This make sense? You can have sex in the spy game if it’s a matter of national security, says a rabbi. And it gets weirder from there.
Haaretz reports:
An Israeli rabbi has given his blessing to female agents of Israel’s foreign secret service, Mossad, who may be required to have sex with the enemy in so-called “honey-pot” missions against terrorists.
Rabbi Ari Shvat’s ruling appeared in a study, “Illicit sex for the sake of national security,” published by the Tzomet Institute, which studies the interface between religion and modernity.
But Schvat wrote that honey-pot missions are not just a thing of modern-day espionage – such as the late 1980s capture of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel’s nuclear program, or the January 2010 assassination of terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Both cases reportedly involved a Mossad female lure.
In fact, honey-pot missions are rooted in Biblical lore.
Queen Esther, who was Jewish, slept with the Persian king Xerxes around 500 BC to save her people, Schvat noted. Yael, wife of Hever, slept with the enemy chief of staff Sisra to tire him and cut off his head, according to tradition.
There is a catch, however, for married honey-pots. “If it is necessary to use a married woman, it would be best [for] her husband to divorce her. … After the [sex] act, he would be entitled to bring her back,” Schvat wrote.
“Naturally, a job of that sort could be given to a woman who in any event is licentious in her ways.”
Male agents in Mossad apparently have no limitations on sleeping with the female enemy, as they were not mentioned in the writings.
Schvat’s study was praised by Tzomet’s director, Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, who added that “women employees of the Mossad are probably not going to come consult with a rabbi” before their missions.
In unrelated news, about half the CIA just converted to Judaism.
October 11, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Heck, if they are Catholic all they need are annulments. They are easy to get. Then there would be no need to convert. The sex would be easy and they could still receive the Body and Blood of Christ!
What's the big deal?
October 11, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Um. I'm sure the rabbi knows the Old Testament better than I do but Esther was married to Xerxes and at some point one does have to sleep with one's husband and a matter of course. She saved her people by pointing out that she was Jewish. The king decided that his wife was a terrific person so her people were okay too.
October 11, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Dymphna- YES
October 12, 2010 at 2:12 am
I'm not too sure about the Yael (Jael in my Bible) and Sisera story, either. Sisera's beat from running away, Jael slips him some tent-temperature (likely warm) milk, he passes out exhausted…and bam (unless covering him 'with a rug' is a euphemism for sex). I'm not that well-versed on OT 'traditions', but both seem like a stretch to me.
October 13, 2010 at 10:53 am
Judith would be a better bet as support for this theory. After all she did dress herself up and 'lure' the enemy leader… before ensuring he was too drunk to do anything and cutting hi head off. Thus preserving her virtue and winning the day for Israel.
But then, that's in one of the books the Jews removed from the canon in Jamnia some 1900 years ago.