IS USING CONTRACEPTIVES CONSIDERED WASTING SEED?

0:06Contraceptives is a very important topic because we see that in the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch, and all of the Poskim, there is no leniency to have an abortion unless there's pikuach nefesh, unless there's a life risk, unless the mother is going to die if she delivers the baby. There's also no leniency, which means that you can't just have a kid immediately. Sometimes, if the woman is not healthy and getting pregnant is going to put her in danger, then what do you do if you can't kill the baby? What do you do? On the same token, there's no leniency as far as wasting seed. You cannot waste seed. So, what can you do now? Wearing a condom is assur. It's not allowed. And the reason why is because a condom is a contraceptive that destroys the seed. So it's 100% wasting seed. Ejaculating outside of the woman's body is also 100% assur. 100% forbidden. No permission to do either one of those. Now, what happens when a man is married to his wife? They just had a kid.

1:27and a couple of months have passed after she delivered the baby. She now went back to the mikveh; she's tahor, she's healthy, and she's able to be intimate with her husband. However, it's dangerous for her to have a child. So, what do you do? So, there are a couple of things that are allowed. Of course, you always have to get rabbinical permission. You have to have a Talmid Chacham that knows you well to tell you that you're allowed. But these are generally accepted practices. One, at that time, a woman is allowed to take the pill because the pill does not destroy the seed 100%. And it's not destroyed on the male side; it's destroyed on the female side. And two, there's also a suppository or different types of gels. that the woman can put in her area that will allow her to be intimate with her husband but also decrease, not eliminate, but decrease the chances of this consummating into a child. That's allowed. But again, it's allowed under rabbinical supervision. Meaning, not that the rabbi has to go to bed with you,

2:37It says, believe it or not, you have to explain this stuff. One woman came to my rebbetzin, came to my wife, and told her, you know, I'm kind of nervous, I'm going to the mikveh for the first time. I said, why are you nervous? She said, oh, they're going to check me. We're gonna check you. She thought that the bedikah cloth, the woman over there checks herself. She didn't know anything about taharat hamishpacha, that you check yourself. Nobody touches you, chas v'shalom. So people don't know this stuff. What's common sense to the religious Jew is not common sense to the average person, so Sometimes even religious Jews don't know because they don't learn all this stuff. The point being is that what rabbinical supervision means is that you have to go to a Talmid Chacham and ask for permission to be allowed to use this. You can't just use pills or different types of creams or suppositories for the women whenever you feel like it because you don't feel like having a kid. You have to be allowed to not have a kid, meaning that having a kid right now would be dangerous and...

3:44so perhaps she just had a baby a couple of months ago. So it's commonly accepted for you to wait a year to two years between children. How do you decide whether it's going to be a year, two years, or even less? All depending on the health of the woman. If her physical and mental health are okay, she could have a baby right away if she wants, and There's no need for her to wait a year or two years. If she's physically and mentally healthy, she could have a baby right away. But if she's not, if she's a little older perhaps, and it takes her longer to recover, or if she's younger but weak, or whatever the case is, and it takes her two years to recover, that is also acceptable. The Gemara says it could take up to two years for a woman's body to recover from giving birth. So you have up to that two-year mark? According to halacha, you have to get verification again for that. Tell me how that knows who you are. It says okay, you're allowed. We'll review again in six months. We'll review again in a year. Not just like a blanket statement, "Good luck. Have fun. See you in two years," like your passport you check once every ten years. No, we don't do that in Judaism. You have to regularly meet with this talmid chacham to make sure that everything is still okay, she still is not able, and so on and so forth. But if a person, if she's physically able and

5:01and there's nothing mentally wrong with her, but she doesn't have emunah. Or her husband doesn't have emunah because he says, "Listen, we already have a boy and a girl. Why do we need another kid? For her, it's like, can't we just get a dog? It's cheaper." That's forbidden. That's forbidden. You're not allowed to just not have kids. You're not allowed to just not have kids. You're supposed to have kids. You're supposed to reproduce. Now, it's a bigger problem if you don't have both a boy and a girl. There's more leniency for people that have a boy and a girl because they fulfilled the mitzvah of Pru Urvu. Pru Urvu is having a boy and a girl. But if you did not fulfill the mitzvah of Pru Urvu, you have much, much more stringency, meaning many more limitations. The point is that you have to go to a Talmid Chacham who is an expert in this field, not just anybody that has a shul. Your local rabbi may be a nice guy, may know a lot of Gemara, and may know a lot of different things, but this may not be his expertise. You have to go to somebody that is very good in this specific area. And it's not a pushover. Also, you have to have Yirat Shamayim. He's not going to tell you whatever answer you want to be told.

6:12Because it's a very, very touchy subject and it's very dangerous. Baruch Hashem, there are a few people that we've helped over the years with this issue and Baruch Hashem, it has helped them a lot. Because again, it's a subject that's not very easy to talk about. It's not very comfortable to talk about it sometimes. But nonetheless, it's a very, very critical part of Judaism. Also, another issue is that you have to make sure that your wife is not scared of you. If you are a husband that scares his wife, the Gemara says, for sure your wife will end up violating the entire Torah because of you. Why? Some husbands want to be macho, so they like to yell at everybody in their house. So their whole house is scared to death of them. As soon as the husband comes to the house, everybody is scared to death. Everybody becomes like soldiers. So, this is a problem. Why? Because what ends up happening is that the woman has to go to the mikveh every month. Now, sometimes stuff happens and she forgets, or the place is closed, or something happens and she doesn't go. If she's scared of her husband, she's not going to tell him the truth.

7:28She's not going to tell him the truth. Oh, listen, honey. I didn't go to the mikveh today. Well, I'll go tomorrow. Why? Because she's scared he's going to, you know, hang her like a picture. Because he can't touch her until she goes to the mikveh. So what happens? She tells him, no, no, everything is good. Let's have fun. Right? Let's have fun. Mitzvah, mitzvah. What mitzvah? It's a shem yerachem. Touch and he gets karet. He touches his wife's finger even when she didn't go to the mikveh. It's karet. So now when the wife is scared of the husband, she's not going to tell him. Same thing is, if a wife is scared of the husband, she's also going to violate Shabbat, the Gemara says. Why? Because sometimes something happens and the plata gets turned off by itself. If she's scared of the husband, what's she going to do? She's going to turn it back on on Shabbat. Why? Because she's scared if he wakes up in the morning and the food's not ready, he's going to cook her. Because she's scared of him. So what does she do? She sees in the middle of the night that the food is not hot because the plata turned off or it broke or something happened. She'll turn it back on and violate Shabbat for him. Guess what? That's assur. That food becomes assur. It's like eating treif. So a husband needs to know that yes, you're supposed to make sure that your house is led with yirat shamayim, but yirat shamayim, not yirat a husband.

8:46Not supposed to be scared of the husband. You're supposed to have your house in a certain way. But nonetheless, this also means that your wife has to be comfortable talking to you and to the Rav about these specific issues that are uncomfortable. but if you have one of these relationships where your wife doesn't talk to you about anything about her because she feels like every time she says something to you, you start acting like a little boy and treat it as if it's disgusting or you don't really want to know what's happening with her private parts because you only need to know what to do and not necessarily what happens there, this is a problem. Why? Because she needs to talk to somebody. Now, David HaMelech was the rabbi, even though he was the king, he was the rabbi in the community that would check the bedika cloth. A woman sometimes checks She doesn't know if she's niddah or not because it's a certain shade of color that's questionable. So what happens when it's questionable? You take it to a Talmid Chacham. You take this Bedika cloth to a Talmid Chacham and usually do it anonymously, where you leave it in a certain area. You leave, come back the next day, and pick it up. No one knows it's you. Most Jewish communities have this. So, David HaMelech was the one that would check the Bedika cloth.

10:05to show you how great this mitzvah is of being a Talmid Chacham in a specific area and knowing what to do and how, chas v'shalom, never to be disgusted or anything like that. Again, this may not necessarily be the most ideal conversation for a husband and wife, but nonetheless, it's very important for the wife to feel comfortable with the husband about these issues or at least for the husband to provide community in a place where the wife is not uncomfortable or by herself, because what's going to happen is that the wife will eventually end up becoming so nonchalant about it. She'll end up not going to the mikveh at all. Now, if people don't think this is a problem, there was research that came out of the Modern Orthodox community in 2017. And that said, out of the research that he did, 48% of Modern Orthodox, meaning the so-called religious, so-called religious but Modern Orthodox Jews, 48% do not go to the mikveh.

11:12That means that 52% go to the mikveh, and 48% don't go to the mikveh. That means that half the kids coming from the Modern Orthodox world are coming from niddah. This is a disaster. This is like you brought an idol into the Beit HaMikdash. The issur niddah is so critical that it's the only thing that the Beit Din will give a person a get on the spot. Meaning, if a guy comes to the Beit Din and says, "Listen, I don't want to be with my wife anymore." Why? Why don't you want to? "Ah, she makes me angry." Well, sorry, that's not a valid reason to get her divorced. go back, fix it, go to a rabbi. I'll give you some counseling; go back to your wife. "Oh, I don't like my wife." Why? "She spends too much money." That's not a valid reason; go try it again. "Oh, I don't like my wife. She doesn't want to keep Shabbat." Sorry, it's not a valid reason. Get her to do teshuva. Come to Rabbi Yaron Reuven's shiur with her; she'll do teshuva after a week. But what if you come to your rabbi and say, "Listen, Beit Din, my wife doesn't want to go to the mikveh"? On the spot, they give him a get.

12:21On the spot, they give him a get. Why? Without her going to the mikveh, there's no marriage. There's no marriage. There are exceptions to the case that have been done randomly, but generally speaking, that's the way the Beit Din is. Beit Din sees a wife doesn't want to go to the mikveh, there's no marriage. No marriage at all. Why? Can't touch her finger even. Which means that if people... are openly admitting to being Shomrei Shabbat, but at the same time not going to the mikveh. We have a very, very serious problem in the religious community and non-religious community— in the whole community. Because when a person is with his wife and she's niddah, it creates a very problematic child. Plus a very problematic olam. So in regards to contraceptives, in regards to that whole issue, there's a shiur I did called "Kosher Intimacy." Watch that shiur because intimacy is something a person needs to be very careful with. We're not the goyim.

13:22We're not people that just do things whenever we feel like it. We're not animals. It's even important to know that there are certain consequences for doing certain things. For example, I heard from Rav Meir Eliyahu that the Gemara says, actually, that I think the Zohar says that... Rambam writes that it's not allowed for a man and his wife to be together during the day, with certain exceptions if he's a Talmid Chacham and he knows how to darken the room and he knows not to do it ever again like that. There's a permission to be together during the day, but that's only for a Talmid Chacham that knows the certain exceptions and only in a one-off situation. But generally speaking, it is not allowed to be with your wife during the day. But he says, what if somebody does it during the day, but follows suit, follows the halacha, darkens the room. It's the same thing as if it's dark outside, doesn't make a difference. The room is so dark, you don't know if it's dark or it's light, it's nothing. He follows suit, and he's with his wife during the day. The Sefarim HaKedoshim say, okay, you could do it, but just to let you know, if a child comes out of it, that child will suffer his whole life.

14:45All types of suffering. Money problems, health problems, all types of problems. Why is it the kid's fault? It's not the kid's fault. He did something in his previous incarnation that he deserves to suffer. You did something in your current incarnation. So that's why you get the kid—mix and match. Like a puzzle. Like a puzzle. You did this. Okay, so that's the kid that's going to come to you. Fits. That's the kid that comes. So there are certain things that are allowed but not recommended. There's a mitzvah, where there's a woman that if there's a war, and you conquer the enemy, and when you're in war, everybody's a bunch of guys, everybody's got their hormones through the roof, and one of the soldiers sees a beautiful woman, They're not looking to ask, "Are you dating anyone?" They're not asking that. They just killed her husband, you know, two minutes ago. So there's a mitzvah in the Torah that says that if you see a woman that's beautiful at the end of a war, after you've won the war, and you see a beautiful woman whose husband is dead, whose family is dead, you are allowed to convert her and marry her. So David HaMelech, one of his 18 wives, was like this. But then...

16:09The son that came out of it was Avshalom, who tried to kill him when he grew up. So David HaMelech cried to Hashem, "Hashem, how come You gave me such a kid who wants to kill me?" Hashem tells David HaMelech, "Look what you did. You married a woman that's a..." woman as a result of the battle. He goes, "Yeah, but Hashem, You allowed it. You wrote it in the Torah. It's allowed to do this." He says, "Yeah, I wrote it allowed, but it's not recommended. Look at the very next thing that I put in My Torah, right after the issue, the explanation of the woman from the battle. Right after I say, what? I say that there's going to be a wayward child. The reason why they're connected to each other is because if you do this with this woman, a wayward child will come from there." So yeah, there are certain things that are allowed but not recommended. Not recommended. And this happens a lot in life. There are a lot of things that are allowed but not recommended. And that's what a person needs to know. That's how you measure your Yirat Shamayim and also your Torah knowledge. If you are going anywhere that has a kosher sign, you're probably doing a lot of things that are not recommended. And sometimes not even allowed.

17:25You know, sometimes you go to a wedding, and it says kosher on the kitchen, but the only thing that's kosher is the sign itself. The food itself is not kosher. You know, because they don't know anything, and they cook on Shabbat, the owner is a Mechalel Shabbat, no one really watches where they get the meat, maybe they got a discount from the Arabs, and that's what happens. So the only thing that's really kosher is the sign, not the food.