{"id":60541,"date":"2019-08-03T21:53:22","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T18:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60541"},"modified":"2023-02-26T16:42:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T14:42:56","slug":"the-context-of-amnons-hatred-for-tamar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-context-of-amnons-hatred-for-tamar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Context of Amnon\u2019s Hatred For Tamar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After the horrific rape of his half-sister Tamar, \u201cAmnon felt a very great loathing for her; indeed his loathing was greater than the passion that he had felt for her.\u201d (13-15) One may readily imagine causes for his hatred; Rav Soloveitchik, for example, writes insightfully about how the sinner is revolted by the object of his sin, as a displacement of the disgust and shame he feels with himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud however, rather than take such a psychologically plausible tack, gives an apparently bizarre explanation of Amnon\u2019s loathing. \u201cTamar caused one of her pubic hairs to become entwined around his sexual organ, cutting it,\u201d (Sanhedrin 21a; so as to make him infertile, Rashi explains.)<\/span><\/p>\n

What?? Why introduce such a lurid scenario, for which there is no warrant in the text? Why not give one of the less extreme and more plausible explanations for Amnon\u2019s hatred that are available?<\/span><\/p>\n

Before we dismiss the rabbis as misogynistic fantasists, let us look at the context of this statement. Doing so uncovers a striking reading of the Amnon and Tamar story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud precedes its reading of our story by telling us that in addition to the children of David from his 18 lawfully wedded wives (the maximum number permitted him), there were 400 soldiers in David\u2019s army who were his children from beautiful non-Jewish women who were captured in war.<\/span><\/p>\n

These sons of David \u201cgrew their hair in a gentile hairstyle and sat in carriages of gold. They walked at the head of the troops and were the strong-arm enforcers of the house of David.\u201d (Sanhedrin 21a) The Talmud depicts David\u2019s erotic freedom, straining against the Torah\u2019s limits, (\u201cHe shall not increase wives\u2026Deut. 17:17\u201d) and engendering a nexus of sexuality, power and barely veiled violence in the persons of his privileged sons from the beautiful captives.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud then states that Tamar was the offspring one of the captive women. Positing these origins helps the Talmud explain the injury that she inflicted on Amnon. Ben Ish Hai (1835-1909) in his Ben Yehoyada commentary accounts for the Talmud\u2019s explanation of Amnon\u2019s weird injury thus: idolatrous women of the time applied a kind of cream that caused their pubic hair to become as stiff and sharp as needles, a protection against endemic rape.<\/span><\/p>\n

I doubt the historical truth or physiological plausibility of the Ben Ish Hai\u2019s explanation. But thematically, it complements the Talmud\u2019s picture of the unwholesome background to our chapter: The rape emerged from a milieu of sexual license fused with military power in David\u2019s court that the king himself had helped foster. Amnon hated Tamar\u2019s effort to defend herself from rampant sexual abuse, a resentment that the Talmud makes physical in the image of damage to his male organ.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the rape, the Talmud adds, David forbade a man to be alone with a single woman, (Sanhedrin 21b) implicitly recognizing a responsibility to change the culture that made it possible. But this decree came too late to save his kingdom from the bloody consequences of Amnon\u2019s abuse.<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Ephraim Moses Lilien, David With His Heroes, 1914<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":60542,"id":60542,"title":"2sam13-david-lilien","filename":"2sam13-david-lilien.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/2sam13-david-lilien.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-context-of-amnons-hatred-for-tamar\/2sam13-david-lilien\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam13-david-lilien","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":60541,"date":"2019-08-03 18:53:08","modified":"2021-11-22 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