ספר ויקרא

Lviticus 15,18. “when a man has had sexual intercourse ‎with a woman, both of them have to ritually cleanse ‎themselves in a ritual bath, after which they remain ritually ‎impure until evening.” Rashi states that the decree ‎that the woman too remains ritually impure until nightfall is a ‎Divine decree for which no explanation has been offered.‎At first glance Rashi’s comments are hard to understand ‎as they appear to defy logic, as the whole idea of ritual defilement ‎being a result of man performing the first commandment in the ‎Torah, to be fruitful and multiply, when he engages in marital ‎relations with his wife should not result in ritual contamination ‎of either party.‎We must therefore conclude that it is not the act of engaging ‎in marital relations which causes the ritual defilement. The ‎problem is that the urge to engage in sexual relations is aroused ‎by the evil urge, and this being so, even when the act is ‎performed in order to fulfill the commandment to have children, ‎it is impossible not to derive some physical pleasure from ‎performing this act, and this part of performing the ‎commandment is what accounts for the need to purify oneself ‎subsequently and thus atone for impure thoughts entertained ‎during performance of the commandment, i.e. the act of ‎impregnating one’s partner with one’s sperm.‎The matter is comparable to a powerful king who had two ‎servants, both of whom were members of the highest nobility in ‎the kingdom. The King charged both of these noblemen with ‎carrying out a specific task on his behalf. Both of these noblemen ‎carried out their part of the task in accord with their ‎instructions, the only difference between the two being their ‎motivation when carrying out this task. One of the noblemen ‎carried out the task in order to provide the king, his master, with ‎a sense of satisfaction and pleasure, whereas the second one was ‎motivated purely by the fact that it was a task the performance ‎of which was very much to his liking, his having wished that he ‎could have performed it even without having been given the ‎opportunity to so by the king’s command. When the first ‎nobleman carried out the king’s command the effect of his ‎performance was that he “enthroned” the king, i.e. testified to ‎the King’s legitimacy and power, whereas the second nobleman, ‎although he had performed the identical act, had thereby merely ‎indulged his personal desires.The same distinction applies to husbands who perform the ‎act of marital intercourse with their respective wives, knowing ‎that they thereby fulfill their Creator’s command. A husband who ‎uses the opportunity of marital intercourse with his wife in order ‎to satisfy his sexual urges, cannot lay claim to have done so as a ‎way of “enthroning,” i.e. confirming that he recognizes G’d as his ‎Master. This is what Rashi meant by his comment on the ‎words: ‎וטמאו עד הערב‎, “they will remain ritually impure until the ‎evening.” When Rashi referred to the fact that seminal ‎emission causes ritual impurity as a “royal decree,” he referred to ‎people fulfilling a royal decree not because they meant thereby ‎to “enthrone” the king.‎From all this we learn how careful a person has to be when ‎carrying out Torah commandments that he does so for the ‎correct reasons, primarily to “enthrone” the Creator by his ‎willing observance.‎The Talmud (Chagigah 5) relates that Rabbi Iylah once ‎overheard a youngster in school reading aloud a verse from Amos ‎‎4,13, where the prophets says: ‎מגיד לו מה שיחו‎, “(G’d)can quote ‎back to a person every word he uttered, (even words spoken ‎during the intimacy in the conversation with his wife while in ‎bed);”Rabbi Moses Isserles in his glossary on the Orach Chayim ‎chapter 1,1 explains the importance of the verse in psalms 16,8 ‎where David says that “I am ever mindful of the Lord’s presence,” ‎שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד וגו'‏‎. The simple meaning of this line is that we ‎must never consider ourselves as being “alone,” unobserved ‎wherever we are, as G’d is aware of all our deeds everywhere and ‎of all our thoughts. This must be one of the first thoughts that ‎cross our minds when awakening in the morning. When we keep ‎this verse in mind this will go a long way toward ensuring that ‎both our actions and our thoughts and plans remain within the ‎channels which the Torah encourages us to navigate. Both ‎Jeremiah 23,24 who said, quoting G’d: “if a man enters a hiding ‎place, do I not see him?”, and the Mishnah in Avot 2,1 ‎which concludes with Rabbi Yehudah (the editor) telling us: ‎‎“know what is above you; a seeing eye and a hearing ear, and that ‎all your deeds are being recorded in The Book, and you will not ‎easily fall into the grip of sin;” have made the same point using ‎slightly different syntax.‎Nonetheless Rabbi Yehudah’s words need further analysis, ‎since “how can we know what is above us,” i.e. beyond our ‎powers of perception with our senses? Seeing that Hashem ‎resides not only in the celestial regions which are beyond access ‎to us but even in higher regions than the highest ranking angels, ‎the seraphim, what did Rabbi Yehudah hanassi mean ‎when he used the world ‎דע!‏‎? Why did Rabbi Yehudah add the ‎word ‎ממך‎, “beyond you?”‎