Adapted and translated from the original by Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi 
A Holy Man Who Likes Sex?
People often wonder how, on the one hand, I deal with Eros – sexuality and passion, and on the other hand I am a committed Rabbi studying and teaching the Kabbalah. Some even perceive it as unbecoming.
Often the combination of sexuality and religious spirituality doesn’t look good in the public eye, due to the concept that religious people ought to be as “holy” as possible.
Holy types are not expected to talk about sex, write about it, and make a big deal out of it. We expect of religious people to rise above their carnal desires.
I spent quite a number of years in asceticism as an ultra orthodox Jewish man. But then I realized that following this path was personally leading me to a dead-end and my curiosity took me to explore the Hebrew tradition from which Judaism grew. The difference between the Hebrew tradition and Judaism is immense, as has been pointed out by various writers and philosophers.
Big Difference Between Hebrewism And Judaism
The Hebrew culture was almost entirely ruined with the destruction of the Judea and Israel kingdoms in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Many researchers, including myself, believe that Judaism, which was created on the ruins of the Hebrew culture, is not identical to its predecessor. For instance the attitude towards sex changed in the time before and after the destruction of the temple. After the destruction, it was decided that Jews should be strict in their approach towards sexuality.
A simple reading of biblical texts reveals that the ancient Hebrew people thought differently.
For instance take the bible’s beloved King David. Here was a warrior, musician, artist, prophet, poet, and a great lover of many wives. The great Hebrew Shaman King Solomon who could speak with animals and trees, was noted as a skilled lover, with a thousand wives encircling him.
Perhaps Solomon is a rare phenomenon, but what about Samson? Here is another original Hebrew character, on who God’s spirit rested from time to time, even after he laid with his Philistine lover in Gaza. Samson abstained from wine but not from women.
And What About Abraham?
Our forefather Abraham had two women - Sarah and Hagar, and another woman by the name Ktura, as well as other concubines, with whom he had many sons, as is told in Genesis. Why would such a sacred man as Abraham take so many women? It seems that this question didn’t cross the minds of the Hebrews. They understood that a sacred person is an erotic one by nature, and that it’s only natural that his carnal passion is as great as his passion for God.
Queen Ma’aha’s Squeeze
Eros and passion weren’t considered something to be ashamed of, or avoid, in the ancient Hebrew culture. However, it was a patriarchal culture, which allowed free sexual expression primarily to men, and imposed severe modesty on women, unless they served as Kdesha (sacred sexual priestess) in the temples.
But it is worth mentioning Avshalom’s daughter Queen Ma’aha, who according to the bible built a sacred accessory in honor of the Goddess Ashera. An accessory that our rabbis of the Talmud thought of as a sort of ritualistic dildo: “a sort of maleness she made for herself, and was had by it every day” (Avoda Zara, 44, 1).
The Bible’s authors weren’t fond of Ma’aha’s deeds, and praise her son, King Assa, who burned the aforementioned accessory and removed his mother from her status. But still, who of today’s religious leaders would have done such a thing? Things that in the ancient Hebrew past seemed reasonable would not be acceptable by anyone nowadays.
All Focus On The Mind
When Judaism was renewed after the Babylonian exile a very different spiritual culture emerged from the one before it. Instead of a culture of prophets, warriors, poets, and lovers, there came a spiritual culture led by the learned - lovers of mind and thought, often alienated from the entire lower half of the body.
This is why the Halacha (the rules of Judaism) required wearing a belt while praying, “to separate between the heart and the genitals.”
As a result, the public, too, developed over hundreds of years the opinion that there needs to be separation between the life of the heart and spirit, and the life of the genitalia.
And so I make my way back into the deep origins of our culture, which are planted in ancient Hebrew-ism, long before the destruction of the first temple and the establishing of Judaism with it’s ascetic approach. Back to a time when our forefather Abraham made his slaves take a vow by holding a sacred object, and that sacred object was his sex organ: “put your hand under my thigh and vow…” Genesis: 24, 2.
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