Objectifying another human being can thus be seen as the ultimate and archetypal sin, the epitome of the evil that opposes the world’s progress toward redemption. In this context, we can understand the critical importance the Torah attaches to how we harness our carnal desires. There is no human activity that can produce pleasure comparable to that produced by carnal intimacy and release; it is therefore paramount that we experience this pleasure—as far as possible—only in the course of making another person the subject of the experience (by striving to grant them pleasure) rather than in objectifying them (by using them as a means to derive pleasure for ourselves). Therefore, the Torah insists that the only permitted form of seminal emission is that in which a husband inseminates his wife—and even then, he is required to focus on her pleasure rather than his own. Any other type of seminal emission serves to objectify womankind in the man’s perspective, and is therefore antithetical to the essence of redemption and contributes to the prolongation of the exile.
A man is therefore rendered ritually defiled by any emission from his procreative organ that results from carnal desire. There are two types of such emissions: seminal and non-seminal. Seminal emissions are the result of a natural carnal drive; they render a man ritually defiled to a limited extent, as we will see.
Even permitted seminal emissions render a husband ritually defiled, since, as just stated, it is impossible not to experience at least some pleasure in marital relations; indeed, it is necessary for the husband to enjoy marital relations in order to please his wife—so that she can see that he desires her company. Thus, paradoxically, even though the Torah all but insists that the husband experience this pleasure, he becomes ritually defiled thereby, for even the smallest iota of self-awareness separates us from God, even if subtly.
Non-seminal emissions, in contrast, are the result of an abnormally inflated carnal appetite, resulting in turn from overindulgence in lascivious behavior, speech, or thought. In the words of the sages, “Man possesses a small organ: [the more] he starves it, [the more] it is satisfied; [the more] he satisfies it, [the more] it hungers.” Nevertheless, a single, isolated instance of non-seminal emission only renders a man ritually impure to the same degree as does a seminal emission, since, as an isolated incident, it reflects no more than the fallen state of consciousness that we all inherit from the primordial snake. However, when a man experiences two non-seminal emissions in succession (i.e., separated by less than a full intervening day), it indicates that he has purposely corrupted himself beyond “natural” (i.e., post-Tree-of-Knowledge) human objectification. In such a case, his ritual defilement is more serious, and therefore a full week is required for him to be purged of it. When a man experiences three non-seminal emissions in succession, it indicates that he has become so entrenched in his corrupt perspective on life that it has become his normative consciousness, and therefore, his ritual impurity is so severe that it requires—in addition to a full week of purgation—a full sacrificial rite.
Nonetheless, together with its warning against reinforcing anti-Divine consciousness through transgressing God’s will, the Torah informs us that the power of repentance is such that even someone who has internalized evil to the extent that it has displaced his natural consciousness altogether can still be rehabilitated.
