Torah/תורה: June 2005 Archives

Catching up on daf yomi, I learned Shabbat 25a today:

It is logical that consecrated items are not excluded from the prohibition for indeed they alone are subject to the stringencies suggested by the mnemonic PaNaK I'Kat, which stands for Piggul, Nossar, Korban, me'Ilah, and Kares, and forbidden to an onein.

The context and meaning of this sugyah aren't so important to what struck me: that onein is identical in consonants to Onan (ayin-nun-vav-nun). Onan, son of Judah, is famous for his death due to onanism, ie, spilling his seed — understood to be the source of the prohibition against masturbation.

Gen. 38:9 But Onan knew that the seed would not be his; so it was, that whenever he would come to his brother's wife [Tamar], he would destroy [it] onto the ground....

What is the connection between mourning and masturbation? The loss of a loved one leaves us with an emptiness, a longing, a sense of absence. Individuals, complete identities, entities return to the earth, seeds without casings, essence without form, light without a vessel. The petit mort of male orgasm, without the receptivity of a partner, can be likened to Onan's existential refusal to take Tamar, his deceased brother's wife, in levitical marriage. Rashi brings the Targum Yonatan, who states haben yekarei al shem hameyt, the son, the biyan, the manifest building that the union would have created who what been called in the name of the dead, ie Er his older brother. Er is the aspect of skin, recalling the fall of Adam and Chava, who before their knowing had skins of light. Trees has the taste of the fruit; there was no separation between light and the vessel, form and essence. Er means angel in Aramaic, and recalls Hanoch who walked with God. Er, Onan, and Hanoch were all taken out of their bodies by God directly. The onein, like the onanist, experiences an existenial loss where they become removed from ritual obligation, an ex statis in the truest sense, where a part of their etzem and identity are returned to the ground, leaving no perceived future growth, potential, or potency.