Kosher Adultery: Seduce and Sin with Your Spouse

by Shmuley Boteach

Offers advice for achieving lasting erotic passion in marriage by bringing the principles of adultery into the marital relationship without being unfaithful.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 9, 1995

About the author

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, named by Talkers Magazine as one of the 100 most important radio hosts in America, is a nationally syndicated talk show host, the international best-selling author of 15 books, and an acclaimed syndicated columnist.

A winner of the London Times highly prestigious "Preacher of the Year" award, Rabbi Shmuley has lectured and appeared in print, radio, and TV all over the globe. His radio show, "Rabbi Shmuley's Passion," airs daily on Bonneville Broadcasting in afternoon drive-time.

He is the author of a number of books, including "Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy," "Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments," "Why Can't I Fall in Love," "Judaism for Everyone: Renewing your Life through the Vibrant Lessons of the Jewish Faith," and most recently, "Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex." A winner of the annual "preacher of the year" contest sponsored by the Times of London, he was formerly rabbi of Oxford University.


Shmuley—he is known universally by his first name, has marketed himself as a rabbi to the stars and an expert on Jewish attitudes toward relationships and marriage. ("Dr. Ruth with a yarmulke," the Washington Post called him.)

Reviews

[Skylar Burris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m unjustly basing this review on only the first 43 pages I’ve read, but I had to abandon this book of recklessly irresponsible marriage advice, a book whose thesis is so asinine that I cannot believe it is coming from an orthodox Rabbi.

The thesis seems to be that sexual attraction conquers all and therefore married couples should cultivate a state of tension, suspicion, jealousy, and raging emotion in their relationships. His thesis is that married couples would divorce less often if they could just recapture that initial experience of “falling in love” (in other words, as far as I can tell, if they could live in a continual state of infatuation).

But there is a reason infatuation eventually fades in any relationship: people aren’t meant to live in such a state continually. “Raging emotion” makes it rather difficult to study for tests, show up to work on time, and create a safe, reliable environment for the children. But it is not true, in my opinion, that the more mature, quieter love (“the river of intimate love”) to which infatuation gives way “feels like death.” At least, it's never felt like death to me.

But not to worry about your lifeless marriage, Rabbi Boteach assures you: “By reading this book, you have already begun your rebirth.” If only your husband would pretend to force you to engage in a ménage a tois under threat of abandonment, you could go back to talking for hours over drinks! (No, Rabbi Boteach does not support "real" adultery, just making your spouse feel psychologically like he or she is commiting adultery. Now I better understand the expression "letter of the law.")

I began this book because I read and more or less appreciated his book Kosher Sex. But I am now quite puzzled. How can a man who writes in Kosher Sex that a man shouldn’t look at pornography yet think it a good thing that he should carry out on his wife an extensive deception that causes her to sin in thought (if not in deed) because he is bored having sex with her? I’m all for nurturing the spark in marriage and switching things up when necessary to keep that spark alive, but some of the things he is suggesting could cause doubt, resentment, guilt, distrust, fear, and very real pain. But, hey, that tension is all good, because it’s in the service of good sex (and therefore ipso factso good marriage); “unpredictability” as he calls it is all a “blessing…so long as it doesn’t totally destroy the foundation of a marriage.” Totally. Because as long as you only half-wreck your marriage and destroy your sense of trust, it’s all good. After all, you have to half-wreck your marriage to restore the erotic tension you first experienced when you were dating; you have to commit fake adultery to avoid driving your bored spouse to real adultery.

Wouldn’t marriage be better, Rabbi Boteach muses, and the world in general a happier place, if wives just “became the living embodiment of a man’s sexual fantasies—a woman with an insatiable appetite who would do anything for sex.” Yes, wouldn’t life be so much better if all men lived inside a porno movie all the time.

Make it your one focus in life to create a perpetual state of arousal with your spouse, and if you can’t, your love is “like death.” If people don’t watch out, marriage is going to “finish them off.” I know his goal is to help troubled marriages, but all this melodrama could make someone in a decent marriage feel insufficient. It could feed and exaggerate the self-pity felt by someone who was going through the doldrums of life.

“The number one cause of divorce,” he writes, “is falling out of love.” I don't know if this is true, but it seems rather unrealistic to believe you should always and forever feel “in love” in the first place. If you do, when that feeling of “raging emotion” has (somewhat mercifully) calmed, you may think love itself is gone and that therefore you have no reason to sustain the marriage. Yet that is precisely the misassumption Rabbi Boteach cultivates in this book. If your love life isn’t like a Hollywood movie, you don’t have a happy, satisfying sex life or a good marriage.

I got on a kick reading this writer for awhile, but I’m pretty sure I’m off it now. After a little over 40 pages, all I can say is...

WHAT?

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One central idea here (that you must wake up each day ready to remarry your spouse and never take them for granted or fail to appreciate all those things you found attractive about them when you first met - or someone else will) with not as many inspirationals for me as I found in his other books.

"Words create their own reality. The more you compliment your spouse, the more you give (him) something positive to live up to." There must be 5 times as many positive moments as negative ones for a successful marriage.

Adultery is an omission rather than an action - you cease to be a spouse. Infidelity occurs any time a person, place, or thing becomes more important to you than your spouse." (This explains my jealously over my husbands motorcycle!)

A man feels sexy when he feels exclusively special to a woman. He gets to change her. She cannot resist his charm.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of this book is as follows: if your sex life with your spouse is dead, you may rekindle passion in your marriage by introducing the psychology of an affair; also, saving any marriage is so important that it justifies the use of any method not explicitly forbidden by God.

Okay, so I don't fall into the first category, and I disagree with the second premise.

I did not think this book was worth my time right now, but I do hope to go back and finish it sometime. I believe I can learn from it, but not anything that would benefit me immediately. I'm very disappointed.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting idea