Day #73–Rambam DAILY Sefer HaMitzvos

today is day number 73 in our daily study of ramen Safra Mitzvahs this corresponds to the three chapters a day of mishna Toyota chapters 11 12 and 13 of helicus the laws of holy matrimony marriage which means Holiness uh our Mitzvah today is the same Mitzvah that we had yesterday so I'll repeat it again negative commandment 355 the prohibition against engaging in intimate relations outside of marriage um I'll offer you an Insight that is found in the Ramsay from uh yesterday I mentioned and I'm not going to repeat exactly what I said yesterday but I mentioned uh that the rambam explains that a person might erroneously conclude that since the penalty four engaging in a non-consensual Act is a monetary fine so that must mean that if you want to make it consensual and just pay for it in advance then that's fine and so the Toyota says very clearly no there shall not be a prostitute there shall not be a commercialization of of this act um and and that is the scriptural source for the prohibition against intimate relations outside of marriage there is a sister verse so to speak for the verse that we mentioned yesterday yesterday we learned uh that the the verse which is Deuteronomy 23 18. but there's a similar verse in vayikra in the Book of Leviticus chapter 19 verse 29. it's a commandment to a father not to prostitute his daughter um the verse finishes and if he'll do so lest uh the the outcome be that the land become full of lewdness become full of promiscuity so that I'm ceases upon those words why does it say and the world will become full of promiscuity so he says like this and if you remember we we spoke about this yesterday that their their on the books so to speak is already outlawed certain certain types of non-consensual Acts either the most overt form of a non-consensual act but we would describe as assault or what we in our clumsy translation would might call a seduction where someone who was unwilling was was convinced so to speak to be willing uh but but Torah forbids it and and Levy's a fine against it so that's one prohibition um but we need this extra prohibition prohibit uh consensual uh intimate relations outside of marriage uh for a different reason and when I say consensual I mean either when it is done commercially or it's done just by two parties who decide to do so for for free why does this prohibition why is this separate prohibition required and why is it specifically described in its scriptural Origins as something that's done to prevent Uma the land from becoming full of promiscuity he makes a distinction between these two types of prohibitions the non-consensual acts although they do occur unfortunately they don't occur so often this is what the rambam says they're not so common however consensual acts of lewdness is something that if we don't control it if people aren't careful about it it can get way out of hand and it can become widespread it can take over society and then the land becomes full of lewdness so it's very interesting this Insight that the ramam is giving that the prohibition against assault it's it's it's dealing with an aspect of human nature which unfortunately does exist and has to be addressed but it's not something that threatens to take over Society it's not something that would just become uh normalized but consensual acts of licentious behavior that needs to be very carefully controlled or it would just become the norm so it's a very interesting insight there and I'm not going to editorialize but I'll invite you to contemplate what it might suggest about the society at large in which we live today it's just a fascinating thought but I'll uh leave it to you to discuss with your friends and your study partners and uh that's all I'll say about that but it's just the it's Food For Thought okay we'll continue studying tomorrow we'll see you again God God willing then