From Hadesh Vol. I, Issue No.3 - Love
By: Ariel Yaari
Author’s Note: What you are reading is a heavily abridged version of the article I wanted to write. Issues such as these require time, care, and extensive research. As I prepared the original draft, it became increasingly clear to me that it would not make the deadline and that I would have to shorten it. The problem with shortening it is that the full force of the argument cannot be made sufficiently. Therefore, I encourage our readers to go to our website, hadesh.org, where the definitive version of this article will be going up later this month.
In an era of confusion, people seek meaning. Rather than believing that the purpose of life is to be “free-spirited” individuals who are disconnected from God, family, and community, they seek transcendence. To devote yourself to something that is utterly beyond yourself, and to find beauty in the realization that there are things that matter beyond how you earn a living. In this search, many have returned to their national traditions, from England to Israel.
However, due to the disconnect from our traditions that modernity has engendered, there has been much confusion about what and what isn’t part of the chain of tradition. Sometimes this uncertainty can be beneficial. For example, the revival of tekhelet could only happen through questioning established orthodoxies. Exempting these rare circumstances, the tradition has usually sidelined something because it was better for internal cohesion. Polygamy was one such practice.
I do not pretend that this is an issue currently affecting the Jewish world. This isn’t some mass movement. But it has garnered some traction in small corners of the Jewish world. Whether by those who want to restore “ye olden days” or by those who consider it more “authentic” to the Middle Eastern origins of the Jews.
Monogamy is not a foreign imposition on the Jewish People. It is the Torah’s ideal, as a close reading of the sources will illustrate.
It is true that the Torah acknowledges polygamy as a matter of fact. In Sefer Shemot, the Torah talks about a case where a father sells his daughter into slavery. There’s a provision that states that if she decides to marry the master’s son, and the son takes another wife, that her conjugal and material rights may not be diminished.1 Another stipulation in Sefer Devarim bewares the husband of two wives not to disinherit the older son in favor of the younger son, who is of the favored wife.2
Rabbinic literature assumes that a man can marry multiple women.3 The Gemara in Yevamot 65a is what seems to codify as polygamy as normative in Jewish law. There is a dispute between R. Ammi of Eretz Yisrael and Rava of Babylonia whether a man can marry a second wife to test himself for infertility. R. Ammi forbids it and Rava permits it, and the Halachic tradition holds like Rava.4
While the traditional halachic literature seems to indisputably hold polygamy as permissible, we must make a distinction between the legal and the moral. Maimonides in his Guide to the Perplexed questions the need for God to partake in physical sacrifices of meat, wine, and grain. Why does a non-physical being partake in the pagan modes of worship? Rather, God does this for us, and not for Him: He does not need sacrifices, but we needed to sacrifice. There are many revolutionary ideas in the Torah, but in order to implement these new ideas, slowly leading the Jewish People out of pagan understandings of the universe, some “compromises” for human nature must be made.5 Maimonides has other statements to this effect.6
This should not be understood that we can relentlessly reinterpret the Torah through whatever moral prism happens to be fashionable.7 Interpretations such as above can only be made with the foundation of Hazal, Geonim, and Rishonim, such as the Rambam. All I am trying to do is to decipher the intention of the author. What is God trying to tell us in His book?
Rabbi Nahman of Breslov has a famous saying: “The non-Jews tell their children stories to put them to sleep. We tell our children stories to wake them up.” To determine the Torah view of polygamy, I think it is imperative to examine the stories in which it appears.
We start where all Jewish destiny does: Avraham Avinu. After 10 years of not being able to bear her husband children, Sarah offers her maidservant Hagar as a co-wife. This has precedent in ancient Mespotomian law. The Nuzi tablets found in northern Iraq stipulate such a clause. If the wife is not able to bear children for her husband, she is to give one of her servants to him. The maidservant then acts as a conduit for her mistress, the children effectively being hers.8
Hagar becomes pregnant quickly, and mocks Sarah for her infertility. Sarah, incensed, asks Avraham for permission to take retribution against Hagar, to which he assents. Hagar is treated so atrociously9 that she flees into the wilderness, where an angel promises her that her offspring will be numerous, but she must return to Sarah and suffer under her.10
This saga continues after Sarah gives birth to Yitzhak. She tells Avraham to get rid of Hagar and Yishmael a few years after Yitzhak’s birth.11 God agrees, telling Avraham to listen to Sarah, as only Yitzchak will be called his descendant.12 Thus, the Hagar-Sarah rivalry ends.
Did this story make you uncomfortable? If so, that was the point. The Torah is showing the ramifications polygamy has on the family. First, it shows the breakdown of the social bonds between husband and wife. Avraham and Sarah came to Canaan as partners. The minute Hagar enters the picture, the relationship immediately changes. Hagar and Sarah enter into a competition vying for Avraham’s affections. Hagar tries to usurp Sarah’s place as Avraham’s main wife.13 After all, it was she who had gotten pregnant. Through her would Avraham’s lineage be perpetuated. Who was Sarah anyway? What had she accomplished?
So enraged was Sarah by this presumptive attempt to steal her husband, that she thought it necessary to remind the servant girl of her place within the hierarchy. The rivalry between Sarah and Hagar continued with their children. Yishmael sought to take his place within the household like his mother.14 Not being a recipe for continued cohesion, God finally told Avraham to let them go.
I have taken the saga of Avraham-Sarah-Hagar as a framework, because it is the first time these themes emerge in the Mikra, but they are by no means the last. The constant bickering between Rachel and Leah over Yaakov repeats these themes. The vindictiveness of the women toward each other, the rivalry among their children, the husband being placed in a tangled mess of household politics.15 It emerges yet again with Hanna, Peninna, and Elkana.16 Then again with David and his wives and sons.17
The Avot were righteous, yes. Paragons to which we still look for guidance today. “The actions of the forefathers are a sign for their descendants - מעשה אבות סימן לבנים”. This includes their foibles as well. We learn from the entirety of them, with their thorns and roses.
What I seldom hear from the rare polygamy-advocate is that the Tanakh does indeed describe an idyllic version of marriage. Always when describing the relationship between God and the Nation of Israel, it is done through the analogy of a husband helplessly in love with his wife.
To provide just a few examples:
Hoshea: “Assuredly, I will speak coaxingly to her and lead her through the wilderness and speak to her tenderly. I will give her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a vineyard of hope! Then she shall respond as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt.”18
Yirmiyahu: “Go and announce to Jerusalem: So says God, ‘I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridal days. You followed after me in the desert, in a land not sown.’”19
Yehezkel: “‘I passed over you and I saw the time of your love had arrived. Thus, I spread my robe over your nakedness, and I entered into a covenant with you,’ says the Lord, God, ‘thus you were to me.’”20
These prophecies illustrate, in some of the most beautiful language in our canon, how God views the relationship between Himself and us, as a story of lovers who were made for one another. He feels constant betrayal by our actions but hopes for eventual reconciliation.
This relationship can only arise from monogamy. The partners are on equal footing, utterly devoted to one another, forging the path forward together, building the Jewish home with love, dedication, and conviction to their united cause.
A Woman of Valor,
Who can find her?
Her Husband puts her trust in her,
And he shall not lack…
Mishlei 31:10-1121
Shemot 21:7-10. Husbands directly providing food to their wives was fairly typical in largely agricultural societies.
Devarim 21-15-18. It is interesting to note that these laws seem to be dealing with the negative familial ramifications of polygamous marriages. We will return to this point. Additionally, I am purposely ignoring the Biblical injunction barring the King from having too many wives as that is a limit on the King, not on polygamy in general.
While an extensive bibliography is impossible, for some examples see Yevamot 1:1, Ibid. 4:11, and Ketubot 10:4.
See Rif ad loc. Also, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Nashim, Hilchot Ishut 14:3 and Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 1:9.
Moreh Nevukhim III, 32.
See what the Rambam says regarding non-Jewish slaves: Mishneh Torah, Sefer Avodah, Hilchot Avadim 8:9.
See Shmuel Phillps, Judaism Reclaimed (Jerusalem: Mosaica Press, 2019), 249-261 and Joshua Berman, Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2020), 3-12. I thank Rabbi Phillips for helping me locate the source in his book.
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, (London: Orion Books, 1995), 12-13.
Some may object to my wording here. I do not mean to, in any way, diminish or denigrate the mother of our nation.
Bereshit 16.
Exactly what for is unclear.
Bereshit 21:13.
Hagar’s attempt at usurpation seems far-fetched until one learns about Roxelana, the chief consort of Suleiman the Magnificent, who attained such a prominent position in his harem that Suleiman became monogamous for her!
This claim will get the full support it deserves in the longer version of this article.
Tamar Weissman has done excellent scholarship on this in her book, Tribal Lands.
Shmuel I 1:2-8.
The Amnon-Avshalom incident, Avshalom deposing David and violating his concubines, the affair with Batsheva, Shelomo deposing his older brother, Adoniyahu. The list is extensive.
Hoshea 2:16-17.
Yirmiyahu 2:2.
Yehezkel 16:8.
For a fuller treatment of these subjects such as the societal effects of polygamy, a reappraisal of the Ban of Rabbenu Gershom, and traditional sources to demonstrate that I am not subjecting the Torah to modern reinterpretation, please check out our website, where the definitive version of this article will appear later in the coming month.