Intimacy, modesty and sexuality

When two people get together in an attempt to create a oneness as it says, and they shall become one flesh - how do two human beings, both being physical beings, how do two physical beings become one? The literal meaning, the simple meaning is, you have a child. When two people get together and a child is born, in that child, the two have become one. Actually, numerically, when two becomes three, then there’s an oneness. There’s a oneness in the child.

But in the husband and wife, in the man and woman themselves, how do they experience a oneness?

So we might say, that when the Torah says, that a man and a woman should become one, the instruction is not addressed to the two of them, it is addressed to each of them separately. So G-d is saying to the man become one, and He is saying to the woman, become one.

In the same way, or in the same analogy of experiencing G-d’s Oneness to the exclusion of ourselves, in considering that it’s His world and His kitchen and His plan and His reality and we are guests, in the same way when you enter someone’s life, particularly someone else’s intimate life, that realization that you are in someone else’s kitchen and that you don’t belong there and you don’t become a partner, in any way at all - that is an experience of oneness. Not - you feel one with - you experience the oneness of the other. The exclusive reality of the other in which you are present but you don’t belong. Just like in the world, we experience the Oneness of G-d, meaning the exclusiveness of G-d, in whose presence we are but don’t belong.

In the times of the first Bais Hamikdash, the work of the Kohen Gadol was to go into the Holy of Holies once a year, to bring in the burning incense, and say a short prayer. Other than that the Holy of Holies was off limits to everybody because unlike the front chamber, the outer chamber where the average kohen did his work every day - lighting the menorah, changing the bread and so on - in the Holy of Holies no one was allowed, not even a kohen. Because the Holy of Holies is G-d’s room. That’s G-d’s place. And so if it’s G-d’s, nobody else can come in, it’s private.

Now in the times of the Second Temple, we are told that the caliber of the, of the kohen was not as great during the First Temple, during the first Bais Hamikdash, and so what would happen, the Kohen Gadol being unfit for the, for the position, would go into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, and have an inappropriate thought and would die in the Holy of Holies. Which would create a great problem, because how do you get him out? So they instituted this custom of tying a rope around the Kohen Gadol’s ankle when he went into the Holy of Holies, that should he die, they just drag him out. That’s how predictable, how common it became for the Kohen Gadol to die.

So the Rebbe once pointed out that though it’s generally a negative description of the kohanim in the times of the Second Temple, but on the other hand the Rebbe said, look how much they were willing to risk for a few moments in the Holy of Holies.

What does it mean that a person is selected out of the entire nation to be the Kohen Gadol, and this Kohen Gadol was unfit for the job, and so he died because of inappropriate thoughts during those fifteen minutes in the Holy of Holies. How special do you have to be? How great do you have to be, to be able go into the Holy of Holies and, and keep your mind on what you’re doing for fifteen minutes? So even if they weren’t of the same caliber as previous generations - they weren’t as holy - you can’t do something for fifteen minutes without your mind wandering?

You say to the Kohen Gadol, I understand that you’re the only person that goes into the Holy of Holies. He would say, the Holy of Holies is off limits and nobody goes there, nobody. You say, but I heard that the Kohen Gadol is the exception, the Kohen Gadol goes…. And again he says, “Nobody goes there.” You say, let me get this straight, were you in the Holy of Holies last Yom Kippur? He says, yes. And the year before that? Yes. How many years have you been Kohen Gadol now? Let’s say he says eighty. There was a Kohen Gadol who, who was Kohen Gadol for eighty years, which means he must have lived to be a hundred at least, because you don’t start until you’re twenty.

So he was a Kohen Gadol for eighty years, so eighty times you have gone into the Holy of Holies, is that right? “Yes.” So you’re the guy who goes there. Again he says, “Nobody goes there. You’re not allowed to go there - even, even the suggestion is horrifying”. What do you mean nobody goes there? “Nobody goes there. You die if you go there.” But you’re the exception. “There’s no exceptions - nobody goes there - never.”

So what’s the story? The story is very simple. By the very definition the Holy of Holies means no one belongs there -  no one. Because it’s the Holy of Holies. So even if you are a holy priest, a holy kohen, this is the Holy of Holies - you don’t belong there. Angels don’t belong there. And therefore nobody goes there. And anyone who goes there dies, from the holiness. Not as a punishment, but simply dies from the holiness. On Yom Kippur, G-d asks the Kohen Gadol to come into His room. The Kohen goes in, does whatever it is G-d wants him to do and he walks out. He backs out.

If the Kohen after the third, fourth, fifth, tenth time walks into the Holy of Holies and experiences a slight feeling of recognition, the room is starting to look  familiar, it’s starting to feel a little bit comfortable, because he’s the Kohen Gadol and the Kohen Gadol does go into the Holy of Holies, that thought, that feeling, was the inappropriate feeling that they would have, for which they would die. Because the way it should be, properly, is when the Kohen Gadol goes into the Holy of Holies he is keenly aware of the fact that he doesn’t belong there. While he’s there, he feels I don’t belong here. As soon as he starts to become a little bit comfortable, as soon as he starts to become a little bit familiar, he dies. Because he is violating the privacy.

Very much like if when someone invites you to the house and says make yourself at home, as long as you behave yourself, everything is fine but as soon as you start becoming a little too familiar, now you’re not a guest anymore, now you are an intrusion. It’s different. You can have a guest in your house, and your house is still your private domain. But a guest that starts rearranging the furniture, it’s not your private domain anymore. The privacy is being tampered or compromised and that can’t be.

So when somebody compromises your privacy, you could lose it. It stops being private, it stops being yours. But with G-d, you can’t compromise His privacy, it’s absolute. So any compromise of the privacy, ends up not in His loss, but in your loss. So with the Kohen Gadol, it wasn’t the room that was violated, it was him - he died. Because you can’t compromise an absolute privacy. So the proper intimate experience of the Kohen Gadol going into a place where no one goes, including himself, the experience is a mixture of awe and joy. Rejoicing in awe. Interesting combination - sweet and sour. Rejoicing in awe.

On the one hand, the awe is because I don’t belong here at all - I don’t fit, it’s not proper, I’m not qualified, I don’t deserve, I don’t belong, I’m way out of my league here. And on the other hand, what in the world is more exciting than being where you cannot go. So there’s that mixture. And when the Kohen Gadol would come out of the Holy of Holies at the end of that Yom Kippur, he would make a party. Technically, he was partying his survival. He was celebrating his survival. That he got out alive. There must be something a little deeper than that as well. He was celebrating because the experience calls for a celebration.

By right - not by religious principle nor by spiritual sentiment - by definition, one human being may not ever enter another human being’s intimate life. By definition, intimate means exclusive. You cannot say almost exclusive. That’s an oxymoron. You can’t have an almost exclusive. So if intimate means exclusive, there can’t be an exception to where it’s mostly exclusive, almost always exclusive - that can’t be. Then it’s not exclusive at all.

So by very definition, a person’s intimate life is exclusive and off limits always and to everyone. If it’s shared, if intimacy is shared, it no longer is intimate and it immediately dies. In this case, it’s not the person that dies but the intimate space that dies. That which once was intimate or sacred or exclusive is no longer intimate or sacred or exclusive. Why? Cause someone was there. It has been permanently removed from the category, from the classification of sacred or exclusive. How then are two human beings supposed to become one?

Exactly the same way the proper Kohen Gadol enters the Holy of Holies. When you’re invited into the intimacy of another person’s life, the deadliest thing, the most damaging thing is a little bit of familiarity. The Kohen Gadol can go into the Holy of Holies without compromising it. If while he is there, he is keenly aware of the fact that he doesn’t belong, then he hasn’t compromised it at all. He entered there by invitation, not by right. He entered the Holy of Holies, out of obligation, out of service, not out of familiarity.

So even after eighty years, he is horrified if you suggest that he goes there - he doesn’t go there, it’s a place he does not go.

And it’s true with entering the intimacy of another person’s life. Everybody knows that a married couple share intimacy. And yet, common decency dictates when in public behave as if there is nothing intimate going on. Why do we do that?

That is a misunderstanding of the whole notion of intimacy. Intimacy is not a secret. It’s not hidden. Intimacy is the recognition that one never belongs in another person’s intimacy, never. The fact that there is an occasion where an intimacy does take place, doesn’t change the fact that this is something we do not do. Because as soon as it becomes something we do, you changed its, you’ve changed its definition - it’s no longer intimate. So here’s an interesting definition. Intimacy means two people doing something they do not do. They do not do. But as soon as it becomes something they do, it’s dead. It’s finished.

Here’s the oneness - when at that moment of intimacy between husband and wife, you are keenly aware of the fact that this is an exclusive place - you don’t belong there. Only one master to this palace, not shared, no partnership, no familiarity that repeats itself for eighty years. In the eightieth year it is as sacred, as off limits, as exclusive as the first day.

That’s G-d’s Oneness

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