Originally on Reddit: Casual Sex and Spiritual Damage, With a Hypothetical Example

(“How do studies measure ‘spiritual damage’?”

(A hypothetical case study might give one an idea as to “how”.)

 In most religions and denominations/movement/sects thereof, casual sex is at least discouraged and at most condemned. Even in, e.g., Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, premarital cohabitation is discussed as not ideal in a CCAR resolution. The impact that casual sex can have on one’s individual relationship with his or her professed deity (e.g., God), his or her individual and communal relationships within his or her congregation (e.g., at his or her local Reform temple or Liberal/Progressive synagogue), and his or her religious standing—both within and outside of his or her local congregation (e.g., within his or her local Reform temple and across the URJ)—can be impacted.

For example (hypothetical names, etc.), if supposedly-God-fearing Reform rabbi Pesah Minkowicz is known to be polyamorous and living with his equally-polyamorous fiancée, congregants at Qehjla Qadosz Reformi in Krakow are going to question whether they can trust him to lead the congregation and help them if they should ever deal with unfaithful spouses. If Rabbi Minkowicz understands how the congregation has a difficult time viewing him as a God-fearing and trustworthy rabbi, he might begin to understand how both his relationships with his congregation (not to mention the entire Reform community in Krakow and perhaps even across Poland) and his relationship with God might be damaged.

Rabbi Minkowicz might consider, “If my congregants view me as, quite candidly, a man-whore and a hypocrite, then the God that my ancestors may not view me in a favorable way, either. My congregants must also be wondering how I can be esteemed as a man whom helps one lead the self to God. I therefore imagine that God must view me as a rabbi whom is not shomer Torah [observant of Torah], no matter how much of it He gave at Sinai.”

Rabbi Minkowicz, based on reports that he receives on a frequent basis from trustworthy congregants, may conclude that God will eventually allow that Poland’s URJ equivalent revoke his semikha (rabbinical ordination) and permit QQR to put him under kherem (censure or excommunication) for (among other desecrations of God’s Name) playing the male harlot. If he were simply a congregant and perhaps only a layman’s capacity at most, the consequences of his actions might be less severe. Nonetheless, especially because he is a rabbi, his Torah- and God-defying behavior may well incur for him spiritual damage that might cause him to either:

1. ⁠do teszuwah (repent) and even be part of a monogamous couple with a fiancée-turned-rebicin (rabbi’s wife)

2. ⁠resign his rabbinical position and congregational membership, and even dissociate himself from Reform Judaism altogether.

(PS: Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism tends to be less secular in Eastern Europe, Canada, etc. than, e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom. Also, “w” in Polish is pronounced “v”; “c” as “ts” and “cz” as “ch” or “tsh”; “sz” as “sh”, and “j” as “i” or “y”. That’s why when Rabbi Minkowicz receives a letter that warns of “cherem” unless he does “teshuvah”, he needs to consult an English-speaking colleague as to what exactly a URJ representative in Warszawa meant.)