The Spiritual Intimacy Sex Should Afford

Last night, as I was working on a post on bad advice (a particular bane of my adult life) which I decided not to complete or publish as it was becoming too personal, I was thumbing through a book I had read about a decade ago, Rabbi Levi Meier’s Ancient Secrets: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives to find something (I thought) he had written on the perils of giving advice.

While I was unable to find that passage, I did chance on something Rabbi Meier said about sexuality which corresponds to some thoughts I’ve been offering occasionally on this blog (most recently here):

This is the biblical teaching of how to develop a deeper level of intimacy, what might be called “afterplay.” The Bible is saying that the sexual experience is so important that both individuals should take time out afterwards just to be together. They can talk with each other and get to know each other on the new level to which the intimacy of sex has brought them.

Not that often when the Bible speaks of people having sex, it uses the verb “to know,” as in “Now Adam knew his wife, Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain.”

This is meant to be taken literally. Sex should be a way in which one person gets to know another, in which both parties discover each other’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities, each other’s strengths and hidden talents. How important is this? It is the very secret of a stable, happy marriage.

Let’s hope the gay and lesbian couples rushing to the altar in California in this and coming weeks bear that Biblical wisdom in mind (as do all married couples).

Even those of us not in committed relationships should keep that in mind as we explore our sexuality.