Monday, August 14, 2006

Daf Yomi - Yoma 69 - Avodah Zara and Arayos

The Gemara states that after vanquishing the desire for idolatry, the Chachamim sought to curb the desire for immorality. I was just wondering if there is a difficulty with this idea because the Gra (quoted in Margolias HaYam to Sanhedrin 63b, note 23) writes that whenever the Jewish People worshipped idols, it was always with the intent to permit immoral relationships, so once the desire of idolatry disappeared, why would they even desire immorality? Perhaps the two ideas are only related in that one who worshipped idols would do so with the ulterior motive being immorality, but essentially immorality is mutually exclusive from the desire for idolatry.

1 comments:

Avromi said...

The Poras Yosef seems to be bothered by your question and explains that this is why they first first requested to ban the inclination for idol worship and afterwards for immorality which led to idol worship. Immorality was independent of idol worship.
By the way, can you check the Gra or Margolias hayam for it seems that the Gemora in Sanhedrin 64a states what you quoted in the name of the Gra? However, I may be wrong......