The Jewish People Are Involved in These Things?!
By Rabbi Yehoshua Berman
“So said the marauding pagans when they entered the Kodesh HaKodashim and saw the Keruvim locked in embrace.”
To them, it appeared scandalous—even lewd.
They paraded the Keruvim through the marketplaces, mocking the very people they were slaughtering and pillaging.
Why? Because they reduced intimacy to nothing more than seeing another human being as a piece of meat.
But the Jewish understanding of intimacy could not be more different.
A Window into a Deeper Reality
On the Yamim Tovim, during times of spiritual elevation and joy, the Paroches would be pulled back for all the Jewish Olei Regel. The Kohanim would proclaim:
“See how your affection before the Almighty is like the affection of a female to a male.” (Yoma 54a)
The Jewish people saw nothing inappropriate in this. No one recoiled. No one was scandalized. Because they understood they were witnessing a manifestation of profound depth and meaning.
As we see throughout Shir HaShirim, physical intimacy is not merely physical. It is the outermost expression of connection, wholeness, and unity.
Physical desire and passion serve as vehicles for emotional and spiritual bonding.
Beyond the Physical
Contemporary scientific findings similarly reflect the complexity and multi-layered nature of intimacy through its intricate network of physiological processes and psychological pathways. And that is critically important to understand when addressing couples' struggles in this area. I once worked with a couple (identifying details changed) in which the wife found it extremely difficult to experience desire and arousal.
Someone had advised her to recall inappropriate scenes she had viewed in the past and discuss them with her husband. Aside from being exceedingly halachically questionable—and that's being generous, in my opinion—it also failed to solve the problem.
Yes, it catalyzed a limited physical response.
But by the time they reached out to me, their intimacy situation was, in their words, “at an all-time low.”
When the Real Issue Runs Deeper
What became clear was that the issue was not primarily physical. In fact, certain everyday interactions with her husband would suddenly awaken within her a powerful desire for intimacy. The problem was that moments like those were exceedingly rare.
Over time, it became evident that an underlying emotional struggle was affecting the entire relationship. They could not connect because they could not connect.
While surface-level components can certainly contribute to intimacy struggles, ignoring the possibility of deeper emotional and relational issues is often a very serious mistake.
Intimacy Is Not Vulgarity
After all, when the Jewish people were shown the embrace of the Keruvim, no one batted an eyelash because they intuitively understood something essential.
Intimacy is not vulgarity.
It is the vehicle and expression of the deepest human connection.
To purchase Rabbi Berman's course on Intimacy Challenges, Struggles & Enhancements, Click Here.
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Email: rbsa613@gmail.com Text: 484-414-5679