Lindenberg-Qabalah, Sexuality, and Geulah.pdf - Machon Shilo

there is no dissonance between this reality and the fact that Yehuda was a righteous man, a descendent
of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’aqov, and a powerful clan leader in his own right.
Yisshaq was found by Avimelech to be “gladdening (mesaheq) his wife”, an expression which certainly
does not bestow the impression that he was engaging in marital relations as one bound by a demon.
In the passage of the beautiful woman taken during battle, the Torah simply says “should you desire
her” in a matter of fact way which does not betray anything shameful or untoward.
The Torah mentions that the mothers of the people of Israel were beautiful. Although later
commentaries tend to direct these statements towards spiritual characteristics, “a verse cannot be
uprooted from its straight-forward, plain meaning”, and the fact remains that the Torah extols physical
beauty.
In the episode of Dawid and Bath-Sheva, the simple, straight forward meaning of the verses is that
Dawid found her attractive and desired her. And nowhere is there any hint that this is something wrong
or strange.
With all this in mind, perhaps one can question to what degree healthy Jewish spirituality, the kind
which at its base has the Jewish people living in a more normative, healthy state, idealizes asceticism at
all. In other words, is asceticism a higher standard appropriate for a select few who wish to cleave to
God more fully, who wish to live on a higher level of holiness and purity—is it a distinct “higher road”?
Or is it a path appropriate for certain types of people, but one which is not as a general rule to be placed
on a pedestal as a higher ideal at all?
Returning to the Land of Israel as a people gives us a base for spirituality which we simply did not have
in the galuth. In the Land of Israel, Jewish spirituality has an anchor, a link to the physical world which
allows for a healthy interplay between physical and spiritual. But it is more than this: the Land of Israel
itself is the medium for the expression of healthy Jewish spirituality. And just as the Torah is designed
principally for “geulah” existence, with the Jewish people living on the Land as they should, so Jewish
spirituality manifest itself in a wholesome way when the Jewish people are living on the Land.
In this vein, we ought to promote a healthy and wholesome sexuality, one which does not glorify
withdrawing from the physical but rather encourages partaking of it in a healthy way. A sexuality by
which we can unabashedly appreciate what the Torah is saying when it describes the Imahoth (foremothers)
as beautiful.
In fact, this points to a larger distinction between the Torah of galuth and the Torah of Eress Yisrael. In
the galuth, much as a function of the fact that the Jewish people lived a tenuous, transient existence, far
removed from their proper element, holiness became viewed as characterized by removal from the
physical, by greater and more entrenched asceticism. In the Land of Israel, Jewish spirituality can
connect to the physical world as it should, as it was meant to. In the galuth there is a short-circuit. In
the Land of Israel, the wires can be connected.
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