Sex and Politics

"Give not your strength [i.e., your seed] to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings" ("אַל תִּתֵּן לַנָּשִׁים חֵילֶךָ וּדְרָכֶיךָ לַמְחוֹת מְלָכִין"). This is the Biblical source for the relation between sex and politics.

Maimonides quotes this verse (from the last chapter of Proverbs, the ethics of King Solomon, the wisest of men; in this verse in particular he speaks out of his own personal experience, reiterating his mother's exhortation to him as a youth) in teaching that one should be moderate (not over-indulgent) in sex if one wants to live a healthy life. He quotes the entire verse (for the subject at hand it would have been sufficient for him to quote only the beginning of the verse) without explaining the relationship of the first part to the second.

It appears from this verse that the desire for sex and the desire for political power – to destroy and overthrow kings in order to usurp their position and power (or perhaps in order to promote anarchy, to become a leading figure in an anarchistic movement) – go together.

Apparently, our generation is not the only one where political figures find themselves engulfed in sex scandals.

From the syntax of the verse (and the fact that Maimonides quotes the end of the verse without explaining its relation to the beginning) it is clear that it all (i.e., politics) begins with and derives from the libido, the sex drive. The greater the libido the greater the drive to enter and grasp control in the political arena.

On a more spiritual plane (reading the second half of the verse as being totally dependant on the first half), too much sex will ultimately destroy one's own leadership potential.

But on an even deeper spiritual plane (reading the second half of the verse as a rectification for the first half – in the original Hebrew the word "nor" and the words "that which" do not appear in the text, so the verse can read, "Give not your strength to women, and your ways to destroy kings," alluding that "your ways to destroy kings" is what to do if you have given your strength, too much of your seed, to women), if you fell in your lifetime into too much sex, don't despair – become totally involved in replacing the contemporary, corrupt and anti-Torah political system, and establishing a rectified one. That's the way to repair the damage you've done to yourself and others by misusing your sex drive. In Kabbalah we are taught that rectification must come from the very same psychological drive that brought about the damage.

So rectify sex with politics…