I have quoted the entire story again, because I think it is significant that Rav Kahana's defense that "It is Torah, and I must learn it" is omitted from this version (or was added in the other version). What is quoted as normative is Rav's behavior with his wife, and this is raised as an objection to his declaration that all superfluous speech, including intimate speech between husband and wife, will be answerable for at death. The Talmud's response is that when he needs to arouse his wife, when she is not "in the mood for love," then it is entirely appropriate and indeed required that he do so with words of intimacy and play. This, then, fits perfectly the picture that I have drawn on the basis of the Nedarim passage alone, that the requirement to arouse the desire of the wife and the intimacy and harmony of the couple are what become codified as the purview of Torah, according to the Talmud, and not the details of the physical act itself, which are left to their desires.
|
However, in accord with the method of reading in this book in general, we cannot ignore the fact that the text also incorporates Rav Kahana's voice claiming that this
is
Torah, and that he has the right (duty, obligation) to observe it. This voice correlates with the voice of Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai and his angelic interlocutors, who also wish to place the details of the sexual practices between lawful husband and wife under scrutiny and control.
16
Moreover, within the text itself it is thematized as directly contradictory to Rav's desire for intimacy and spontaneity in the sexual relations with his wife. Indeed, possibly we could detect a tension between the two citations of the story within the Talmud itself. As I have noted above, Rav Kahana's response"It is Torah and I must learn it"does not occur in the version cited in Hagiga, in which Rav's behavior is being cited as definitive. An argument can be constructed, in fact, that this phrase has been added in the Berakhot version. Immediately before this story there, two tannaitic stories are presented about pupils who fol-
|
 | | 16. To be sure, we are not told what aspect of sexual behavior Rav Kahana desired to learn about, nor what he considered to be Torah. My argument is not, then, that Rav Kahana literally held the view of Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai but that the very fact that he wished to observe the sexual behavior implied the existence of a right way and a wrong way to do "it." One could argue that the right way is precisely the one that I am identifying as what the Rabbis wish to maintain, namely the affective, intimate aspect of sexual intercourse, but precisely that, of course, would be made impossible by observation! We have a kind of Heisenberg uncertainty principle with a vengeance. Hence, it is this aspect of the sexual behavior of the teacher that the student comments upon negatively. In order to ensure intimacy, the Rabbis have to be prepared to leave intimate behavior as intimate. Sometimes power can only function by withdrawing itself. The continuation of my argument will bear out this reading.
|
|
|