The Mishnah on today’s page of Talmud describes the preparations undertaken by the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) serving at the Temple in Jerusalem, in the run up to the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement:
וימא יח, א
כל שִׁבְעַת הַיָּמִים לֹא הָיוּ מוֹנְעִין מִמֶּנּוּ מַאֲכָל וּמִשְׁתֶּה, עֶרֶב יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים עִם חֲשֵׁיכָה לֹא הָיוּ מַנִּיחִין אוֹתוֹ לֶאֱכוֹל הַרְבֵּה, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהַמַּאֲכָל מֵבִיא אֶת הַשֵּׁינָה
For seven days before Yom Kippur they would not withhold any food or drink from the Cohen Gadol that he desired. However, on Yom Kippur eve at nightfall, they would not allow him to eat a great deal because food induces sleep [and they did not allow him to sleep].
The Talmud explains why the Cohen Gadol was not allowed to sleep:
תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי יְהוּדָה בֶּן נָקוֹסָא אוֹמֵר: מַאֲכִילִין אוֹתוֹ סְלָתוֹת וּבֵיצִים כְּדֵי לְמַסְמְסוֹ. אָמְרוּ לוֹ: כל שֶׁכֵּן שֶׁאַתָּה מְבִיאוֹ לִידֵי חִימּוּם
…Rabbi Yehuda ben Nekosa says: On Yom Kippur eve they feed him fine flour and eggs in order to loosen his bowels, so that he will not need to relieve himself on Yom Kippur. They said to Rabbi Yehuda ben Nekosa: In feeding him those foods, all the more so that you bring him to a state of arousal. [Feeding him those foods is antithetical to the efforts to prevent the High Priest from becoming impure, as they are liable to cause him to experience a seminal emission.]
How to Prevent a nocturnal Seminal Emission
Leaving aside the dispute about the details, the goal of the menu was not in question. It was to prevent the Cohen Gadol from a nocturnal seminal emission. Actually the menu was also important, as we read later on:
לֹא אֶתְרוֹג, וְלֹא בֵּיצִים, וְלֹא בָּשָׂר שָׁמֵן, וְלֹא יַיִן יָשָׁן. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: אַף לֹא יַיִן לָבָן, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהַיַּיִן לָבָן מֵבִיא אֶת הָאָדָם לִידֵי טוּמְאָה
They do not feed him citrons, eggs or aged wine, and some say they also do not feed him white wine, because white wine causes a person to become ritually impure through a seminal emission…
דְּתָנוּ רַבָּנַן: חֲמִשָּׁה דְּבָרִים מְבִיאִים אֶת הָאָדָם לִידֵי טוּמְאָה, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: הַשּׁוּם וְהַשַּׁחֲלַיִם וַחֲלֹגְלוֹגוֹת וְהַבֵּיצִים וְהַגַּרְגִּיר
…The Sages taught: Five food items bring a man to a state of impurity due to emission. And these are: Garlic, cress, purslane, eggs, and arugula.
And then comes this helpful advice, unrelated to Yom Kippur:
אָמַר רַב גִּידֵּל אָמַר רַב: אַכְסְנַאי לֹא יֹאכַל בֵּיצִים, וְלֹא יִישַׁן בְּטַלִּיתוֹ שֶׁל בַּעַל הַבַּיִת
Rav Giddel said that Rav said: A guest should neither eat eggs, because they lead to a seminal emission, nor sleep in a garment belonging to the homeowner, his host, because if he experiences a seminal emission and it gets on the garment, he will be diminished in the estimation of his host…
Now back to the main attraction. The next Mishnah outlines how the night of Yom Kippur was spent keeping the Cohen Gadol awake:
יומא יח, ב
אִם (הוּא) הָיָה חָכָם — דּוֹרֵשׁ, וְאִם לָאו — תַּלְמִידֵי חֲכָמִים דּוֹרְשִׁים לְפָנָיו. וְאִם רָגִיל לִקְרוֹת — קוֹרֵא, וְאִם לָאו — קוֹרִין לְפָנָיו. וּבַמֶּה קוֹרִין לְפָנָיו: בְּאִיּוֹב וּבְעֶזְרָא וּבְדִבְרֵי הַיָּמִים. זְכַרְיָה בֶּן קְבוּטָל אוֹמֵר: פְּעָמִים הַרְבֵּה קָרִיתִי לְפָנָיו בְּדָנִיֵּאל.
If he was a scholar, he would teach Torah. If he was not a scholar, Torah scholars would teach Torah before him. And if he was accustomed to read the Bible, he would read; and if he was not, they would read the Bible before him. And what books would they read before him to pique his interest so that he would not fall asleep? They would read from Job, and from Ezra, and from Chronicles. Zekharya, son of Kevutal, says: Many times I read before him from the book of Daniel.
Rashi reminds us why all of this was necessary:
אם היה חכם דורש - בדבר הלכה כל ליל יוה"כ שלא יישן ויראה קרי
If he was a scholar, he would teach Torah - words of Jewish law throughout the night of Yom Kippur, so that he does not falls asleep and possibly have a seminal emission.
Later in this tractate (36a) the Talmud states that one of the sacrifices on Yom Kippur was performed in an unusual location in the Temple. It took place there משום חולשה דכהן גדולֹ - “because the Cohen Gadol was weak” and the new location would save him from the need to carry the sacrificial blood a few more steps. But this concern for the “weakness of the Cohen Gadol seems counterintuitive. On the one hand, he is made to stay awake for the entire night in order to prevent the remote possibility of a nocturnal seminal emission. This was an enormous physical imposition. As an emergency physician I worked hundreds of night shifts and can attest to how physically draining they are. (For those of you who want a sense of this, remember the last time you took an overnight flight. How did you feel coming off the plane?) And on the other hand we go to unusual efforts to minimize any unnecessary physical activity that he might be required to do.
All this demonstrates that the Talmudic concern for a Cohanic nocturnal emission was extremely serious. For this reason several interventions were put in place to prevent this possibility, even though they seem to be in themselves onerous.ּ But we are not quite done yet.
no one got any sleep on the night of yom kippur
יומא יט, ב
מַתְנִי׳ בִּקֵּשׁ לְהִתְנַמְנֵם, פִּרְחֵי כְהוּנָּה מַכִּין לְפָנָיו בְּאֶצְבַּע צְרָדָא, וְאוֹמְרִים לוֹ: אִישִׁי כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל! עֲמוֹד וְהָפֵג אַחַת עַל הָרִצְפָּה. וּמַעֲסִיקִין אוֹתוֹ עַד שֶׁיַּגִּיעַ זְמַן הַשְּׁחִיטָה.
MISHNA: If the High Priest sought to sleep at night, the young priests would snap the middle [tzerada] finger against the thumb before him, and they would say to him every so often: My Master, High Priest. Stand from your bed and chill yourself once on the floor and overcome your drowsiness. And they would engage him in various ways until the time would arrive to slaughter the daily offering.
In fact the Talmud notes that lots of people, and not just the young priests, would stay awake all night for the singular purpose of preventing the Cohen Gadol from dozing, and perhaps having a nocturnal emission:
יומא יט, ב
מִיַּקִּירֵי יְרוּשָׁלַיִם לֹא הָיוּ יְשֵׁנִין כל הַלַּיְלָה, כְּדֵי שֶׁיִּשְׁמַע כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל קוֹל הֲבָרָה וְלֹא תְּהֵא שֵׁינָה חוֹטַפְתּוֹ. תַּנְיָא, אַבָּא שָׁאוּל אָמַר: אַף בִּגְבוּלִין הָיוּ עוֹשִׂין כֵּן זֵכֶר לַמִּקְדָּשׁ
The prominent men of Jerusalem would not sleep the entire night but instead engaged in Torah study, so that the High Priest would hear the sound of noise in the city and sleep would not overcome him in the silence of the sleeping city. It was taught in a Baraita that Abba Shaul said: They would do so even in the outlying areas and stay awake all night in acknowledgment of the Temple…
Let’s summarize all this. Here are the steps that were taken in order to prevent the possibility of the Cohan Gadol falling asleep and having a nocturnal seminal emission:
The Cohen Gadol was fed a special diet on the eve of Yom Kippur.
He was not fed eggs, white wine or garlic, which were thought to cause a nocturnal emission
He stayed awake the whole night.
Other had to stay up all night too, in order to study with the Cohen Gadol to keep him from dozing.
The general population of Jerusalem (and some of the local villages too) also stayed up all night so that the noise of their learning would keep the Cohen Gadol awake.
Given the extremes to which the Jews of the Temple time went to prevent the High Priest from the remote possibility of a nocturnal seminal emission, we can conclude that it was an extremely unwanted event. So today we will examine the science of nocturnal seminal emissions.
A Medical History of Nocturnal emissions
In his helpful paper on the topic, Mels van Driel, a Dutch urologist, noted that “penile (and clitoral) erections occur in several contexts, some of which have nothing to do with sexuality - for example the nocturnal ones.” He points out that these erections occur in infants, whom we may fairly suppose are not having erotic dreams. In adults they may not always be accompanied by dreams with an erotic content.
Plato (427–347 BCE) described the penis as “disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that is deaf to reason, and it attempts to dominate all because of its frenzied lusts.” The Greek physician Galen (129-200 CE), who was the first to describe the penile anatomy responsible for erections, wrote that “men full of sperm will imagine that they are having sexual intercourse” so that the more intercourse there was, the less would be the frequency of nocturnal emissions.
The early Church Fathers were remarkably modern in their understanding. St. Augustine (354–430 CE) wrote that a wet dream was not the fault of the dreamer, “since the dreamer cannot control the images that appear in his dreams.” Another famous theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274 ) wrote “that it is clear that a nocturnal orgasm is never a sin in itself. Though sometimes it is the result of a preceding sin.” (Which would have been a useful insight to have shared with the Cohen Gadol.) Just as the Jewish High Priest battled against wet dreams, Christian monks did so in the Middle Ages. According to van Driel “they even tied metal crucifixes to their genitals before going to bed to combat these temptations.”
Then the whole nocturnal erections thing got a bit out of hand, as van Driel describes. It’s well worth a read:
Following Augustine, ecclesiastical law considered it more or less a mortal sin if men with [erectile dysfunction] ED and hence infertile turned out to have entered into marriage. To the end of the 17th century, ED was an even ground for divorce. In an extensive study, the historian Pierre Darmon describes the manner in which those suffering from ED were treated in those days, especially in France. During the trials of the ecclesiastical courts, the defendants in any case had to prove that they possessed normal external genitals, and a jury composed of theologians, doctors, and midwives had to assess it. The court records show that, if necessary, the members of the jury sat at the defendant’s bedside at night to be able to judge any [sleep related erections] SREs occurring. The pompous rituals surrounding these trials indirectly confirmed the power of the Catholic Church. Initially, there was some degree of discretion, but in the course of the 16th century, the church authorities shifted sharply from spiritual voyeurism to actual voyeurism. By this time, they not only required a demonstration of the rigid erection but also of its “elasticity and natural movement.” Sometimes, the jury also insisted on having a demonstration of ejaculation. Naturally, as time went by, this was not enough either, and the married couple had to have sexual intercourse in the presence of the jury, the so-called “congress.” It was not until 1677 that the Catholic Church dispensed with impotence trials.
“In men the nature of the genital organs is disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that is deaf to reason, and it attempts to dominate all because of its frenzied lusts.””
It was between the 17th to the 19th centuries that nocturnal emissions were first described as “pollutions,” though the Talmud had long described them this way. Van Driel wrote that in 1818, “a French surgeon named Jalade-Lafond even designed a corset for the penis, which reached from the shoulders to the knees. This was followed by many other devices, including a metal tube that dangled from a leather jerkin, a brainchild of the German Johann Fleck.” One of the “most influential figures in the scientific history of human sexuality,” a man by the name of Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902), “was erroneously convinced that morning erections are induced by a full urinary bladder. Another founder of sexology, Henry Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), really feared Sleep Related Erections (SREs) and nocturnal ejaculations because in the Victorian Age, every child was taught that they would increase in frequency and lead to death.” Actually Ellis took the whole thing to a new level, and kept a diary that documented, over some eight years, his own nocturnal ejaculations, and his efforts to prevent them. Here is a excerpt:
It has been said that urinating will relieve the pressure and quiet the erection. I gave this a fair trial for a long period and found no difference in the net result, though sometimes an emission might be thereby postponed a day or so. Getting out of bed and walking up and down to allay erection was of similarly temporary effect.
Anonymously, he also published a paper in 1904 on his findings, noting that at age thirty, he averaged three to four per month. “This capacity will no doubt vary greatly in different individuals. In some it will be greater, in others less than this, but there is decidedly a physiological limit…. orgasm. Inhibition was very possible and never more than temporary. I need scarcely say that the emission was never induced.” Ever the scientist, he made sure to verify the source of the moisture. “I examined it once under a microscope and saw numbers of spermatozoa, proving it to be true semen.”
The Ages of Male Sexual Activity
In a 1980 paper titled the Age Aspects of the Male Sexual Activity, the author noted that “in contrast to all the other basic functions the sexual activity is notable for the most strongly pronounced dependencies from the age of a person.” It is suggested that there are four periods of male sexual activity and in the earliest of them, the pubertal phase, there are the first ejaculations. This occurs around 14 year of age, and about half occur as nocturnal emissions. That study was performed in Russia, but around the same time another collected information from 104 college aged males with an average age of 23. It found that most of the men (the plurality of which were Mormon) had experiences a nocturnal emissions.
In the 1970s Ismet Karacan published a series of papers with rather unforgettable titles, such as The ontogeny of nocturnal penile tumescence, The effect of sexual intercourse on sleep patterns and nocturnal penile erections and Sexual arousal and activity: Effect on subsequent nocturnal penile tumescence patterns. The upshot of these was the finding that during life, sleep related erections become fewer and shorter. As men age, they have fewer and fewer wet dreams, a finding also reported by the Russian researcher G. S. Vassilchenko, and shown in the graph below, where you should note the tail end of the graph. Which brings us back to the Talmud.
“ועתה ראה והבן, איך יבלבל את האדם ענין הנ”ל, וכי יש לו להתרעם על שלא היה לו נס כמו לכהן הגדול ביום הכפורים
Now understand, my son, how confusing this matter [of wet dreams] is, for should you resent the fact that a miracle did not occur [to prevent them] as it did for the Cohen Gadol?
”
It never happened
Later in this tractate (21a) there is a list of miracles that occurred in the Temple.(This is also listed in the Mishanh in Avot, 5:5.) One of these was that the sacrificial meat never became putrid. Another was this:
יומא כב, א
וְלֹא אֵירַע קֶרִי לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל בְּיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים
And a seminal emission did not befall the High Priest on Yom Kippur.
The suggestion is that this was a miracle, and indeed it is listed as such. But a review of the science clearly demonstrates that there was nothing miraculous about this. Nocturnal emissions are a normal part of adolescence (in women too), and they decrease with age.
It will come as no surprise to recall that the Cohen Gadol, the High Priest who performed the Yom Kippur rituals, was an old, or older man. There were of course exceptions, and since the office was generally inherited, the Cohen Gadol might start his rein as a young man. Indeed Maimonides ruled that he could not start his reign until he was at least twenty years old (רמב׳ם משנה תורה, הלכות כלי המקדש 5:15 ). But it was usually a lifetime position. Eli, the high priest of the Mishkan at Shiloh, functioned as the Cohen Gadol until his death. At the age of 98. And John Hyrcanus (יוחנן הורקנוס) was born in 134 BCE and installed as Cohen Gadol in 164 BCE at the age of only thirty. But he held the post for some forty years until his death in 104 BCE at the age of seventy. The Cohen Gadol might start his rein subject to the same naturally produced nocturnal emissions as every other man. But as he aged these pollutions would decrease and eventually cease, not as a result of any miracle, but as a result of the normal physiology of aging.
Science vs Religion, again
When we think of areas of conflict between religion and science, we might at first consider evolution, or creation, and the like. But as we have just discovered, a topic as private as the cause of nocturnal seminal emissions, when properly understood, also raises a conflict. In the Talmud and in the later halakhic codes (such as the one below) such emissions are brought on by foods or by lustful thoughts. But a scientific explanation reveals that these emissions are common, are age (and likely hormonally) related, and are not necessarily related to erotic dreaming. Indeed, they are as natural as sleep itself. That’s what we should teach young boys as they begin puberty. But what should we teach them about this topic from a Jewish perspective, and how might the two be reconciled?
קיצור שולחן ערוך 151:5
מִי שֶרָאָה, חַס וְשָׁלוֹם, קְרִי בַּלַּיְלָה, כְּשֶׁנֵּעוֹר מִשְּׁנָתוֹ, יִטּוֹל יָדָיו וְיֹּאמַר בְּשִׁבְרוֹן לֵב, רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶל עוֹלָם, עָשִׂיתִי זֹאת שֶׁלֹּא בְּכַוָּנָה, רַק בְּהִרְהוּרִים רָעִים וּבְמַחֲשָׁבוֹת רָעוֹת. לָכֵן יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ, ה' אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי, מְחַק בְּרַחֲמֶיךָ הָרַבִּים עָוֹן זֶה, וְתַצִּילֵנִי מֵהִרְהוּרִים רָעִים וְכַיוֹצֵא בָהֶם לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד, אָמֵן וְכֵן יְהִי רָצוֹן
If, God forbid, you had a seminal emission at night, upon waking up from your sleep you should wash your hands and say with a contrite heart, "Master of the Universe I have done this unwittingly but it was due to sinful thoughts and sinful reflections; therefore, may it be Your will Adonoy, my God, and the God of my fathers, to erase this iniquity through your great mercy, and save me from sinful thoughts, and from similar occurrences forever and ever. Amein, so may it be Your will."
