No-one who has gone through the cycle of daf yomi
study of the Babylonian Talmud can fail to notice the robust and uninhibited way
that the rabbis of the Talmud discuss every facet of human activity. Sexual and
excretory functions, together with the organs of the body that relate to them,
play an important part in halachah and are thus a topic that demands
serious study and analysis. At this point the English daf yomi student
will have noticed a great difference between the use of language by the Tannaim
and Amoraim on the one hand, and contemporary English on the other. While it
makes frequent and sometimes graphic reference to the body-parts and functions
in question, the Talmud does not possess an explicit vocabulary for doing so,
preferring to express itself in terms of euphemism and metaphor (this is in
keeping with the teaching of the School of R’ Yishmael, Pesachim 3a, that one
should always employ decent language). English, in contrast, has a huge
vocabulary of terms anatomical, colloquial and vulgar, with which to express
the narrative of the Talmud. English-speaking rabbis are however often
ill-at-ease when it comes to choosing the right approach to discussing these
delicate topics, and there seems to be no single policy when it comes to
identifying best practice.
In my personal experience it seems to be generally the case
that words that are regarded as swear-words or offensive slang are avoided, but
the mention of both male and female body parts is contentious. I recall here
one rabbi who publicly pronounces the words “womb”, “uterus”, “thigh” and
“sodomy”—words that another rabbi of my acquaintance studiously avoids. Another,
whose shiurim I attended many years ago, managed to give a short series
of talks on circumcision without getting any more specific than words like
“organ” and “member”. A third will never say “pregnant”, even when referring to
the animal kingdom, and I was not therefore surprised to hear him speak of a
cow being “in an interesting condition”. The same applies to human waste
products, where “excrement” (which is itself a euphemism) and “urine” have been
sometimes replaced by “outgoings” or “excesses”.
Pirkei Avot 2:6 teaches that a person who is a bayeshan
(i.e. bashful and easily embarrassed) cannot easily learn Torah—but it is
silent on whether such a person cannot be a good teacher. I raise this point
because I have always been more comfortable about discussing matters of this
nature, or asking questions, with a rabbi who does not appear to me to be
uncomfortable about touching upon them. Indeed, many such rabbis do exist who
are happy to call a spade a spade, as it were. But even they will be judicious in
their choice of vocabulary. When speaking to a mixed group of university
students, for example, a different set of verbal parameters may be called for
from those employed when speaking to a group of Beit Yaakov pre-teens.
Incidentally, our sensitivities to our duties towards God as
well as fellow humans can lead to some curious anomalies. For example, one
English-speaking rabbi may pronounce the English word “God” in public but still
write it as “G-d”, while another will have no issue when it comes to writing
the word “breast” in full but would never utter it at all in his shiur.
So what then is the derech yesharah, the right path that an Anglophone rabbi should choose for himself? The advice of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (Avot 2:1) is to pick the route that is a credit to himself and earns himself the credit of his fellow humans. He must be sufficiently tzanua that he does not shock or embarrass others with his choice of words, but not such a bayeshan that his own discomfort does not render others uncomfortable too.
