Monday, February 12, 2007

Motzes Gedolei Hador come forth with new brocha for adultery

Motzes Gedolei Hador come forth with new brocha for adultery
Say it is time for Orthodox to connect with modern times

By Rabbi Lamech Somayach
Mashgiach Ruchini Yeshiva Aishes Eish Hatorah
Special to MeshumadMeshubach.blogspot.com

In a move that shocked the audience at the last public meeting of the Board of Agudath Israel of America, Rabbi Nosson Scherman and Rabbi Joseph Elias announced the publication of a new brocha to be said before committing adultery and consensual intercourse between unmarried people.

The new blessing is supposed to bring a long standing tradition among Frum men back into the world of halacha by reminding both the men and women having sex outside of their spouse that Hashem is in charge of the world and that rabbinical supervision of panties and niddah is still required. It also brought a promise of rabbinical secrecy and confidentiality in the case of infidelity.

The blessing sounds like a very familiar blessing over apples and starts out just like every blessing, invoking the G-d who is the creator of the universe and commanded us with his commandments. However the ending is a surprising invocation of original sin and the tree of Knowledge. It is intended both for the pelegish and the man to recite before poking a hole in the sheet or unrolling the condom.

“The next printing of the Artscroll Siddur will contain the blessing Barouch atah adonay, elokanoo meilech ha-oilam asher kiddushanu b’mitsvosav u’vitsevanu l’ocheilas bo’ray pa’ri ha aitz ha daas,” Rabbi Scherman said. “In English that would read, “Blessed art thou, oh L-rd our G-d, creator of the universe who commanded us with his mitzvoth and commanded us concerning regarding eating of the fruit of knowledge.”

“This will bring the omnipresent knowledge of everything man does in the eyes of rabbonim to Jews attempting to stray everywhere. We estimate the increased guilt will increase tithings by 10 to 15 percent,” said Rabbi Elias. “Since donations in the shul have not kept up with the increase prices of real estate this is a vital part of continuted rabbinical hegemony.”

“After a few years of living this way our membership should be so screwed up they won’t even know if they are coming or going, much less what the leadership is or is not doing,” Elias added.

Pundits agree that the blessing should bring legitimacy to a widespread practice and thus would strengthen the state of orthodoxy even more than the innovation when Channukah was eleveated to the level of Christmas gift giving in America.

However more than one halachic scholar noted that the invention of the blessing was still too late for some people.

“This spells eventual forgiveness for Rabbi Kolko and all of Torah Temimah, but only after the NAMBLA people get through with it and that might be years, he could be dead by then,” Said Rabbi Moses Dovid Tendler of Yeshiva University.

Another scholar who refused to be named because of his own connections to allegations of marital infidelity in his own synagogue said that the main reason for the new blessing and related halachot was because some people who were unpopular have been ousted from their synagogue. For them it is too late, but others may still be saved, he said.

The Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox world have been shaken by several major scandals of sexual nature in recent years and the new blessing is hoped to be a way to stem the tide of sexual impropriety by bringing the issue back into the mainstream of discussion.

“We’ve already included excerpts from all the related Talmudic tractates and several commentaries by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, alav haShalom, into the Complete Artscroll Guide to Adultry,” Rabbi Scherman said.

Despite a single case of homosexual child molestation at one Brooklyn middle and high school, there was still no allowance for homosexuality in the brocha, which is strictly forbidden, Rabbi Scherman said. He declined to elaborate on the topic of the proper age of consent, noting solely that the Torah determines a woman is able to copulate once she has her first period, but only says males become a man at 13.

Scherman and several other rabbis went to great lengths to explain how the problem has gotten big enough to be recognized and contained and not just ignored. And failing this, they are already at work to included the blessings for Cherem and beheading as well as choking on molten lead.

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