The Jewish Guide to Adultery: How to Turn Your Marriage into an Illicit Affair

by Shmuley Boteach

Book Overview

In the follow-up to the bestselling Kosher Sex, Rabbi Boteach reveals that married couples need to find the ultimate passion by discovering each other's inability to be completely devoted to the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0330341359
• ISBN13: 9780330341356
• Release Date: June 1995
• Publisher: Pan Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Turn a Cheating Heart into a Devoted One

You don't have to cheat or entertain the notion to appreciate the insights Shmuley draws from his experience counseling couples. He encourages married couples to make a dynamic bond of their intimate relationship, rather than suffer from malaise and stagnation of the passion that should be kept alive in a marriage. We bought this book when My wife and I met Shmuley and some victims of Hurricane Katrina. We read and talk about the ideas in Kosher Adultery, and it's a springboard to discussing differences in our approaches and perspectives on intimacy. Many of the ideas are radical departures from our conservative approach to bedroom issues. Using jealousy to titilate passion seems like a distraction, rather than a support to a nurturing relationship. I often remind my wife, authors pose an extreme viewpoint because it helps sell an idea. You write in support of the extreme view to sustain the concept and drive it home. Not every idea has to be absolute, particularly in a realm of infinite individual personalities that may be paired in a committed marriage. What's most important is treating your loved one with upmost respect and letting your spouse know that your commitment is unwavering. Love that stays commited is stronger than love that wanes, leaves home to play the field, and returns home to recommit. The devoted heart doesn't have to go out looking for missed opportunities to later appreciate what was lost. Kosher Adultery is a way to appreciate what you have, without having to break hearts and violate trust along the way. I have upmost respect for Shmuley and value his insights. This book is loaded with them.

A New Spin on the Ten Commandments

This is a gem of a book. Like David Schnarch's book Passionate Marriage, this book should be required reading before anyone ties the knot of Holy Vows. What this book is *not* is an invitation to open marriage, or adultery per se: "Adultery serves a double wrong; first, because it betrays a marriage and causes terrible pain to one's spouse; and second, because it robs a marriage of the input it needs to survive and prosper. On a more individual level, adultery erodes, if not utterly destroys, the faith and trust that one partner has in the other. Worse, it causes an almost incurable feeling of inadequacy that the partner who has been cheated on cannot shake.... What is particularly unjust about this ... is that it is the *victim* who feels responsible." What Rabbi Boteach advocates is harnessing the inevitable, blind, biological tendency to lust and adultery to supercharge and strengthen traditional, monogamous marriage: "Just suppose... *Husbands could never afford to become complacent because they were married to voracious sexual seductresses that constantly need to be re-seduced. *Wives became the living embodiment of a man's sexual fantasies - a woman with an insatiable appetite who would do anything for sex. If this were to occur, would men still need to turn to manufactured porn entertainment when the real thing is in their bedrooms? Would it not lead us to be constantly attracted to our partners?" Rabbi Boteach conveys an immense amount of originality in his discussion of what makes marriage work and, conversely, what wrecks it. And what Boteach calls upon as his primary source is the Decalogue, particularly the Tenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's". This Commandment, Rabbi Boteach maintains, implies a husband *is* to LUST after his *own* wife. Similarly, Boteach argues that sex is a most holy gift given by a Benign Creator to enlighten and elevate humanity, and refutes the Darwinian message that men and women are mere mechanical automata - inevitably behaving like animals - rather than created in the image of God. The business of being truly human, the Rabbi argues, is to transcend our natures: In this case, to be passionately monogamous for a lifetime. For Rabbi Boteach, sexuality - fiery, passionate sexuality - is the very core of every successful marriage. Just as it is not "compatibility" a spouse seeks in a fling, so it is not "compatibility" that holds a lively and life-affirming marriage together: What holds marriage together *primarily* is steamy, passionate eroticism. A wonderfully written, highly commended, immensely pleasurable read.

It's saving my marriage!

I've been married just over 7 years, and things have been getting... stale. Nothing ACTIVELY wrong, but nothing terribly right either.I happened across this book, and it's changing everything. I do not think his premise (as stated in another review) is that trust kills marriages... I read it more as 'if all you have is trust and steadiness, you don't have a true marriage, you're basically friends'.At first glance, some of his ideas did make me bristle a bit... but when I CONSIDERED why they made me bristle, I realized that it was because I knew deep down that these things would improve my marriage but I'd chosen to let them go. ("Ancient underwear? No big deal - nobody sees them but hubby." ??? Who's more important than hubby??)Read the book with an open mind, try its ideas, and see your marriage grow and deepen!

This book renewed my faith in marriage

I want to get a copy of this for all my married friends and family! I'm not Jewish, nor particularly religious, but this is the most pratical marriage guide i've ever seen. Yes, you have to take many (most?) of his comments with the wink with which Rabbi Boteach writes them, but underneath are some of the greatest hidden truths about love and marriage. If you take his statements literally (e.g., "Trust destroys most marriages"), you can find much to disagree with, but if you listen to what he's saying underneath (e.g., "Reclaim the passion and mystery of your mate"), you will find it very inspiring. Rabbi Boteach makes the point: if marriage is about trust and comfort and caring and being friends, why not just stay with our parents or siblings. Of course it's about all those things, but the point is, it's also about experiencing the miracles of passion and lust and lovemaking with abandon. As he points out, more marriages are killed by the slow rot of boredom and complacency than by affairs. The good Rabbi has a fantastic sense of humor. He often comes across machho and traditional in his outlook, but his lightness of being (the twinkle in his eye) comes through loud and clear if you read with an open mind. I enthusiastically recommend this to anyone of any faith who is married or contemplating marriage. In fact, I think it should be required reading for any one who wants to entertain a long-term relationship!!!

You may not share nor change views, but this is a great book

This is yet one more best-selling book, by Rabbi Shmuel Boteach. He has written on topics as varied as the interpretation of dreams, the Talmud, and Judaism altogether - all presented to a widely non-Jewish audience of readers. But his main area of interest are relationships, namely love and sex, between the two of which he of course makes a distinction. Before you think this book may not be for you, one thing has to be overwhelmingly stressed: Rabbi Boteach has his views and sticks firmly to them. Yet, the book will not try to "convert" you to those views (in fact, they are views which I do not wholly share myself). You are quite likely not to share any of the author's views on love and sex, and not change your position at all after reading the book. Yet, this is a book that will make you think. It will uncover many aspects of love, sex, marital life and relationships, which you may have never thought about. It will be extremely enriching reading, for soul and mind, and perhaps - not kidding - also for your more intimate parts. Needless to say, it is written with superb literary maestry, with a rich prose but yet extremely fluid to read. The author's words come out of the book, in the same way that they come out of his debates (he was, indeed, the winner of the prestigious Times "Preacher of the Year Award" !). A number of topics are covered, questions asked and possible answers put forward. It will be thought-provoking (but not giving any head-ache). It will be light reading touching on very deep issues. By all means, this is a book all of humanity should read.