PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE

What material on the question of pornographic literature is found in our Jewish traditional writings? (From Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman, Trenton, New Jersey.)

THE question of pornography in speech and writing would concern the ethical rather than the legal literature, but the following is what there is in the ancient literature and the tradition based upon it.

The chief source is Deuteronomy 23:15. In discussing the duty to keep the camp of the Hebrew army sanitary, the verse in Deuteronomy expresses itself as follows: “For God walketh in the midst of thy camp. Therefore shall thy camp be holy, that He see no unseemly thing in thee.” The phrase translated “unseemly thing” in Hebrew is “ervas dovor, ” and so “unseemly thing” can be translated as “unseemly word.” In fact the Targum uses the word “pisgom” which means “word,” and Ibn Ezra explains the phrase to mean “nothing unseemly in deed or word.”

More specifically, in Leviticus Rabba 24:7, Rabbi Samuel ben Nachmann says that the phrase in Deuteronomy refers to pornographic speech (nibbul peh.). In fact the Talmud in Ketuboth 5b, speaks of the fingers and the ears and refers to the stick which is mentioned in the Deuteronomy passage for digging up the earth and covering the dirt, and also refers to the fact that the word used in the Deuteronomy passage for “weapons” is “ozen, ” which also means “ears.” Upon this the Talmud says that the passage implies that if a man hears unfit speech, in other words, pornographic speech, he should use his fingers to stop up his ears so as not to listen.

There are a number of more direct statements about pornographic speech. The Talmud in Shabbas 33a says that misfortunes come to us and young men die prematurely because of unseemly speech. This is based upon the verse in Isaiah 9:16, which refers to “the mouth that speaketh unseemly words.” The Talmud in Ketuboth 8b says quite straightforwardly, “Everyone knows why the bride enters the chuppah (here the word “chuppah” means the connubial room) but the man who will make sexy jokes about it will be punished by God’s decree.”

Therefore (and here we come closer to legal decision) the Shulchan Aruch in Even Hoezer 25:1-2, speaks of the duty of a man to avoid such speech even when he is alone with his wife. This is also based on the statement of the Talmud in Chagiga 5b. Actually the whole matter of the avoidance of pornography, although it is more ethical than strictly legal, is organized as a series of legal regulations for self-control in speech (Even Hoezer 25:1, etc., and Orah Hayyim 200:9).

This about covers the strictly legal material.