Hello my dear fellow classmates,
so this week we just started learning about Kdushat Haadam and the subject of Arayot. Aviva and i worked very efficiently(shes an excellent partner-she officially made the list of partners i want!) on our packet. I heard Sade Zed and Jamie all choosing different verbs(disgusting, repulsive,nasty,gross,etc) to describe why they thought these kinds of relationships were forbidden. I hope that that was the response for most of us upon imagining the different scenarios. But then i just started wondering about something(this is kind of connected to psychology which is why this post is AWESOME) is our immediate repulsed response due to teh fact that it is actually gross or because our environment has put it in our head that it is wrong and inappropriate to have such relations. Think about it. For example, you were born with a twin brother and you always got along with him. You have that special, unbreakable and inexplicable bond with him that no one lese understands. You can tell him anything without feeling shame and you know taht he is the one person in the worls who completely understands you. He takes care of you and is protective of you and would do almost anything for you. You love him just as much as he loves you. You were born and automatically loved each other but as you grew older your love for each other strengthened. Do you think taht if we lived in a society in which it was completely normal to get married to family members, these twins would have gotten married and lived a happy, functional life? Or would there still be that natural instinct that causes us to want to chunder and rip our intestines off at the very thought of it? But before you answer you must just take a moment-open your mind and imagine that you are not living in this society.
Dearest Carmit,
ReplyDeleteEw. I do not think they would have had a happy marriage. First of all, I'm thinking once they had kids there would be stress in the household because most probably these kids would have problems. Additionally, it is not natural. I mean, it was never natural for you to be with your sibling. (not you, people) It just isn't.
But, you said that because of our society they wont get married, but I do not agree. Although I think it is actually illegal, that is a government thing and not people.
In this day and age, people accept so many things that are kind of weird, that I really think that at this point it wouldn't be such a big deal. People can be homosexual, people can be bisexual, people have gender operations... what a few short years ago would have been completely unacceptable has become the norm...
Lovely post, thanks for the compliment :)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I do think that if it were normal in a society to marry any person who you feel close to and love very much, like a sibling, then people would not know any different and would not think it is a gross concept. However, it this society it does not make sense to us. I cannot imagine marrying my brother because there is a different type of love that I feel for him than I would feel for somebody I would marry. Since in the torah these relationships are forbidden, it makes complete sense to me because of the way society is. Maybe when the torah was first given though, these forbidden relationships were thought of as normal, and that is why Hashem gave us those guidelines.
Dearest Zahava,
ReplyDeleteIm only saying this for the sake of arguing not because i actually think marrying a sibling is ok..
But you said yourself that in this day and age homosexuality, sex changes, bisexuality, etc. are all things that have become accepted. Do you not think that there is a slight vhance that one day people will say that back in the 21st century people were so close minded and didnt even understand how wonderful it would be to spend the rest of your life with a person you were destined to love from the start anyway?
Dear Aviva,
your post was very insightful. Yet again im just going to argue with you for the sake of arguing. Do you think that your "different love" for your brother is there because its natural or because thats what society and your environment taught you to feel about him.I mean i completely agree with you.. i love my brothers..as BROTHERS. But do you think that perhaps if people around you married their siblings you might be accepting of it and find it more natural. And just because the Torah forbids it doesnt mean its not natural. The Torah forbids homosexuality and it can be assumed that most(definitely not all and maybe not you) are more accepting of that although it is forbidden!