The Idol in the Breast

Written by Sender Rozesz. Sender Rozesz is a practicing attorney with a background in Jewish pluralistic education for adults. Sender Rozesz is Jewrotica’s resident Double Mitzvah columnist. The views reflected in his writing represent his own personal views, and are not intended to reflect the views of any organizations, institutes or associations with whom he may be affiliated.

An idol is one thing. We’re not very enamored with idols. But an idol seductively removed from inside a young woman’s robe, as she flashes a tantalizing glimpse of the swell of her breast – well that is a different proposition entirely.

At the end of this week’s Torah portion, Balak, after Bilaam’s dismal job performance in cursing the Jews, and having blessed them instead, Bilaam nevertheless manages to get in one final shot against the Israelites. This, in the form of advice which he offers to Balak, King of Moav, free of charge. The Talmud (Sanhedrin, 106a), relates that the following passage was the result of Bilaam’s last bit of counsel:

Israel settled in Shittim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of the Moabites. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and prostrated themselves to their gods. Israel became attached to Baal Peor, and the anger of the Lord flared against Israel.

The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and hang them before the Lord, facing the sun, and then the flaring anger of the Lord will be removed from Israel. Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill the men who became attached to Baal Peor.” Then an Israelite man came and brought the Midianite woman to his brethren, before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of the entire congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the kohen saw this, arose from the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. He went after the Israelite man into the chamber and drove [it through] both of them; the Israelite man, and the woman through her stomach, and the plague ceased from the children of Israel.

Numbers, 25:1-8.

How did this come to pass, particularly by a people who had just been blessed?

The Talmud states that Bilaam said to Balak: “The Hebrew God hates lewdness, and the Hebrews are also very partial to linen. So here’s my advice. Erect tents enclosed by hangings, which you will populate with harlots – old women on the outside, and young women on the inside – with the ostensible purpose of selling linen garments.”

Balak followed Bilaam’s advice, and erected curtained tents from Mount Hermon as far as Beth ha-Yeshimoth. It would thus happen that when an Israelite ate, drank, and was merry, and went for a stroll in the marketplace, the older woman would say to him, “Wouldn’t you like to try these linen garments?” They would get into a bit of haggling, during which the older woman would play the “bad cop,” charging more for the garments, but from inside, the younger woman would play the “good cop,” offering a greater discount. And so would the Israelite be enticed into entering the tent to discuss the more favorable terms.

Ultimately, the women would tell the Israelite, “you are now like family; sit down and choose for thyself.” Flasks of wine would be produced, and they would drink together. The wine and the seduction would slowly work its magic until, his erotic passion aroused, the Israelite would beg the younger woman for sex. At that point, she would pull a idol from her bosom and say to him, “first worship this!” “But I am a Jew,” he would protest. “So what?” she would respond. “You don’t need to bow down to it – all you need to do is to uncover yourself in its presence!” The Israelite would do so, not realizing that uncovering oneself was precisely the form of worshiping this particular idol – Ba’al Peor. Ultimately, she escalated her pitch to “I will not leave you until you have denied the Torah of Moses your teacher!”

And with that, the seduction of the Israelites was complete.

On the one hand, it appears that the crime for which the Israelites were punished was the crime of idolatry – not the sexual liaison with the Moabite daughters, as reflected in Moses’s command: “Each of you shall kill the men who became attached to Baal Peor.” Yet in the next few verses, we find that Pinehas’s act, which resulted in ending the plague visited upon the Israelites, was the ultimate in coitus-interruptus – he killed an Israelite leader in the middle of his act of sex with a Midianite princess – and this highly symbolic act ended the plague. The beginning of the following Torah portion named for its hero – Pinehas – is replete with praises for Pinehas’s deed, and goes out of its way to identify the randy Israelite as Zimri, leader of the tribe of Simeon, and the seductress as Cozbi, a princess of Midian. Why? Had Pinehas killed an Israelite in the middle of worshiping an idol, that would be one thing; but what was his problem with sex?

The question is by no means original, and there are many answers offered by varying sources.

One point that resounds clearly, however, is the power of sexuality. Bilaam, and the Moabite and Midianite women that he recruited, well understood the power of sex. They understood the chemical reaction that takes place during arousal, the speeding up of the heartbeat, the shortening of breath, the brain flooded with hormones, and the dopamine-rush that seizes control of the senses. They understood that once aroused, a person’s ordinary judgment is impaired, and that he is then prone to doing things that he would never have considered doing were he in full possession of his senses.

They knew that the Israelites would never be interested in worshiping Ba’al Peor in isolation. The Israelites had a real G-d, and one whom they learned (the hard way) abhorred idolatry. But the conspirators knew that erotic lust has the power to turn a person’s priorities upside down, and to do things that could only be justified in a universe entirely governed by sexual impulse.
Look at all of the politicians and leaders who have jeopardized or sacrificed their hard-earned careers for a trivial sexual encounter. It’s so easy to judge them, horrified by their evident insanity. But we, who have experienced the insanity of Eros, know that, at the critical point – the one that makes the newspapers and ends their careers – they had little choice in the matter.

No, the point at which they had the power of choice occurred much earlier, just as a drunk driver’s responsibility is not the moment that he fails to see the pedestrian or the other car. How could he – he was drunk! Rather, his responsibility was at the moment that he took a drink without first ensuring that he won’t be operating a vehicle.

The same thing – and more so – can be said of sex. There is a point at which our critical decision-making abilities are not yet impaired, when the dopamine flood-gates have not yet been opened. Once we have surrendered ourselves to sexual bliss, however, our eyes perceive an entirely different universe, which is often inconsistent with the universe that we have left behind. It’s an amazing experience and trip – so long as you’re not sharing it with a Moabite woman with an idol in her bra and a desire for your destruction in her heart.