{"id":60538,"date":"2019-08-02T16:52:36","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60538"},"modified":"2023-02-26T17:02:04","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T15:02:04","slug":"rape-setting-social-and-legal-precedents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rape-setting-social-and-legal-precedents\/","title":{"rendered":"Rape: Setting Social And Legal Precedents"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[662,457,574,627,567],"acf":{"old_id":"60538","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33877,"related_cahpter":"276","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Tamar \u201cestablished a tall fence\u201d for the ages","content":"

Our chapter relates the tragic story of Tamar, the daughter of King David. Her half-brother, Amnon, develops an obsessive passion for her, while she is still a virgin, and eventually rapes her by luring her into his home on the pretense that he is ill and needs her to care for and feed him. Having forced himself upon her, Amnon immediately despises Tamar and forcibly sends her away. Then we are told that \u201cTamar put dust on her head and rent the ornamented tunic she was wearing. She put her hands on her head, and walked away, screaming loudly as she went\u201d (2 Samuel 13:1-19).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rabbinic Sages manage to derive from this tragic and horrifying story teachings that reverberate in contemporary culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 22a learns from verse 15: \u201cThen Amnon felt a very great loathing for her; indeed, his loathing for her was greater than the passion he had felt for her\u201d, that Amnon himself did not come away unscathed from his rape of Tamar. In answer to the question why Amnon\u2019s passion turned to hatred, Rabbi Yitzhaq suggested that Amnon was rendered a kerut shafkhah <\/em>(\u201cwhose member is cut off\u201d \u2013 see Deuteronomy 23:2) by becoming entangled with one of Tamar\u2019s pubic hairs. But what did Tamar actually do to Amnon that he should hate her so intensely? It is suggested that Tamar intentionally emasculated Amnon in this way as he was violating her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This midrashic elaboration of the biblical depiction of Amnon\u2019s rape of Tamar may be seen as a foreshadowing of contemporary discussion of women\u2019s rights to employ physical violence against their rapists. This Talmudic discussion goes on to learn from Tamar the need for women to be aware of the danger of being raped. By publicly proclaiming the humiliation done to her (13:19), Tamar \u201cestablished a tall fence\u201d (gader gadol gadrah<\/em>) to prevent sexual violence by causing women to realize that even if the chaste daughter of a king may be raped, how much the more so must ordinary women, who are not as modest as Tamar, be wary of becoming the victims of sexual assault. So, as a result of Tamar\u2019s having been raped when alone with Amnon, the Sages instituted two ordinances: Yihud <\/em>(the prohibition of seclusion in a private area of a man and a woman who are not married to each other), and Penuyah<\/em> (the prohibition of a man living together with a woman to whom he is not married).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These two prohibitions remain very much part of the way of life among observant Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":60539,"id":60539,"title":"2sam13-fence","filename":"2sam13-fence.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/2sam13-fence.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rape-setting-social-and-legal-precedents\/2sam13-fence\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam13-fence","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":60538,"date":"2019-08-02 13:52:19","modified":"2019-08-02 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