By the Hand of Heaven

About This Talk

Issurei Biah 16 sets out who is barred from marrying within the lineage of Israel on account of maimed reproductive organs, and then forbids anyone from causing that condition anywhere in the world. A man whose testicles were maimed or whose member was severed is liable for lashes if he marries a native-born Jewess and lives with her, from the verse that such a man may not enter the congregation of God; he remains obligated in every mitzvah, and the Rambam immediately maps what stays open to him, namely a female convert or a freed maidservant, which even a priest in this condition may marry because the holiness of the priesthood does not rest upon him, and a female netin or a woman whose lineage is in doubt, since the verse was understood to speak only of definite lineage and the Sages added no decree, though a definite mamzeret stays forbidden because that prohibition is Scriptural, where the Ra'avad disagrees and permits it and the Maggid Mishneh records both views. The chapter then catalogs the examination with clinical precision across three organs, the member, the testicles and the tract in which the seed develops, and nearly every distinction in it is a possible acquittal: a hairsbreadth remaining intact around the whole circumference keeps him acceptable, one shape of cut is acceptable where another is not with Rashi disputing a case the Rambam permits, and a perforation disqualifies only while it stays open, so that if the hole closes he returns to acceptable status. Halachah 9 then supplies the hinge of the whole chapter, that unacceptable throughout means the condition was not caused by the hand of heaven but severed by a man or a dog or struck by something sharp, while one born with the condition, born without those organs, or whose organs ceased to function through illness or were wasted by an ulcer may marry among the Jewish people, since all of those are blemishes by the hand of heaven, with Rabbenu Asher stricter on the illness and ulcer cases. The second half turns entirely to the actor: destroying a male's reproductive organs is forbidden in humans, animals, beasts and fowl, kosher and non-kosher species, in the Land and in the Diaspora, since the Oral Tradition reads you shall not do this in your land as applying everywhere, with Scriptural lashes; even one who acts on a creature already castrated is lashed, and where one severed, a second pulled away and a third cut, all three are lashed; castrating a female carries no lashes though the Maggid Mishneh and Shulchan Aruch read the act as still forbidden; a potion that destroys a male's potency is forbidden without lashes while a woman may drink one 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 escapes lashes but merits stripes for rebellious conduct; and one may not tell a gentile to castrate his animal, though if the gentile acted on his own initiative it is permitted, while a Jew who maneuvers him into it is penalized and must sell the animal to another Jew, and may sell to a son past majority but neither sell nor give it to a son below majority, who holds no independent financial domain.