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Rabbi Arthur Segal’s love of people, humanity, and Judaism has him sharing with others “The Wisdom of the Ages” that has been passed on to him. His writings for modern Jews offer Spiritual, Ethical, and eco-Judaic lessons in plain English and with relevance to contemporary lifestyles. He is the author of countless articles, editorials, letters, and blog posts, and he has recently published two books:

The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew

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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH POLYGAMY:YISRAYL HAWKINS:"MORE WIVES, MORE WITCHCRAFT"

 RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH POLYGAMY: YISRAYL HAWKINS : "THE MORE WIVES, THE MORE WITCHCRAFT"
 
In the news recently is another cult quoting Jewish scripture allowing them to be polygamous. This time it was Pastor Yisrayl Hawkins who has his congregants dress up in Jewish prayer shawls (tallitim) with fringes (tzit-tzit),  and kippot, and has Shabbat services on Saturday.  At first glace they look like ''real Yidden'', the type with whom I grew up, especially when the two Temples in my neck of  Galut are usually closed on Shabbat's Saturdays  and few folks wear Tallit or Kippot. :-)
 
Jewish polygamy seems to have been a well-established institution, dating from the most ancient times and extending to comparatively modern days. The Torah indeed regulated and limited this usage, but the Prophets and the rabbis looked upon it with disfavor in the Talmud. In the Mishna Pirkei Avot 2:7, we have the saying by rabbi Hillel " The more wives, the more witchcraft; the more female slaves, the more promiscuity".
 
Similarly, King Solomon has said: "Enjoy happiness with a woman you love" (Ecclesiastes 9:9), and not "with women," because he who has many wives can not lead a happy life. This comes off however as hypocritical as Solomon is chastised for taking some one thousand women as wives and concubines ( I Kings 11:1--7 ; Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 21b).]
 
Still all had to recognize polygamy's existence, and not until late was it completely abolished.
 
At no time, however, was it practiced so much among we Israelites as among other nations; and the tendency in Jewish social life was always toward monogamy. 

That the ideal state of human society, in the mind of the early Israelite, was a monogamous one is clearly shown by the fact that the first man (Adam) was given only one wife, and that the first instance of bigamy occurred in the family of the  Cain (Gen. iv. 19), the world's first murderer. Lemech was the first to have taken two wives. Even though his action was not explicitly condemned, the evils that befell him from this situation were alluded to (Genesis 4:19, 23--24). Lemech was blind an accidentally with bow and arrow killed his grandfather Cain, as well as his own son. The Midrash says that the men of generations before the flood all had two wives, one for bearing children and house work, and one for pleasure. The first lived a life of misery and mourning.

Noah and his sons also are recorded as having only one wife each (Gen. 6: 7 and 13). Abraham had only one wife; and he was persuaded to marry his slave Hagar (Gen. 16: 2, 3) only at the urgent request of his wife, who deemed herself barren.

Our oral tradition states that Abraham married Hagar, who remained chaste for him, (Keturah), when Sarah died. (Gen. 25:1)

 Isaac had only one wife.

Jacob married two sisters, because he was deceived by his father-in-law, Laban (Gen.  24: 23-30). He, too, married his wives' slaves at the request of his wives, who wished to have children (Gen. 30: 4, 9).

There was jealousy among the wives, and Leah (weary), felt the brunt of it. The sons took it out on Joseph, who might have brought some ire onto himself with some loshan ha ra about his half-brothers.

The sons of Jacob as well as Moses and Aaron seem to have lived in monogamy.

 Among the Judges, however, polygamy was practiced, as it was also among the rich and the nobility (Judges 7: 30;  Judges. 12: 9, 14; I Chron. 2: 26, 4:. 5, 8: 8).

 Elkanah, the father of Samuel, had two wives, probably because the first (Channah) was childless (I Sam. 1: 2).

The tribe of Issachar was noted for its practice of polygamy (I Chron.7: 4). Caleb had two concubines (I Chron. 2: 46, 48).

David and Solomon had many wives (II Sam. 5: 13; I Kings 11: 1-3), a custom which was probably followed by all the later kings of Judah and of Israel (I Kings 20: 3).  Because Kings had so many wives, the prince that became a king, had to have the names of his mother  mentioned in the Tanach and not just the father. Jehoiada gave to Joash two wives ''only'' (II Chron. 24: 3).

There is no Biblical evidence that any of the Prophets lived in polygamy. Monogamous marriage was used by them as a symbol of the union of God with Israel, while polygamy was compared to polytheism or idolatrous worship (Hos. 2: 18; Isa. l. 1; Jer. 2: 2; Ezek. 16: 8).

The last chapter of Proverbs, which is a description of the purity of home life, points to a state of monogamy. The marriage with one wife thus became the ideal form with the great majority of the people; and in post-exilic times polygamy formed the rare exception. Herod, however, is recorded as having had nine wives (Josephus, "Ant." 17: 1,  3), but Herod was not one after whom   Jews wished to model themselves.

The Mosaic law, while permitting polygamy, introduced many provisions which tended to confine it to narrower limits, and to lessen the abuse that might arise in connection with it.

The Israelite woman slave who was taken as a wife by the son of her master was entitled to all the rights of matrimony, even after he had taken another wife; and if they were withheld from her, she had to be set free (Ex. 21: 9-11 ).

One who lived in bigamy might not show his preference for the children of the more favored wife by depriving the first-born son of the less favored one of his rights of inheritance (Deut. 21: 15-17; ).This would have save our people a lot of aggravation  if this was followed in Genesis. (A good question to raise when we study Midrash would be: "If  we are taught that our patriarchs learned Torah in the tents of Shem, why were they continually breaking Torah laws?" 

The king should not "multiply wives" (Deut. 17: 17) and the Talmud Bavli  Tractate Sanhedrin 21a, where the number is limited to 18, 24, or 48, according to the various interpretations given to II Sam. 12: 8); and the high priest is, according to the rabbinic interpretation of Lev. 21:13, commanded to take one wife only (Tractate Yevamoth  59a; Tractate  Yoma 2a).

The same feeling against polygamy existed in later Talmudic times.

Of all of the more than 2800 the rabbis named in the Talmud there is only one who is mentioned as having lived in polygamy. The general sentiment against polygamy is illustrated in a story related of the son of R. Judah ha-Nasi (Tractate Ketubot 62a).

A peculiar passage in the Targum (Aramaic paraphrase) to Ruth 4: 6 points to the same state of popular feeling. The kinsman of Elimelech, being requested by Boaz to marry Ruth, said, "I can not redeem; for I have a wife and have no right to take another in addition to her, lest she be a disturbance in my house and destroy my peace. Redeem thou; for thou hast no wife."

This is corroborated by R. Isaac, who says that the wife of Boaz died on the day when Ruth entered Palestine (Tractate Bava Batra 91a). Polygamy, was, however, sanctioned by Jewish law and gave rise to many rabbinical discussions.

While rabbi  Raba says that a man may take as many wives as he can support ( Tractate Yevamoth 65a), it was recommended that no one should marry more than four women (Tractate Yevamoth  44a). 

R. Ami was of the opinion that a woman had a right to claim a bill of divorce if her husband took another wife (Tractate Yevamoth 65a). The institution of the Ketubah, which was introduced by the Rabbis, still further discouraged polygamy. Subsequent enactments of the Geonim (Babylonian head rabbis from 589 ce to 1038 CE) tended to restrict this usage.

An express prohibition against polygamy was pronounced by R. Gershom ben Judah, "the Light of the Exile" (960-1028), which was soon accepted in all the communities of northern France and of Germany.

The Jews of Spain and of Italy as well as those of the Orient continued to practice polygamy for a long period after that time, although the influence of the prohibition was felt even in those countries. Some authorities suggested that R. Gershom's decree was to be enforced for a time only, namely, up to 5000 A.M. (1240 C.E.), probably believing that the Messiah would appear before that time; but this opinion was overruled by that of the majority of medieval Jewish rabbis. 

Even in the Orient monogamy soon became the rule and polygamy the exception; for only the wealthy could afford the luxury of many wives.

 In Africa, where Islam influence was strongest, the custom was to include in the marriage Ketubah contract the following paragraph: "The said bridegroom . . . hereby promises that he will not take a second wife during the lifetime of the said bride . . . except with her consent; and, if he transgresses this oath and takes a second wife during the lifetime of the said bride and without her consent, he shall give her every tittle of what is written in the marriage settlement, together with all the voluntary additions herein detailed, paying all to her up to the last farthing, and he shall free her by regular divorce instantly and with fitting solemnity." This condition was rigidly enforced by the rabbinic authorities.

The Jews of Spain practiced polygamy as late as the fourteenth century. The only requirement there was a special permit, for which a certain sum was probably paid into the king's treasury each time a Jew took an additional wife . Such cases, however, were rare exceptions. The Spanish Jews, as well as their brethren in Italy and in the Orient, soon gave up these practices; and today, although the Jews of the East live under Mohammedan rule, but few cases of polygamy are found among them.

In some exceptional cases bigamy was permitted , but this was in very rare cases only, and the consent of 100 learned men of three different states was required . While in the case of the agunah, (a wife chained in her  marriage because her husband cannot be located),  one witness who testifies to the death of her husband is sufficient to permit the woman to remarry, in the case of the woman's disappearance some authorities  are of the opinion that the testimony of one witness is not sufficient to permit the husband to remarry.

Later authorities, however, permit him to remarry even when there is only one witness to testify to the death of his wife, and even when that witness did not know her personally, providing that after he had described the deceased woman the husband recognized the description as that of his wife.

So while Pastor Yisrayl Hawkins can point to the Torah and the Tanach and find example of Jewish leaders having multiple wives, polygamy was not considered by Talmudic Jews, from at lest 2500 years ago, to be acceptable behavior. And while Jewish polygamy did exist in Sephardic communities in the 1300s, it was the exception and not the rule, and done away with from Judaism for at least 700 years.

This is not to say that Jewish men are immune from having illegal bigamous marriages or leading double lives with mistresses stashed away. The most public was discovered upon the death of the famous architect Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky). Kahn had three different families with three different women at the same time: his wife, Esther, whom he married in 1930; Anne Tyng. who began her working collaboration and personal relationship with Kahn in 1945; and Harriet Pattison.  In 2003, Kahn's son with Pattison, Nathaniel Kahn, released an Oscar-nominated biographical documentary about his father, titled My Architect: A Son's Journey  detailing Kahn's triple life.

Bibliography:

Jewish Encyclopedia (95% of article with me going to original Talmudic and Tanach sources)

Wikipedia Websites

Hastings, Dict. Bible, s.v. Marriage;
Hamburger. R. B. T., s.v. Vielweiberei;
Frankel, Grundlinien des Mosaisch-Talmudischen Eherechts, Breslau, 1860;
Lichtenstein, Die Ehe nach Mosaisch-Talmudischer Auffassung, ib. 1879;
Klugman, Stellung der Frau im Talmud, Vienna, 1898;
Rabbinowicz, Mebo ha-Talmud, Hebr. transl., p. 80, Wilna, 1894;
Buchholz, Die Familie, Breslau, 1867;
Mielziner, The Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce, Cincinnati, 1884;
Duschak, Das Mosaisch-Talmudische Eherecht, Vienna, 1864.E.

 






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