Safe, Sane, and Attentive: Toward a Jewish Ethic of Sex and Public Health Rebecca Jane Epstein-Levi Oberlin, OH B.A., Oberlin C
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Safe, Sane, and Attentive: Toward a Jewish Ethic of Sex and Public Health Rebecca Jane Epstein-Levi Oberlin, OH B.A., Oberlin College, 2008 M.A., University of Virginia, 2012 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia April 2017 2 © Rebecca Jane Epstein-Levi, 2017 Abstract Safe, Sane, and Attentive: Toward a Jewish Ethic of Sex and Public Health offers a new framework for a Jewish ethic of sex and public health that is derived from mishnaic ritual purity literature. Mishnaic texts characterize ritual impurity not as a moral stain, but as a troublesome-yet-mundane condition that is a predictable consequence of common forms of social interaction. While ritual impurity has potentially serious social and ritual consequences and its management and prevention should be taken seriously, the contraction of impurity is not an occasion for shame or disgrace, and the risk of contracting impurity does not warrant avoiding regular social interaction. The present study argues that sex is not a sui generis phenomenon; rather, it is species of social interaction, and that STIs should be understood, in turn, as predictable risks of certain forms of social interaction. This study thus argues that these parallel features of purity discourse are valuable resources, for both Jews and non-Jews, for thinking about the ethics of managing STIs, and it articulates a Jewish ethical framework that is textually grounded, socially responsible and sexually aware. It offers a religious and unapologetically normative approach to sexual ethics that is attentive to the empirical particularity of sex and sexual health as concrete phenomena and prioritizes the needs and experiences of sexual and gender minorities. Methodologically, the dissertation advances an innovative approach to drawing contemporary ethical claims from classical text. Instead of drawing a one-to-one correspondence between contemporary sexual ethics and texts that explicitly discuss sex, this study asks which phenomena within the social world of classical texts function in ii ways that are fruitfully comparable to the ways sexuality functions in contemporary social situations. iii For Sarah, who keeps me vulnerable and thereby keeps me kind. And for Kathryn, who by her example as a Christian taught me how to be a Jew. i Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Introduction: Why Talk About Sex? 1 I. Hermeneutical, Theoretical, Moral Commitments 5 II. Prospectus 11 1. Risky Business: At The Intersection of Sex and Public Health 14 I. Sexual Risks: Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Why They Matter 16 II. Who's Doing What? Risky Sex at Large, and Within Judaism 33 III. Mitigation Strategies 47 IV. Benefits of Sex: Why Sexual Decision-Making Isn’t Just About Risk 51 V. Toward a Better Picture of the Risks and Benefits of Sexual Interaction 58 2. Jewish Sexual Ethics as it Stands Now, and What it is Missing 63 I. A (Very) Brief History of Sex in the Jewish Tradition 65 II. Current Discussion 89 III. What Do We Learn From This? Lacunae, Dead Ends, and Possibilities 107 3. Textual Models: Exploring Rabbinic Purity Discourse 115 I. Content, Form, and Function: Approaching the Texts 115 II. A Brief Overview of Impurity from the Tanakh to the Talmud 125 III. Impurity In Social Intercourse: Balberg's Model 131 IV. Features and Functions of Mishnaic Impurity: Cases from Mishnah Zavim 145 V. Problematics of Power: Rabbinic Power and the Construction of Impurity 166 VI. Summary: Toward a Synthesis 179 4. Navigating Risk, Power, and Obligation: Toward a New Jewish Understanding of Risky Sexual Behavior 182 I. Reconstructing Sex, Risk, and Responsibility 187 II. Sources and Varieties of Impurity 207 III. Remedies for Impurity 222 5. What, Then, Ought We Do? Practical Conclusions 234 I. Articulating Discrete Sexual Responsibilities 234 II. Problematics of Power: Medical and Ritual Expertise in a Broken World 248 III. Summary and Remaining Questions 264 Bibliography 272 i ii Acknowledgements Dissertations, even though they are by definition the first major scholarly effort by an individual, are nevertheless a group project in many important ways. I, like any other dissertator, owe the success of my project to many people, in many roles. First thanks, of course, must go to my director, Margaret Mohrmann. Margaret’s encouragement, mentorship, formidable editorial prowess, and above all, friendship have helped me develop into a far better and more rigorous scholar than I otherwise would be, and her sense of humor has helped me remember not to take myself too seriously. The other members of my committee—Peter Ochs, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, and Beth Epstein—have also played critical roles in the development of this project and in my development as a scholar. Peter Ochs, perhaps more than anyone else, has shaped me as a Jewish reasoner, and it is thanks to his intense and prophetic love for the never-ending dance between living text, engaged interpretation, and inspired practice that I have learned to work with texts as genuine partners. Elizabeth Shanks Alexander—also a formidable editrix—has taught me invaluable hermeneutic rigor. Thanks to her, I know the importance of a clear and focused pair of reading glasses for the construction and proper use of strong and effective riot gear. And I am deeply grateful for Beth Epstein's kindness, encouragement, and relentlessly practical focus. The department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia has been a wonderful, challenging, and supportive place to pursue my graduate work. I owe particular thanks to Professors Asher Biemann, Larry Bouchard, Jim Childress, Martien Halvorson-Taylor, Willis Jenkins, Charles Mathewes, and Karl Shuve for their mentoring and support. Special mention must go to Professor Vanessa Ochs, who is my Rabbi and iii friend as well as my professor, and to Professor Nichole Flores, whose insights in conversation have enriched the project and who has also become a dear friend. And I nominate Liz Smith, who between her kindness, good cheer, and utter omniscience concerning all things administrative has saved my tuchas countless times, for sainthood. The religion department at Oberlin College, which is both my undergraduate alma mater and my first employer, has been a fantastic place from which to finish my work on this project. I am especially grateful for the mentoring and support I have received from Cindy Chapman, Margaret Kamitsuka, David Kamitsuka, and Abe Socher, who are my teachers and are now my colleagues. Brenda Hall and Kathy King, the indefatigable administrative assistants for Religion and History, also performed their fair share of tuchas-saving. I am grateful for the friendship and support of Sarah Pierce Taylor, Laura Herron, Cheryl Cottine, Martino Dibeltulo Concu, Danielle Terrazas Williams, Tamika Nunley, Gabriel Cooper, and Rabbi Megan Doherty. Particular thanks goes to Chip Lockwood, without whose encouragement and accountability during our Wednesday morning writing dates I would have been far harder pressed to finish on time. My dear friends and colleagues in the study of religion have been invaluable throughout this process and beyond. Kathryn Ray, Deborah Barer and Mark Randall James read and commented on substantial sections of this work at various stages of drafting and my work is richer and more rigorous for their insights. Learning with my chevruta, Emily Filler, has been crucial for developing not only my textual skills, but for my ability to have fun with texts, as well. Her philosophical insights about this project haven’t been too shabby, either. Conversations with Ashleigh Elser, Kelly Figueroa-Ray, Nauman Faizi, Paul Gleason, Daniel Wise, Joe Lenow, and Charlie Gillespie also iv developed and refined my arguments in important ways. Particular thanks are also due to Blaire French, whose tutelage in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew has been indispensable. In the summer of 2013 I was a bioethics intern at U.Va’s Teen and Young Adult Health Center. Observing there gave me invaluable insight into the on-the-ground realities of sex education and sexual health, especially for marginalized populations. For their hospitality, tutelage, insight, and good cheer—and for their critical and indefatigable work in the community, I thank the staff there: Dyan Aretakis, Heather Payne, April Garrison, Ruth Cowan, and M.A. Sullivan. My semester at Yeshivat Hadar, in the fall of 2013, was a watershed moment for my textual and ritual life; during that semester I also wrote the paper that would become the germ of this project. I am grateful to the insight and mentorship of my teachers there: Dena Weiss, Devorah Zlochower, and Rabbis Jason Rubenstein, Ethan Tucker, and Shai Held. The friends I made there also deepened and refined my thought on text and ethics: in particular I wish to acknowledge Jessica Belasco, Tali Adler, Laynie Soloman, Mary Brett Koplen, Debbie Nehmad, Sam Greenberg, Rena Singer, and my chevruta Chaim Kesler. Thanks are also due to my fantastic roommates, Alexandra Casser and Samantha Kuperberg. I also owe debts of gratitude to the animals in my life. Lilith the cat was my boon companion since I was a girl of nine, and her beauty, grace, and regal serenity (of the sort that can only be possessed by members of the family felidae) helped me keep an even keel and a sense of proper perspective throughout the majority of my life. These things are, as it turns out, indispensable for seeing such a massive project through to its conclusion. Lily did not live to see me complete this dissertation, as she succumbed to the v toll of her more than nineteen years in October of 2015. However, she provided critical support throughout the proposal process and the drafting of the all-important first chapters by placing herself strategically on top of my books and keyboard, thus forcing me to attend to the real needs of flesh-and-blood creatures in front of my eyes before presuming to theorize those needs.