Much of Judaism seems to revolve around the Genesis 1’s command to “go forth and multiply”. For this reason it’s difficult to imagine that Judaism once encompassed a tradition of controlled intercourse for spiritual ends. And yet, according to some, Judaism had its own esoteric tradition, which tapped the hidden potential in the exchange of sexual energy, apparently without ejaculation.
Did Moses counsel sex without ejaculation?
According to Alberto Davidoff, author of In Honour of Eros (En honor a Eros),
Once the Tabernacle was complete, Moses proclaimed – along with other regulations – that anyone who had discharged their seed had to purify themselves in a ritual bath (return to the pure waters).
Davidoff cites the key verse from Leviticus:
When a man has sexual relations with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both of them must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Leviticus 15:18
Davidoff points out that the departure from a state of “cleanliness” only becomes an issue in the case of sexual union in which semen is lost. In other words, not all types of sexual union result in “uncleanliness”.
Anyone who suffers this semen loss – which would include ejaculating in order to reproduce – is faced with double consequences: He temporarily ceases to be part of the community, and has been weakened. Moses is thus credited with strong disapproval of semen expulsion during sex, and indirectly, with approval of sex without ejaculation.*
It would appear that sexuality, [depending upon how it is employed], gives rise to either “docile bodies” – the slaves and the victims – … or to beings who attain a new space of sovereignty.
Ritual fire
Davidoff also hypothesises that the columns of fire and cloud that began to accompany the Hebrews by day and night as they moved from place to place, and which hovered outside the Tabernacle, represented sexual energy used in a special way.
These columns of “presence” [align with] the Egyptian understanding (still current among the Hebrews) of the djed which … marked the opening of an inner heaven or of the divine presence.
Is “ritual fire” a metaphor for the spiritual use of sexual energy? In Leviticus 10 and 16 unauthorised “fire offerings” have dire consequences.
Procreation
Davidoff acknowledges that fundamentalists have generally cited “Go forth and multiply” as a command to sire large numbers of children. However, he clarifies that this is a misunderstanding, citing the work of Maurice Lamm writing about contemporary Judaism.
According to Lamm, the Torah does not consider procreation primary and certainly does not confine sexual relations to procreative efforts. As Lamm points out, Genesis 1 (of “go forth and multiply” fame) concerns the physical creation of animal-like humans. Genesis 2, on the other hand, describes Adam and Eve as having obtained certain spiritual characteristics. This implies that there exists a type of sexual union apart from reproduction.
The cosmogenic act of lovemaking must, according to the Iggeret ha-Kodeshv [a seventh century text], be thought of as not being separate from the effort to observe, know and overcome the shadow …. The containing of the fire is as much about the recovery of the original nature of an impulse as it is about the structuring of consciousness.
“Feminine waters”
Did Moses tap the power of energy exchange with the “feminine waters” (mayim nukvim ) in union with his wife at a time of crisis? According to Davidoff,
In referring to a moment of darkness for Moses, when in a fit of fury he murdered a man, leading him to have to flee, the Zohar [a series of mystical books about Judaism dating from around the 12th century] says:
After Moses, who also sat upon the well [Jacob’s well], saw the water rising toward him, in the secret of mayim nukvim, he also knew his wife would come there. … And there he met Tziporah, his wife. [Zohar, Vayetse, 95.] This secret of ascending feminine waters (mayim nukvim) is the same force that allowed Moses to face up to the psychological and spiritual consequences of having become a murderer. …
…We can see that these waters are being referred to with a special deference. Without mayim nukvim, the kabbalists tell us, there is no ascent by way of the Sefirotic Tree. Mayim nukvim “must be awoken and elevated through a refinement of materiality”, wrote Rabbi Schneur Zalman de Liadí in Tania, where he also explains that these waters move in the direction of the masculine waters (present in men and women alike) when they are accepted as an emanation from the spirit.
Indeed, in Tania, his magnum opus as founder of Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidism, the Rabbi explained that the notion of “female waters” essentially refers to the returning light that ascends from the lower realms to the higher ones. With sanctity and devotion one engages with the material world in such a way that it becomes a vehicle for spiritual ascent, enabling mayim nukvim to rise through the Sefirotic structure. (See images.)
The Zohar also cautions that men who need to travel must be careful not to break the sacred union with their mates, or leave it imperfect due to insufficient union with the feminine.
[The woman] obtained the heavenly union for him […] the presence will accompany you and live in your home and because of this you will visit your bedroom without sin and gladly carry out the religious duty to have intercourse before the Presence. [Cited in Scholem, 1949, p. 35.]
Sexual pleasure
If controlled intercourse had a place in early Judiaism, such a tradition was certainly not “sex negative”. Judaism has a rich tradition of celebrating the loving, pleasurable union of mates as part of sacred ritual. The weekly Sabbath’s conjugal visit is an integral part of Shabbat’s ritual celebrations.
The Iggeret ha-Kodesh mentions this conjugal encounter as the secret of the wheel of time, “the end of the six days of physical creation and the beginning of the olam ha-ne’’hamot (world of the souls)”.
Judaism treats intimate relations not only as having the power to radically enhance lives, but also as the secret, essential nectar of the Jewish religion. Davidoff offers evidence that this same insight ultimately made its way into some corners of Christianity and Islam as well.
Hints from the past
In nearly all ancient (and even modern) accounts of sacred sex practices not geared toward procreation, hints of the practice remain somewhat obscure. In most sources, references to the practice have been scrubbed, others translated by biased or insufficiently knowledgeable translators, and yet others written almost in code to which modern readers no longer have the keys
The clues in Jewish texts described above furnish no exception. Still, evocative traces remain, as Davidoff reminds us in his meticulously documented En honor a Eros.
* Keep in mind that the word “orgasm” was first used only in the 1680s and did not immediately refer to sexual climax. Ancient traditions did not have a single word for “orgasm”. Therefore ancient sacred texts that appear to focus on semen retention may have been referring to climax. Indeed, without words for the phenomenon, and as such texts were generally addressed to men, they could not do otherwise than describe the orgasm by the most physical, visible, and concrete evidence of climax: the loss of semen. It may be important to read modern interpretations that refer only to semen retention in that light.
