Today is May 30, 2023 / /

The Torah Learning Library of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

Category: Sex & Niddah

painting featuring a giraffe, tiger, and elephant with trees and blue sky in the background. cheerful painting. angel hovers over the giraffe at the back of the line of the three animals.

What Will You Create?

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on September 30, 2021

The Torah opens with God creating the world during the Six Days of Creation. Then follows Shabbat: va’yakhulu haShamayim, “And the Heavens and Earth, and all their hosts were completed.” Every Friday night, we open kiddush by reciting this verse and the verses that follow.…

Disability Right

May Young Men Give Physical Assistance To Young Women With Physical Disabilities?

To read this teshuva in Hebrew click here. Question: Each year, the Ma’ale Gilboa youth group hosts Camp Ilan, a camp for young men and women with disabilities. Due to insufficient manpower as well as the need for their physical strength, young men often take care of young women with physical disabilities.…

Abortion in Halakha: A Study Guide

Halakhic Parameters of Abortion: A Study Guide Guided Questions for Chavruta Learning See sources 1-5 which serve as the core sources for the Rabbinic position that full human life begins only after birth. Now look at sources 8-12.  Do they indicate that a fetus has the legal status / protections of a human life or not? …

May the Humra Di’R. Zeira be Relaxed in Cases of Halakhic Infertility?

Introduction “Halakhic infertility” occurs when observance of hilkhot niddah results in a woman ovulating only during the days that wife and husband are forbidden to be physically intimate. These situations result from post-biblical stringencies that lengthen the time of prohibition. This article discusses whether a couple may cease observing one such stringency, the humra di’R.…

May a Husband Give His Wife Supportive Touch During Childbirth? – Part 2

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on April 26, 2018

May a husband hold his wife’s hand or give her a massage during childbirth, according to halakhah?  We began to answer this question last week and came to the following interim conclusions: A pregnant woman is not considered to be in niddah until either she experiences uterine bleeding (distinct from mere stains), or until a limb of the baby emerges from the womb. …

May a Husband Give His Wife Supportive Touch During Childbirth?  – Part 1

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on April 19, 2018

QUESTION:  I am nine months pregnant, and my husband and I have been doing Lamaze classes to prepare for the birth of our baby.  Part of the Lamaze method includes pressure massage and massage of the abdomen.  I have been told, though, that it is forbidden by halakhah for my husband to do this because I will be in niddah at that time. …

May A Single Man Fulfill The Mitzvah Of Pru U’rvu (procreation)?

To read this teshuva in hebrew click here: Introduction Until the last generation, marriage and reproduction always went together. The only legitimate way of producing children was in the framework of marriage since non-marital sexual relationships are halakhically forbidden or, minimally, strongly discouraged.[1]…

Inclusion and the Mikveh

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on August 2, 2017

  This is a shiur that Rabbi Linzer gave at the Young Israel of Sharon, MA, on July 26, 2017. Click on the following audio link to listen to the shiur and follow along with the sources below:     (הוֹי כָּל צָמֵא לְכוּ לַמַּיִם (ישעיהו נ”ה:א Ho, every one that thirsts come ye to the waters (Isa.…

Between the Ideal and the Real – Before and After the Wedding

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on March 8, 2017

This is a source sheet to accompany the panel that took place in Jerusalem on January 4, 2017 titled, “Between the Ideal and the Real: Challenges in Halacha and Sexuality Before and  After the Wedding.”   To listen to the audio from the panel, click on the following audio link:   It is Torah, and Learn it We Must Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 62a: רב כהנא על, גנא תותיה פורייה דרב.…

How a Baby Is Made

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on December 8, 2016

SOURCE SHEET

How is a Baby Made?  More specifically, what determines the future characteristics of the child?  One answer emerges from the story of Yaakov’s breeding of the sheep, an answer that seems to be endorsed by the Talmud: a child’s character is shaped by what the mother and father were thinking and doing at the time of conception.…

Marital Sex: Halakhic and Ethical Parameters

by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on November 28, 2016

Challenges of Intimacy in the Orthodox Community Today: Case Studies from the Field

by Dr. Michelle Friedman, MD
Posted on November 28, 2016