One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הלכות איסורי ביאה
Issurei Biah 16
Sefer Kedushah · Forbidden Intercourse · who is barred from marrying within Israel and who is not, why the cause of the condition decides it, and the universal prohibition against destroying reproductive capacity
3
Organs whose injury disqualifies
1
Hairsbreadth that preserves fitness
3
Men lashed for one act between them
0
Lands exempt from the prohibition
Part 1Who Is Barred, and From Whom
- The prohibition and its penalty. A man whose testicles were maimed or whose member was severed, who marries a native-born Jewess and lives with her as her husband, is liable for lashes, from the verse that a man so afflicted may not enter the congregation of God. He is not impure, not cut off, and not released from a single mitzvah; one category of marriage closes (16:1)
- What stays permitted. He may marry a female convert or a freed maidservant, and so may a priest in this condition, because the holiness of the priesthood does not rest upon him and the priestly marriage restrictions lift (16:1)
- Doubtful lineage is open to him. He may marry a female netin or a woman whose lineage is in doubt, since the Sages did not extend their decrees to a man already forbidden to marry among the Jewish people; the verse was always understood to speak of lineage that is definite (Kiddushin 73a, per the standard gloss) (16:1-2)
- A definite mamzeret remains forbidden. That prohibition is Scriptural and does not lift, because the holiness of an ordinary Jew, unlike that of the priesthood, has not left him. The Ra'avad disagrees and permits it, the Maggid Mishneh records authorities on both sides, and the Shulchan Aruch follows the Rambam while the Rama notes the other view (16:2)
RememberThe priesthood's holiness leaves him and an Israelite's does not, which is why one door closes while every Scriptural door stays exactly where it was
Part 2The Examination, and the Hand of Heaven
- Three organs are at issue. The member, the testicles, and the tract in which the seed develops; if any one of the three was wounded or crushed, the man is disqualified (16:3)
- The findings cut both ways. A cut above the corona disqualifies, yet a hairsbreadth remaining intact around the whole circumference keeps him acceptable, and one shape of cut is acceptable where another is not; Rashi disqualifies a case the Rambam permits, and the Shulchan Aruch records both views (16:4)
- The status can be reversed. A perforation disqualifies only while it remains open; if the hole closes he returns to acceptable status. An obstruction of the seminal tract disqualifies (16:5-6)
- Only a hand disqualifies. Everywhere this chapter says unacceptable it means the condition was not caused by the hand of heaven, that is, severed by a man or a dog, or struck by something sharp. Born this way, born without the organs, or wasted by illness or an ulcer, he may marry among the Jewish people, for all of those are blemishes by the hand of heaven. Rabbenu Asher is stricter on the illness and ulcer cases (16:9)
RememberTwo men with identical findings, one permitted and one forbidden, and the only question the law asks about either of them is who caused it
Part 3The Prohibition Against Destroying
- No place is exempt. It is forbidden to destroy a male's reproductive organs in humans and also in animals, beasts and fowl, of kosher and of non-kosher species, in Eretz Yisrael and in the Diaspora. Scripture says you shall not do this in your land, and the Oral Tradition teaches that the prohibition applies everywhere, with lashes under Scriptural law (16:10)
- Liability tracks the act, not the loss. Even one who castrates a creature already castrated is lashed, and where one man severed, a second pulled away and a third cut, all three are lashed, including the last, who acted where nothing remained to ruin (16:10-11)
- Females, potions, and indirect means. One who castrates a female, human or animal, is not liable for lashes, though the Maggid Mishneh and the Shulchan Aruch read the act as still forbidden. Giving a male of any species a potion that destroys his potency is forbidden without lashes, while a woman may drink a potion so as not to conceive, which the standard gloss notes is the basis on which later authorities permitted oral contraceptives. Binding a man and setting a dog on him, or using water or snow, carries no lashes but stripes for rebellious conduct are fitting (16:11-12)
- It cannot be routed through anyone else. One may not tell a gentile to castrate his animal; if the gentile acted on his own initiative the animal is permitted, but a Jew who maneuvers him into it without saying the words is penalized and required to sell the animal to another Jew (16:13)
RememberA law that lashes a man for an act that destroyed nothing is not a law about damage, it is a law about hands