contemporary machilochis [מחלוקת/dispute] about is it possible to talk about specific sexual preferences as better or worse, and this seems to go back to this question of do we see—

The “Born This Way” Argument and Its Philosophical Incoherence

Instructor: Right, so the like “born this way” argument, which is a very philosophically incoherent argument, but would say something like that it’s based on something like all sexual appetite, all sexual desire is the same thing at its base. It’s just the desire for some physical thing in your body to be aroused and something like that which gives people pleasure as animals, as the key things that have that body.

And then for some secret reasons that nobody knows, or maybe there’s genes or maybe it doesn’t matter, this gets expressed for different people in different cultures, in different ways. But that doesn’t count as a real difference. It counts as very important, of course we’re not coherent about this. It counts as very important what kind of person you are, but it doesn’t count as different enough to not be natural. It’s still natural because pleasure ultimately, ultimately all sex is about, there’s nothing beyond that.

So when people say they’re romantic and they love their partners and they have desire for their partners, they’re lying, because they’re covering up their desire to be touched or something like that. I don’t know which low word we could call this exactly. And they’re dressing that up, maybe actually not only lying, but in some sense the culture is lying because they’re dressing that up as “Like I love—”

Two Theories of Sexual Desire and the Problem of Marital Fidelity

The Qualitative Difference in Sexual Desire

Not loving your wife in a friendship way, right? Loving your wife in a sexual way. Having sexual desire for your wife is not the same kind of sexual desire as you would have for someone else, or for masturbating, or for something like that. *Chabtik rasechilek?* [Yiddish: Do you understand the seriousness?] Very serious.

Most people would assume that they’re the same thing. Right? Whatever gets you off. But he’s saying, no. There’s a different kind of thing, and how do we know that? Obviously we could see that from people choosing to love different things, and there being very different desires in that level which is not different in the base level.

Base level, every human people have the same kind of, more or less the same—okay, with some variation bodies allow—but within whatever variation bodies have, they have the same kind of: you push a button and you get pleasure, basically. Right? But there’s a sense of reduction that takes place when someone is, let’s say, unfaithful or whatever, and then it’s sort of—now there’s two ways.

Two Competing Theories of Sexual Sin

So very good. So there’s two different theories of what being unfaithful or what sexual sin is, right? Two entirely different theories.

Theory One: The Materialist-Reductionist View

One would be what we materialists would say, even assuming that there’s such a thing as a wrong sex—which according to real contemporary theology there isn’t such a thing, because sex is good, doesn’t matter with who and when. It always expresses your inner soul or something. Except with children. No, yeah. Yeah, except without consent, it’s still just the other person. It’s called liberalism. It’s really still good, but it’s not good. But you have to believe that there’s no… You have what I’m saying? It’s only… Yeah, yeah, we don’t really… Nobody’s consistent, okay? I’m not saying that this is a coherent theory. I’m just saying this is what seems like what people say. Nobody’s… People really believe that there is good and bad. But what they say is that they’re all good. But what I’m saying is… Right?

And then the theory, just to be clear, then there’s a theory, right? If you say, why is it wrong to cheat on your wife, for example, which most people still sometimes think that is bad—besides for very, very progressive people who are into all kinds of, that the jealousy is outdated and dumb and so on. Most other people still think that that’s wrong.

So then, there would be two different theories of that. Very important to realize. There’s two different theories of this.

The Contractual-External Framework

One theory says it’s bad because ultimately it’s all the same thing. When you’re with your wife, you’re just getting your thing rubbed. When you’re with someone else, it’s ultimately the same thing. Two people have these pleasure buttons, and other people somehow press them. And that’s what all sex boils down to.

But for some funny reason—culturally constructed reasons, I guess—people make these deals with other people that they should only do it with them. Okay? We could give biological reasons, because sometimes babies happen if you forget to take your birth control. Right?

One of the biggest *mitzvos* [commandments] is to take birth control. But very big *mitzvah*, right? You can get a *heter* [halakhic permission] not to take it for once or twice if you want to have a baby. But if you plan it, if you plan—family plan, parenthood—if you plan it for a few years and you’re rich, you have put a deposit in the bank for the kid’s college fund, then you get a *heter* not to use birth control. That’s how it works in reality, right?

And so, but *lamaise* [in any case], we have cultural inheritance for whatever reasons. People make these deals. And therefore we demand from people to control their desires, right? You might have a desire for having that pleasure in the wrong way, but there’s nothing wrong with the way. What’s wrong is only that you didn’t control yourself because you promised it to someone else, or because some other side complication that comes from that, and therefore it turns out to be bad.

The Problem with Pure Self-Control

And what’s bad is not the way. There’s nothing wrong with loving your neighbor’s wife. What’s wrong is—but it’s not a different kind, it’s not a different kind of desire. It’s the same kind of desire. What’s wrong is something like, yeah, it’s contractual, external thing to it.

And also what’s wrong turns out to be something like not controlling your base desires when there’s something else that tells you that it’s wrong. So it should be subordinate to those things. Not subordinate to an ideal of what good desire is, but subordinate to some other ethical obligation and therefore the controlling, right?

If there’s a *middah* [character trait], being a controlled person, a temperate person, it can only be self-control. It can only be the violent version of self-control, right? Instead of the teaching version of self-control, right? Because there can’t be someone saying there’s something wrong. Of course there’s a version. Not even a version. Just the activity.

Okay, then we can answer questions of flirting and where’s the *geder* [boundary] of cheating and things like that. But the point is that the *middah* is only the self-control. It’s nothing beyond that. There isn’t having a better taste or something like that, like we describe all *middos*, right? That can’t be because all desires are ultimately the same, right? Right?

And therefore, and from people also believe this, basically, right? All desires are basically the same. *Hashem* [God] doesn’t let you—instead of saying that there’s a contract there—*Hashem* doesn’t let you do it in certain times, in certain ways, in certain places. Therefore, you have to control your desires, but what you’re controlling is the same exact base desire as with your wife.

The Famous Difficulty: *Pas B’Salo* [Bread in His Basket]

Therefore, people don’t even understand how getting married would help. Right? Did you hear this *she’eilah* [question] ever? Right? Very big *kasha* [difficulty]. Famous *kasha*, *makshon olam* [a question that troubles the world].

*Makshon olam*, I heard this *kasha* from my husband, I don’t know. *Makshon olam*, it says in the *Gemara* [Talmud] that if you have *pas b’salo* [bread in his basket—i.e., a wife], then you have less issue with sexual temptation. *Makshon olam*, *baruch zin, amdolah v’lachihi* [Yiddish: a bachelor, standing and laughing].

And not only we see that it’s not like that, we see that it’s the opposite. Because at least if you’re a *baruch zin b’salo* [bachelor] that refrains from any, that never saw a woman in his life, then he’s totally…

A New Answer to the Problem

This was the *chiddush* [novel insight] we said. I had a different—I had a different—I have a new *teretz* [answer] on this *kasha*. Wait, I have—you remember a different *teretz* that I had on this *kasha*? I have a new *teretz*. That *teretz* I can’t see it, but I have a new *teretz*. I said a *shiur* [lesson]—I said a *shiur* that is *miter* [unclear], but I have a new *teretz*. I have a new *teretz*, right?

That not only—I remember if I said a *kasha* like this then—and not only is it that it gets worse, because if you’re a *putesh* [one who abstains] and you’re out of this, you’re not in the *parsha* [the matter]. I didn’t talk to you. We might have some fantasies, but that’s not a big deal, right?

But if you have a wife, so you’re in the *parsha*. So now, there isn’t—your body. This is a real question that people get. *Chavez salobos* [unclear reference], I think, literally asked this question in a different language. What’s different? Your body, your desire—your body, but we’re assuming now it’s your body—doesn’t know the difference between your wife and another wife, right? Another woman.

No, they both feel the same. Unless there’s some slight difference. Okay, I’m saying that. That’s not a big difference. Your sort of likes both the same. How would it know? You have to have—you have to make sure she’s not a *shein* [unclear]—you have to know exactly. How do you even know if she puts on a mask and you don’t even look at her, so you don’t even know who it is? You have to—you know, you have to have just the *item of condition* [unclear] that they saw her and they know, not liar. No, anyways, unless you actually did it with two people.

Okay, wait, I have a way. I have a way. Okay, wait. Well, maybe that’s exaggeration. The point is—no, not that, because I’m going to say the *teretz* is not in the *pe’il* [action], not in the *gashmi* [physical/material]. That’s what I’m going to get to. Then you’re not going to have this problem.

The Intractability of the Problem Under Theory One

So, so this is a *kasha*. So it seems to get worse, and this whole *Gemara* *pas b’salo* is *tzurichin* [in need of explanation]. This is *nishtani ativim* [the times have changed]—doesn’t work anymore. It used to work for other kinds of people, I don’t know. We don’t understand it. Therefore, I don’t know, everyone has their solution to this problem. But therefore something is wrong. Okay?

So now I think that there’s some—this assumes, right? What does this theory assume? This very materialistic reductionist theory of desire: all desires are ultimately the same. Right? And men—people claim that men act this way, right? Doesn’t really matter what, what it is or where it is. Doesn’t matter anything, as long as it works, it works. And there isn’t really—I’ve—they really know when people literally ask this question: what is ultimately difference in masturbation and sex? At the same thing.

And sometimes the women ask this discussion. Right? So you’re a *tzaddik* [righteous person], you don’t masturbate, so now I’m your masturbation aid. Right? You’ve heard this *kasha* also?

So, and there’s something wrong with this.

Toward Theory Two: A Non-Reductionist Account

Now, so, now this is all if you have this very reductionist theory of desire. But if you think something like this, right, then, if you think something like this. I don’t know, I saw that in—I saw on Google that he talks about this in his book. I didn’t actually read the book. It’s my own idea, but then I went looking for to see if people thought of this *chachma* [wisdom] before me. And I saw that people have thought of something like this. And then Martha Nussbaum was bragging on him that he’s regressive and so on and so on. Maybe that’s a lie. That is correct. I don’t know. But I didn’t see that he quotes the *shtigla ratals* [unclear reference—possibly *Shitah Mekubetzet* or similar Talmudic commentary]. Maybe there’s something else. He gets it. He just makes stuff up by himself.

Student: What? He doesn’t know? He just makes stuff up by himself?

Instructor: Yeah.

Student: Okay, maybe it’s actually—

Human Beings as Narrative Creatures: Why Materialist Accounts of Desire Fail

A Note on Sources and Intellectual Precedents

Instructor: I didn’t actually read the book. It’s my own idea, but then I went looking for my own requirements to see if people thought of this chachma [wisdom] before me. And I saw that people have thought of something like this. And then Martha Nussbaum was bragging on him that he’s regressive and so on and so on. Maybe that’s a lie.

Student: That is correct.

Instructor: I don’t know. But I didn’t see that he quotes the Schtickler Aristotle [the actual/real Aristotle]. Maybe there’s something… He doesn’t know Aristotle.

Student: What? He doesn’t know? He just makes stuff up by himself?

Instructor: Yeah.

Student: Okay, maybe it’s…

The Core Problem with Materialism: It Contradicts Empirical Experience

Instructor: The point is, so the point is now, what I think is like this: if we imagine that this is a wrong theory—now remember why materialism is wrong.

Secondly—

Student: What are you laughing at me?

Instructor: Secondly, it’s wrong because everyone knows that the basics of modern science is to believe evidence, to believe sensations, right? Empiricism, right? And anyone that ever experienced different kinds of pleasures, different kinds of loves, know that they don’t actually compare.

Different Pleasures Are Qualitatively Distinct

Even if someone loved two women and his wife, or a man and a woman, or whatever different tabs that people have, they do not actually feel the same. Okay? Check it out, you’ll see. They don’t actually feel the same.

Even desire for masturbation doesn’t feel the same as desire for sex with your wife. I don’t know anyone that would claim that they’re the same. I actually know people that say that they don’t understand the Gemara [Talmud] because according to the Chazon Ish [Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, 1878-1953, leading halachic authority] you should stop masturbating once you’re married, but they’re two different things. It’s not, you know, 200 tanig [a measure/amount]. I’m sorry, maybe I’m not allowed to say this. It’s too much.

So understand, so it’s different. It’s not true. It’s not true that these experiences are the same.

The Food Example

We could talk about food examples, right? The desire or the craving for a donut is not the same as craving for, let’s say, a yapchick [a traditional Jewish dish, typically a slow-cooked meat and potato casserole]. They don’t feel the same. They don’t actually feel the same. Not the craving feels the same and not the taste feels the same.

And people say this explicitly, like “I’m not in the mood of X, Y, Z,” right? We talk about mood. People talk about this, right? And we look for variety, right? Like “I’m bored of this.” What do you mean you’re bored of this? It’s the same taste buds.

Materialism Is a Belief, Not an Experience

Wait, so this thing that you’re all assuming—that it’s pleasure is pleasure, physical pleasure is physical pleasure—is actually a belief that you have, not an experience that you have. This is very important to notice. What most of our materialistic beliefs are beliefs and not experiences. It’s something that you were told.

Not only was you told, it’s also al pi kabbalah [received tradition/authority]. In other words, it’s experience that’s different, but medavglaibim [but they claim/insist] that although it feels totally different, it leads to different actions, we write different kinds of novels about each, they’re differently described—imkozeh [nevertheless], the heilige chachomim [the holy wise men] tell us that they’re really ultimately the same thing. Af al pi sheh [even though] bebe yam nid meleikach [in Yiddish: one type of pleasure doesn’t equal another], bebe yam sefned meleikach [another type of pleasure doesn’t equal another], be’emesis dezelbe [in truth they’re the same].

You have to believe, believe. Okay, no problem. If it’s a feminine belief, then maybe you have to believe it. But lama’aseh [in practice] there doesn’t seem to be a reason to believe this. That’s the main reason why I think we shouldn’t care about that materialistic analysis.

Of course, there’s political reasons why people believe in them also, which are also confused. Even if you want to support all these things, you shouldn’t do this kind of silly theories.

Physical Instantiation vs. Essential Description

So that’s not true. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t instantiated in physical ways. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t nerves and neurons that get stimulated—that is obviously true. Nobody is saying that you could have physical sexual pleasure without your, without an erection or whatever. Maybe you actually could, and some—by the way, you could, but that’s a different discussion.

But even the physical level is not as true as people think it is, right? If you go to like the real like, how do they call, no karma, no—the Indian thing—whatever, they teach you how to have orgasms in your head and so on, and it feels literally the same physically, or in your nose and your ears, whatever kind of weird, weird stuff. So it’s not even true that is—even on that level it’s not true.

But it’s not a problem for us because it’s a question of correlation, causation, all the philosophical differences that it’s not our point to get through.

Human Beings Are Narrative Creatures

So now if that—let’s back that—back to therefore we can talk very easily about desires as the best way of me, for me, to talk about this is as being part of a story. You remember human beings are narrative creatures, like Krav [possibly MacIntyre or another philosopher], fatsa de krav [in the manner of Krav], or your friend Toras [possibly referring to a thinker or tradition]. What’s his name? The Canadian guy that was in Iftina B’Ch [unclear reference].

Student: Last year.

Instructor: Yeah. Human beings are not actually biological creatures. They are narrative creatures. People have sometimes this—are irrational beings, are intellectual beings. Okay, maybe not all people are intellectual. That’s an empirical question. My empirical research doesn’t show that most people are intellectual. Actually, they’re more intellectual than people think. All the well-known Muslims [possibly “mussar teachers” or ethical thinkers] say that people ultimately, and Freud and all those people that feel ultimately are base creatures are just making stuff up. It’s not true.

Narrative Description Is the Correct Description of Desire

People are at least narrative creatures, which means that a physical description of desire does not just talk about human desire. It might talk about some substratum. It might be needed for human desire. That’s a different discussion. It might not be needed, but that’s a different discussion that we don’t have to have when we’re talking about ethics. It doesn’t matter. It’s only a question of like, I don’t have that, and things like that, right? Do you have pleasure in Olam Haba [the World to Come]? Okay, that’s a different question.

But right now we’re not talking about that because we’re talking about the correct way of acting in this world, in this body, in this life, in this gilgul [incarnation/lifetime]. And in this gilgul there isn’t anything stopping us—the correct way of describing desire is giving the story of it, not giving the physical, biological story that we get taught by some weird science class to give, but the actual story.

Stop Believing the Materialist Story

Will tell you very simple: just stop believing people, right? And in other words, people tell you that they can get, they can have desires for specific people, in a specific place, in a specific way, in a specific time, a specific amount—all of these narrative elements of human thought, of human being, of human desire are actually what constitutes them. There’s always a narrative description that explains what it is. And if you deny that, you’re just denying reality.

The Thought Experiment: The Arousal-Measuring Machine

Now, are you masking? Everyone’s masking. In other words, what I’m saying is: if you see a yid [Jew], if you have a machine that measures arousal or sexual arousal, or your stomach arousal—it has something analogous, you get hungry or something like appetite—if you have a machine that measures that and it tells you this person is getting aroused, and he could just tell me the readings of this machine, he gets aroused every day 3 p.m. and so on, even if you say he gets aroused when you show him this, this image or this picture or this thought and so on, that would not be the correct—pick the correct description of what is going on of the desire.

Not only wouldn’t to be correct externally—externally it might be correct—but definitely, and this is where it gets tricky, because people start telling themselves the biological materialist story, which makes them not being able to control themselves.

The Root of the Yetzer Hara: Undifferentiated Matter

So you see, the shayris [root/foundation] of the yetzer hara [evil inclination] is that you believe that the yetzer hara is a simple, undifferentiated thing. That’s what the Rambam [Maimonides] says, that matter, undifferentiated matter is the source of evil.

If, and because we get taught to think of ourselves, not only to think of others—you think that if I describe the guy with all the physical symptoms of his desire, then I gave the full description, that’s one problem. But the bigger problem is that you start describing yourself that way.

Narrative Self-Description Becomes Self-Fulfilling

Now you remember that humans are narrative creatures, which means that this narrative works just as well. This is why Ripshnei Burton [possibly Rebbe Nachman of Breslov or another Chassidic source] says that anyone that believes that he’s a body taka [truly/actually] doesn’t have a neshamah [soul], taka doesn’t go to Gehenna [hell]. That’s what it says in the Mishnah [early rabbinic text]. Because, you have—why? It’s gag al gag [literally “roof upon roof,” meaning a logical consequence].

Since people are not material things, but what are they? Again, let’s assume a very simple level, not like very, very abstract levels where this might not be relevant, but in the simple level we’re saying that human beings are actually activated, live according to the stories they believe and they tell themselves about others and about themselves, the way they think.

It’s not only when you tell a story, not only when you ask me what happened yesterday I tell you, “Look, I had this thought and maybe I should go to that person and love them.” No. When you’re having the desire, you already have it with a story. All cognitive research, by the way, nowadays also views of this, but I don’t have to get into that. But this is true.

The Self-Fulfilling Nature of Materialist Self-Narrative

In other words, and therefore someone that does and has a different story, that his story that he tells himself when he gets aroused is, “Oh, so now my dopamine is lacking,” or whatever, the other, oxytocin, which is the love chemical, whatever it is, then that’s actually what’s happening for him after that person.

And every time that someone says that it’s true for you, why is it true for you? Because this is what your munna [possibly “emunah,” faith/belief] is. If that’s your munna, then that’s like what you are.

A Contemporary Example: The Sam Harris Joke

This is like my parush [interpretation/commentary] on the old moshgiach [spiritual supervisor] joke about the guy that you talk—you come from a monkey, right? That’s the son. Someone was once—I should send Harris [Sam Harris, contemporary neuroscientist and philosopher] of this, and he famously answers, he’s like, “What, you think that I see my child and I go, ‘Wow, the serotonin is coursing through my veins’? What are you saying?” Right?

Somewhat he says no, he’s trying to get away from that. Excuse me.

Student: Yeah, that causes you to not be able to control, to only be able to control by violence. Then you say you have to give pills, like to get it out.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. It’s not true. It doesn’t have to work. You have to believe that it works. That’s what the Rambam said, that you could make a shinui shel [a change in] the kitzer [character/nature], even if it’s ilser [difficult/challenging].

Returning to the Central Point

Point is, let’s get back to where I am. Perhaps you have what I’m saying. So that’s why I’m saying it’s very important to realize that there’s a difference, because it’s not only a descriptive question, it’s a prescriptive question.

Words Mediate Our Experience

How you tell—the stories that you tell about ourself—like I’m not saying beliefs, truth, that would be a different level—the way in which we, since we are verbal creatures, even our feelings are mediated by words that we have in our head, as far as I can tell. That doesn’t mean that they’re created by them, right? It doesn’t mean that there isn’t any naturalness in it, right? It just means that they’re mediated by them. We experience it that way.

And if you tell yourself the story, the physical materialist story, then you will experience it that way. But if you stop telling yourself that story—now this is what it means kadosh [holy]. This is the mitzvah [commandment] of kedushah [holiness], right?

You heard my shiur [lecture] on kedushah once. There was a shiur on the mitzvah of kedushah. I remember when I explained this.

Student: Yeah, the Zohar shiur [lecture on the Zohar, the foundational work of Jewish mysticism].

Instructor: One of the Zohar shiur explained this.

Desire, Imagination, and the Reinterpretation of Physical Experience: The Mitzvah of Kiddushin and the Cultural Mediation of All Desire

The Mediation Principle: Experience Through Story

Instructor: That doesn’t mean that they’re created by them, right? It doesn’t mean that there isn’t any naturalness in it, right? It just means that they’re mediated by them. We experience it that way. And if you tell yourself the story, the physical, materialist story, then you will experience it that way. But if you stop telling yourself that story, now this is what it means.

The Mitzvah of Kiddushin: Transforming the Story of Desire

Introduction to Kiddushin as Narrative Transformation

Instructor: Kiddushin [Jewish marriage sanctification], this is the mitzvah of Kiddushin, right? You heard my shiur [lecture] on Kiddushin? Once there was a shiur on the mitzvah of Kiddushin, I remember when I explained this.

Student: Yeah, you even sent me a message about that sheet.

Instructor: Okay, there was a sheet in Zohar [foundational text of Jewish mysticism] that explained this on mitzvah’s condition, that why a goy [non-Jew] is supposed to lie in the mitzvah’s condition. So, this is the mitzvah’s condition, right? What does it mean? This is the thought of this pasbessale [unclear reference], right? What does it mean?

The Bochur Stage: Pure Physical Desire

Instructor: Like this. It means like this. When you’re a bochur [unmarried young man], a bochur taka [truly a bochur] only has base desires because he doesn’t have, unless you have friends, whatever. But as long as you’re a chassidish bochur [Hasidic unmarried young man], then you only have physical desires. You want your thing to get off, no problem. That is very basic and we have to talk if we have time we’ll talk about if there’s a good and bad in that at all, but we’re not talking about that right now, right?

Then your story is still physical like this. Yet it likes physical pleasure and you’ll take care of that in whichever way. Okay.

The Transition: Finding a Partner and Interpersonal Desire

Instructor: Then if you find a partner and you start liking her, and liking her means also liking her sexually, right? This doesn’t—like the hell of it, whatever people—you won’t hear my whole point is it has to mean that. But it has to mean that because of what I’m saying, not liking her in the sense of “now I have a place to stick my thing in,” and not like people think.

He is giving you—for entirely ascetic life, contemplative life, let’s not say the contempt of life—and it says that you should love your wife. And it says you should love your wife like you love your tefillin [phylacteries].

The Erotic Love of Tefillin: A Spiritual Story

Instructor: So some litzak [joker] read this, and this litzak doesn’t love his tefillin, they thought, “Ah, they’re saying there’s a chaf [joke] to the mitzvah [commandment].” You never saw the Meizir Shema [unclear reference, possibly a specific rabbi or text] get tefillin—he had an erotic love to his tefillin, right?

And when he’s saying “love her like a tefillin,” just means to say there’s a spiritual story, there’s a Kaddish [holy] story to be said about this. It’s not just “I love her because I have needs and it’s mitzvah.”

And he’s saying not for yourself, so he’s giving you a different—for the love, that’s all.

Student: No, no, he means this also.

Instructor: Of course. You just, you have to read it this way. Of course.

Student: So, you understand what I’m saying?

Instructor: So now, but let’s get back.

The Gemara in Ketubot: Reprogramming Desire Through Story

The Case of Abaye’s Widow

Instructor: The point is, and then you have desire for her, not the sexual desire that’s—and then that, if, if you have—like it says in the Gemara [Talmudic discussion] in Masechta Ketubot [Tractate Ketubot], one of my favorite Gemaras now, I don’t know—like it says in the Gemara in Masechta Ketubot that the wife of Abaye [Talmudic sage] came to beis din [rabbinical court]—remember? Who died? Abaye. And her wife came to beis din to say that she deserves wine for her, for her ketubah [marriage contract], because he used to give her wine.

And there was a machloket [dispute] over there—she deserves it. And she was a beautiful woman, and since she wasn’t being taking seriously in beis din, so she did what beautiful women do. And she revealed her arm or something. And Rava [Talmudic sage] was so excited that he went home and told his wife to come to bed.

So his wife said, “I know what happened. I know who came to beis din.” So she got very jealous of her and she chased her out of town.

The Conventional Reading: Cheap Use of His Wife

Instructor: What do we learn from this masa [Talmudic passage]? And that if someone is wruggled [accustomed] to give wine to his wife, she deserves wine also.

Now, now, the point is that, what am I trying to say? People think that this is very cheap use of his wife, right? So he had a yetzirah [evil inclination/desire] from someone else. So he decided, I don’t know if he doesn’t act on it, so he went home and asked his wife to do it with him. That’s very silly.

The Higher Reading: Desire as Message

Instructor: What it’s saying is that reprogram the desire. In other words, when a person has desires, of course there’s physical triggers that can trigger your desire. No problem, that’s how the body works, or the lower part of the soul, whatever you want to call it.

But if you don’t interpret your mind—since people do live with some kind of mind, even desires have some kind of practical knowledge, they’re not blind entirely—you have to rewrite the story though.

Student: What do you mean? Why?

Instructor: I’m saying, since when you, if you—no, no, it doesn’t matter. It could be a trigger, it doesn’t matter, because the trigger is a physical trigger, because it was triggered by the physical trigger. But I’m saying the opposite. I’m saying that really it was a message from his wife, so to speak, right?

It’s like that if you’re, if you have a yetzirah suddenly, then, then you should realize that it’s your wife’s call.

Ramak and the Interpersonal Nature of All Sexual Desire

The Theory of Mutual Desire

Instructor: It says in Ramak [Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, 16th-century kabbalist] also, right? This is a very, like, combative way of saying things. They say that the Ramak says, and the same in Shomer Emunim [kabbalistic text], the person has yetzer hara [evil inclination] for himself and yetzer hara for his wife. By yetzer hara, that means sexual desire, right? Not yetzer hara to be mad. That’s for yourself.

And in other words, there’s an interpersonal lyric. This is like he says that anytime someone feels a desire for a woman, she has desired him first.

Student: Clout, kind of non-PC clout.

Instructor: But that’s what he believes and it’s based on Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism]. He thinks that this is true physically also, usually. That’s what he says. It might not be explicit, maybe it’s like subconscious, but he says that if there would be—that’s what he has a whole—if there would be a woman that’s really a tzadekes [righteous woman]—I don’t know if it’s tzadekes, but if there would be a woman that really doesn’t have any physical attraction to any other man, then people wouldn’t be aroused by her at all.

That’s the theory of the Heilig-Buddhist veru [unclear reference].

The Higher Reading: Human Story in All Desire

Instructor: What I’m getting at, if you believe this literally or not, what I’m getting at is that this is the higher reading of desire. It’s saying that it’s not true—it’s true, it is true for some people, but it’s not true in an interesting way—it’s not true that all desire is just like this base desire, “my scratching needs to be scratched,” and it doesn’t matter, for some funny reason everyone is aroused by whichever visions or whatever things they get aroused by.

No. All sexual desire is also interpersonal desire. It’s something that has a human story in it. It means “I want you, you want me, well do you really want me, do you want me as much as I want you?” It doesn’t mean that it becomes the same much—that’s a very different discussion—but there’s always a story which is not—but, right, the only was—it was just—but other than that, it’s always, there’s always people in the story, right?

Mediation by Narrative Habits

Instructor: Even though it doesn’t start from the correct person, it still gets interpreted, because it’s interpreted in your brain, because all of our emotions are mediated by our habits of thought, not only by our habits of emotion, of desire. They get mediated by our stories that we tell ourselves.

Desire, Imagination, and Cultural Construction

Why Movies Are Forbidden

Student: Yeah, for sure, because I think that this is also why you’re not allowed to watch movies, because—

Instructor: Because, you understand why? In America, they put people out there, and they’re clearly just purely cultural. It’s very little connection to reality. Or the people that are not beautiful?

Student: That’s a different discussion. I don’t know. I think beauty is still a little bit worse.

Instructor: It’s a question of whether it works. A little bit it works. Point is, it doesn’t work out. Wait, wait.

The Radical Claim: All Desire Is Imaginary

Instructor: What I’m saying is—what am I trying to say? I’m not trying to—no, no, no, I would say something more radical. I would say that since our imagination, which has much to do with desires, right? All desires are mediated by the imagination. Since our imagination is a cultural product, for the most part—

The Maharal on Moshe Rabbeinu: Cultural Narratives of Masculinity

Instructor: This is why the Maharal [Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, 16th-century scholar] says that when Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher]—gosh, I shouldn’t say this, right? The Maharal says that when Moshe Rabbeinu, “v’hibbitu acharei Moshe” [and they gazed after Moses], right? “V’lamet she kol echad v’echad kines ishtamim Moshe” [unclear Hebrew phrase]. Everyone was like, Moshe is the man, right? If there’s a man in the history of the Judaism, it was Moshe, right? And everyone else feels less of a man relative to him.

So they’re like, “For sure he’s sleeping with my wife, because I’m nothing compared to him. I’m not a man. He’s a man.” That’s why they were making sure that he’s not stealing all your wives. That’s what it says in the pasuk [biblical verse]. Maharal says this pshat [interpretation]. He says it in a very fancier, more Italian way, but he says this.

Student: So, okay, don’t believe me that he said this.

Instructor: But that’s it. That’s my pshat. So, I know, but it’s more than that. I would say more than that.

All Desire Is Mediated by Imagination

Instructor: Which is that, especially sexual desire, but also desire for food is always imaginary, right? In other words, Coca-Cola, right? Coca-Cola doesn’t taste good, did you know that? You didn’t know, right?

According to the materialist level, it’s not very Yiddish time. When you used to put cocaine in it, it at least had some reason to drink it. But it doesn’t taste good. It’s black. Nobody likes black things, did you know? People don’t find black food desirable. By nature.

Student: I just made this up. I have no idea.

Instructor: Anyways, are any foods black?

Student: Cholent [traditional Jewish stew] is not black. It’s dark. It’s brown. It’s not black.

Instructor: Some meat, like something, it’s too dark, right? Even cholent, it’s not black.

Student: I do like, I like cholent better when it’s light, like Erev Shabbos [Friday evening], it’s not yet—at least it looks better. It doesn’t taste so good, but it looks better. Like the kugel [traditional Jewish pudding/casserole], I still think that the overnight kugel, something is wrong with it. It looks like—it tastes better, but the vasa [white] kugel is better. It’s mere idol [unclear phrase].

Instructor: See, I’m a racist, even with a black kugel.

The Coca-Cola Illustration: Marketing Over Material Reality

Instructor: The point is, my point is not these stupid jokes. My point is that Coca-Cola, everyone knows that Coca-Cola is a marketing product a lot more than it’s a drinking product. What this means is, is like this, that whenever a person drinks Coca-Cola—

The Narrative Structure of Desire: Cultural Mediation and the Formation of Sexual Ethics

The Coca-Cola Analogy and the Cultural Construction of Desire

The Marketing of Experience: When You Drink the Image, Not the Product

Instructor: It tastes better, I don’t know, but the Vase Kegel is better. It’s more idle. Okay, listen, see I’m a racist, even with a black Kegel and all that. The point is, no, no, listen, what I’m saying, what I want, my point is not these stupid jokes. My point is that Coca-Cola, everyone knows that Coca-Cola is a marketing product, right? A lot more than it’s a drinking product. What this means is that whenever a person drinks Coca-Cola—yeah, I don’t like it so much, but that’s fine because I wasn’t brought up with it, because we had only the Mayim Chaim Cola [Mayim Chaim Cola: a kosher cola brand] and it’s not Zichenschkin—but the point is that whenever you drink Coca-Cola, you’re not actually feeling the taste of the fizz and whatever random things they put into that drink.

What you’re feeling is the guy or the lady on the billboard that’s drinking it like that and looks like they’re in real ecstasy. I once passed by where they were filming that commercial in Prospect Park for the snow. And like, there’s not even one piece—all the snow was fake. It’s not even shaken. They came with like a big snow machine and blowing it behind the guy and like…

And that’s what you’re drinking—the chavst [experience/sensation]. You’re not drinking the coke, you’re drinking the image that becomes you. And all media, all fantasy that you see, you become—like muslabish [clothed in]—and that becomes you. And now whenever you’re drinking it, you’re also a little bit thatchik [the woman] drinking it on the side, and she seems to be enjoying it, so you’re also enjoying it.

Basically, my chavst is not good enough at it. Of course not. If they would have it, it would be worked. Now, look, it could be that I have a worse recipe. I’m not saying it does not… Again, I didn’t say there doesn’t be some physical… There’s some physical limit to reality.

Student: Why can’t Coke’s ads also work for my own kind [Mayim Chaim Cola] to some extent?

Instructor: Oh, they do to some extent. That’s the only reason why anyone drinks my own kind. Otherwise, nobody would drink it. But it’s an imitation. You know that it’s not the real thing. If Coke writes “the real thing,” then it’s like the real thing, right?

Application to Sexual Desire: Enacting Absorbed Cultural Scripts

So, in the same way, whenever you have sex, you’re a little bit all the players that you ever watch—they’re also having sex at the same time. They’re neshama [soul], they’re a fantasy body. And people are always playing in their head fantasies and images that they already bought. So we’re very not original, our Tavos [desires] are very not original, for sure. I don’t know about our Chedish Yitaira [spiritual innovation], but we’re all copycats, right?

And that’s why, like I said, that’s what is cultural, because every culture has its ideals or like its media—it’s like whatever you see in the shows or in the place or in the street or whatever it is, whichever way it gets mediated—and you have this idea of “this is what love looks like, this is what desire looks like.” And when you experience the desire, it gets immediately interpreted by the words that you have in your head or the images that you have in your head for this specific kind of trigger.

Student: Not disconnect from the trigger?

Instructor: But it’s not the trigger itself. A person that wouldn’t have—basically a person that wouldn’t have any exposure to any media—to any media is a very broad word, right? Any cultural script, people call them, right? Any cultural script of how things would be, would be pretty lost and would probably like almost nothing. Besides with, like, very basic. Then those people would be happy with that.

The Diogenes Example: Desire Without Cultural Scripts

Like the agonist [Diogenes the Cynic], the philosopher that said he hired a prostitute and she came late. You know the story? The agonist, the cynic, hired a prostitute and she came late. She came late. And he just masturbated, and when she came, he was like, “I got it for free already.” This is the cynical philosophy.

But that’s not how it actually works, and that’s because you have fantasies that tell you how things work. If you would like the agonies [cynics], like the Flaspers [philosophers]—one of their goals is to free themselves from the cultural scripts—then it doesn’t make a difference. If you’re only about satisfying your bodily needs, then it’s true that masturbation works just as well. But if you think that there is also some kind of good, a vision of a good kind of desire that’s not just fulfilling the bodily needs, then it doesn’t satisfy that. Then that would be a different thing.

From Understanding Mediation to Moral Agency

Student: In this narrative function, when a person’s, let’s say, their partner’s occupying a certain place in someone else’s story, not in their own story, according to this, what is the virtue then of it?

Instructor: Oh, I didn’t get about the virtue. I just explained why it’s mediated by words. I gave this long… No, then, once you understand that this is going on, then we could start deciding, we could start choosing, right? Then we become moral agents to begin with. Then we start choosing and we see: I think that this kind of story is not a good story. That kind of story is a good story. This is too much of the same story.

I do think that like, that’s why like Hasidic Shia [very insular Hasidic communities], like very Hanak Shia [extremely insular], they only have like base animal kind of needs. And they think that it’s better, but I don’t know if it’s better. But if you have any culture, then you don’t have that. Then we have to start questioning and we have to start deciding. Then there’s norms, then there is questions of which one is the correct one—like should you have this fantasy or that fantasy, or should it be towards this person?

Disordered Narratives: The Case of Coveting Your Neighbor’s Wife

And now I could say that lusting for your neighbor’s wife is bad in itself because there’s something disordered, there’s something wrong with that kind of love. Not because it’s—yeah, with that story—because that narrative is literally… It’s always because someone else is, right? When you marry her, you don’t like her anymore, usually, right? After the guy switches wives and marries the mistress, they stop loving each other, generally. I’ve seen that happen with my own eyes, right?

Why? Shet and Puzik [scattered and dispersed]. Mayim Gnivim Tuk [stolen waters are sweet]. Right? He wants someone else’s wife. Right? That’s the description, the correct description of his want. And there’s something wrong with that kind of wanting. It’s a bad kind of desire. It’s not just bad because you made a kind of whatever, because there’s something external to it but ends up being the same pleasure. It’s a different kind of pleasure. He has pleasure from sleeping with someone else’s wife. And that’s a bad kind of pleasure story.

Maybe this is the lesson of Lezavet and Gedai [a Talmudic reference]. When you marry her, you have something else. For sure, it’s in some sense the same thing. I’m not saying that—again like I said, there’s limits to this fantasy. There’s still bodies, still exist. But which kasha [difficulty]…

The Positive Ideal: Desire Formed Toward One’s Wife

This is the tenet: that if you start loving your wife—if you love her, if you don’t love her, then it doesn’t help—but if you love her, and if you love her in the sexual way, then all or most or the bulk of your sexual desire become—start belonging to her. They start being towards her instead of being towards just like… In other words, like this fuzzy, the like undefined desire that you have when you were a buchet [unmarried young man] was towards anyone. But now, and now it becomes formed—like without the whole like being informed—like it has a form now. Now it’s not… I do not have any—I mean a man does not, shouldn’t—I mean again, this is a idealization, but he shouldn’t have any desires for a woman that’s not his wife.

Because… No, the tenets is because you’re materialist. You don’t believe in this. You learned that all bodily desires are the same. And of course then it doesn’t work. You have to stop believing that and start believing—literally when you see the sheikhs [attractive women] in the street, believe that you’re loving your wife now.

Most people don’t believe this. Most people would be ashamed, right? Most people would be ashamed to do what Rova [Rava, a Talmudic sage] did and be divided by their wife because of that. Unless they’re like real firmers [crude people] that don’t care about their wife’s feelings, which is also bad, right?

You have to understand that your desiring thing is really mostly aimed towards your wife now that you’re married. And you love her. By the way, this is true. Sexual desire is something that has phases or whatever, depending on what you eat and whatever. All kinds of things that turn you on. And it’s not like there’s a random desire and then you go to your wife and say, “Let’s do it.” You’ve got to desire her from the beginning. She doesn’t even have to have been there when it started. You understand what I’m saying? It becomes a story about that, about that kind of desire and that kind of love.

Refinement: Good and Bad Exist at the Physical Level Too

And now, okay, now I have another whole shiit [lecture] to say if this is itself what makes… So obviously you understand from here, that’s my tarif [claim]. The point is, you understand what I’m saying. Now we have to finalize one thing. We have to understand that therefore, what I’m saying is not—let’s understand something important.

Last week, it sounded from my shiit that you could have gotten the impression—I think that’s what my impression also—you could have gotten the impression that it’s this specificity that makes it better, because the base desire is just fulfilling a need, like it’s a lack. It’s not really human pleasure at all, it’s like an animal. And having these choices makes it human.

Now you see that that’s not entirely accurate. There could be good and bad in the physical level, in the natural level. And like we said last week, mostly people are not doing too little of that. Most people are doing too much of that. And that’s a specific kind of bad, like talk about obesity, okay?

But then we had a question to what extent that it’s at all human, but the point is it could be someone that likes to eat too much, or like I said, he likes… In other words, masturbation is a different kind of advice [aveira/sin]. Because that would be just too much of a certain kind of pleasure. And maybe there’s a certain amount of masturbation that you should have. I don’t know. But anyways, there’s a certain amount that is proper, or it should be all with your wife, whatever it is, but the point is a certain amount that’s proper.

Digression: Rabbinic Exaggeration as Pedagogical Strategy

Student: Yeah, it’s true.

Instructor: Yes, you do, you do, but you could have dreams, whatever, you don’t have to do it. Point is, yeah, if you don’t have any—if you’re a bacha [young unmarried man] that doesn’t have—then there’s probably something physically or weird with you. But, that’s not the… Right, yeah, that’s true, it does understand that, physiologically. But it’s true, and we want everyone.

Now, but let’s back, okay, side, let’s… Of course, I… But this is nobody, we’re not allowed to say this, but this is a different shiit for Shavim [a different lecture for another time]. If the reason why it says that you’re not allowed to masturbate at all is because of the derich lefuah [therapeutic/pedagogical approach], because if you would ever say that you’re allowed to a little, everyone would do it all day long, right? You’ve got to say “never,” and that means it makes it a little less.

Okay, that’s how a lot of HaFlogos of Chacholim [rabbinic exaggerations] work, right? We say “never being cast,” because if I would give you one inch, you would take the whole thing, right? That’s why we give the extreme things, but the goal is, of course, to do less. Like the Shinneveru [Ramban/Nachmanides] said, the Torah never meant that no eat [Jew] should ever eat Teluim [treif/non-kosher food]. The Torah meant you should eat less. That’s why we say this. Five laven [for that reason].

I’m just lying against this, you understand? Because everyone eats, like…

The Two Dimensions of Measure in Desire: Quantity and Direction

The Dual Framework of Proper Measure

The Directional Dimension: Halacha’s Primary Concern

Halacha [Jewish law] is saying love your wife, don’t love your neighbors or your sister or your baba [grandmother] or your rabbon [teacher] or your baba’s baba, whatever—sorry, rabbon, your baba—and did I say your mother, you understand? All these things, right? All these things are explaining the correct time and place, right?

And if you’re a different person, it depends on what kind of person, what kind of lifestyle you have. It’s not—there’s not rules—I mean there’s rules, but they’re depending on the context. And that’s all discussions about the correct measure of that love, not the correct measure of how much, you understand?

Application to the Rambam’s Theory of Issur Arayos

This solves a lot of questions that people have on the Rambam’s [Maimonides’] theory of Issur HaRayes [forbidden sexual relations], and if you’ll understand what I’m saying, and you read the Rambam’s theory, which is in Perek Daled [Chapter Four], also here, and also in Moreh Nevuchim [Guide for the Perplexed], you’ll understand what I’m saying.

The Quantitative Dimension: The Less Interesting Level

I get the nach [good night]. I don’t know if my machine…

Well, there’s also an amount, a measure, a correct measure of Issur [prohibition/desire].