A High Priest is only allowed to marry a virgin, for it is written: “He who is the high priest\u2026 shall take a wife in her virginity<\/b>” (Leviticus 21:13). The Scriptures specify further and state “A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot — these he shall not marry; but he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife” (ibid.<\/I>:14). The early sages (the Tanaaim) disagreed about the definition of the “virgin” who may marry a High Priest. According to one sage, once she reaches the age of puberty (above the age of twelve and a half) she is not considered fully a virgin, for a young lady’s hymen contracts. If she has had anal sex but her hymen remains intact, she may wed a High Priest. According to another sage, the exact opposite is true: a young woman, even though her hymen has contracted, may wed a High Priest, for part of her hymen remains, but if she has had anal sex she is forbidden to marry a High Priest. The scholars explained this disagreement by interpreting the words in her virginity<\/b>. Since the Scriptures could have said this much more simply — “shall take a virgin<\/b>” — yet chose to use the longer phrase in her virginity<\/b>, it implies, the scholars argued, that the extra length is subject to exegesis. According to the first sage it means that a young woman, whose hymen has shrunk, is not permitted, and that a girl who has had anal sex is permitted. The other sage interpreted it to mean the opposite. The scholars went on to ask: a girl who has anal sex is considered a harlot<\/b>, for the sage Rabbi Elazar stated that any single person who has had sexual relations for pleasure and not to affect a marriage, even if it is anal sex, is considered a harlot. A harlot is forbidden to marry a High Priest because it is written “A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot <\/b>— these he shall not marry.” If so, the scholars asked, one who has had anal sex is forbidden as a harlot and there is no need to forbid her to the High Priest based on the above exegesis which states that she is not considered a virgin. The same Rav Yossef replied that the exegesis above is of help in a case where she has had anal sex with an animal; on the one hand she is not considered a harlot, but on the other she is considered to have had sexual relations. One of the scholars, Abaye, noted that Rav Yossef’s statement contradicted itself. If a girl’s anal sex with an animal defines her as having had sexual relations, then she must be considered a harlot, and the two definitions cannot be separated. The sage continued and said that one cannot draw analogies from the case of a girl whose hymen was torn without sex (for example, because a piece of wood entered her sexual organ and tore her hymen and who, according to Rabbi Eliezer, is forbidden to marry a High Priest) to a girl whose anus was penetrated by a piece of wood, for there is no girl who has not wiped her anus with a stone and had that stone penetrate the edge of her anus; if such an analogy were drawn, the High Priest would be forbidden to marry anyone. So the question above remains: In what case is a girl who has had anal sex considered to have had sexual relations yet not be a harlot? Rav Zira answered that this is the case of a girl who married and had anal sex only, and then the marriage broke up. She is not considered a harlot because the sex was part of a marriage, but she is considered one who has had sexual relations and not a virgin.
\nAccording to another sage, Samuel, a girl who has had sexual relations with an animal is not considered a harlot and may marry a priest or even a High Priest. Even if her hymen was torn during this sex act she is considered as one into whom a piece of wood penetrated and tore her hymen, and some of the sages would permit her to marry a High Priest. There was an incident in the village of Haitalu in which a girl was sweeping her home. A dog came along behind her and sodomized her. They asked Rabbi Judah the Nasi and he permitted her to marry a priest because she was not to be considered a harlot.
\n(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yevamot 59a-b)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A High Priest is only allowed to marry a virgin, for it is written: “He who is the high priest\u2026 shall take a wife in her virginity” (Leviticus 21:13). The Scriptures specify further and state “A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot — these he shall not marry; but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2610,"featured_media":20213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[358],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-peppers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21856,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12640\/revisions\/21856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daatemet.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}