Religion In Elie Wiesel's 'Kiddushin 81b'

The text Kiddushin 81b tells the story of a series of interactions between Rabbi Hiyya bar Ashi and his wife. The story begins in their home by describing how R. Hiyya prayed every day to be saved from the “evil inclination,” which was his sexual drive and urges. One day, his wife overheard him praying for this and was puzzled since they had not engaged in sexual intercourse in years. She thought this was due to his old age, but after hearing this, she internalized it and believed that there must have been something wrong with her that was making her husband pray for the “evil inclination” to go away. The second part of the story takes place in a garden. While R. Hiyya was studying there, his wife adorned herself and pretended to be a prostitute.

These Christian ideals about celibacy had started to infiltrate into the Babylonian Jewish community and may have sounded attractive to some people, so a commentary on the dangers of celibacy was needed. The rabbis argued that it is still possible to be spiritual when engaging in sexual relationships and that this can even strengthen spirituality. Even though Christians are attempting to deepen their spirituality by engaging in celibacy, this may be worse because evil inclinations are going to manifest in one way or another, and this practice is ultimately causing more problems. Many Biblical parallels can be found in the story of R. Hiyya and his wife, such as the stories of Adam and Eve and Judah and Tamar. The second part of the story occurs in the garden which alludes to the Garden of Eden, where the picking of a fruit brought about a forbidden action. In the story of Judah and Tamar, Tamar dressed up as a prostitute to trick Judah into having sex with and impregnating her, much like R. Hiyya’s wife. Another parallel is that in both Judah and Tamar and R. Hiyya and his wife’s stories, the person who commits the wrongdoing is sentenced to be

If there were members of the Jewish community who were attracted to this celibacy ideal, this story was intended to warn them of the dangers of implementing this practice in their daily lives. This argument relates to the themes of gender and sexuality that we have been addressing throughout the course in many ways. One way that it relates to class is through what we have learned about the laws surrounding sex in marriage. Mishnah Kettubot 5:6 describes the different lengths of time depending on the profession that men are allowed to go without performing their marital duty, which is engaging in intercourse with their wives. The periods can be as short as every day for unemployed men to years if a man is studying at an academy. The story of R. Hiyya and his wife demonstrates R. Hiyya violating this vow and societal expectations/norms by not engaging in sexual intercourse with his wife for many years. This is very abnormal behavior for a rabbi and according to Naeh, there are no other stories in the Talmud that depict a rabbi withholding sex from his wife and praying away his sexual