To Mechaber Kuntreisim,
I am a kallah teacher for many years, and I train kallah teachers also. I just finished a course on this topic and it was amazing. It was very open and explicit. It covered the topics in your kuntress. Presently my project is to make my course digital. Two rabbanim have given me their support…I created this course when someone told me that over 300,000 men turned to GYE last year for help. Clearly kedushas Yisrael is in trouble and as always, everything starts with the woman. SHE has to be CONNECTED. Meaning, enjoying and into it.
A question I have on a topic you discussed in the kuntress is regarding how exactly you define the oso makom? I always thought it was only the actual vaginal opening, not above where there is hair or even the whole vulva area, not even the clitoris and around, in which case a husband would be allowed to see his wife naked lying down or standing or sitting. Do you hold that the oso makom is the whole area?
Thank you,
Kallah teacher and trainer
To Kallah teacher and trainer,
I'd like to start by saying that this discussion is only relevant to the opinion that maintains that it is forbidden for a man to gaze upon or kiss his wife’s “oso makom”. However, there are opinions that maintain that there is no prohibition whatsoever for a man to look at or kiss his wife’s “oso makom” (see this article that I wrote on the topic).
Now according to the opinion that maintains that it is forbidden, I always understood that “oso makom” is defined by what is considered “ervah” in the context of the prohibition to say devarim sheh’b’kedusha in the presence of ervah (see Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim Siman 75). The Rambam (Pirush HaMishnayos Maseches Challah 2:3) writes that when a woman sits down on the floor and puts her legs straight out in front of her with the two legs pressed together (so that her body is in an L shape), doing that covers the ervah. To the best of my understanding, the area that gets covered when a woman sits in that position includes the area where the flaps of skin on the sides (in the clitoris area, they are usually called “labia”) begin to split from one another. In other words, the entire area up until the top of the “line” is included in “ervah”. And, as I mentioned above, for lack of seeing any other definition of “oso makom” clearly explicated anywhere, I always assumed that “oso makom” and “ervah” are referring to the same thing.
I have spoken to a number of Rabbanim and talmidei chachamim who do not agree with me on this point. When I asked them as to their source for this lenient ruling, one of the Rabbanim told me that he heard it from Rav so and so who said it over in the name of Rav Elyashiv zt”l, and he also added that he seems to recall seeing it written in a sefer in the name of Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita, but that he does not recall what sefer that is. So, as far as trying to fact-check the latter source, that obviously was not possible. But the first source I did fact check, since I know who that Rav is and communicate with him from time to time. I told that Rav what the first Rav said in his name, and he completely denied ever saying. In fact, he said quite the opposite and seemed to have a more machmir definition of “oso makom” than mine, although it was not at all clear to me what the precise parameters are according to that Rav. There was another Rav that I spoke to who told me that when a woman is lying down on her back and her legs are together, whatever is uncovered in that position is mutar for the husband to see and kiss, and whatever is covered is assur. He told me, though, that that is his own “compromise” of sorts. When I asked him from whom he got his definition of “oso makom” (that, strictly speaking, it is only the actual hole), he told me that he heard it from a number of Gedolei HaPoskim of the previous generation but that at this point he does not recall who they were. He told me that he used to have it written down somewhere but that he is not sure if he will be able to find those notes. Obviously, there was no way for me to fact check his statements, and, in the absence of him being able to tell me definitively from whom he heard that ruling, I personally find it difficult to rely on it. There is a another talmid chacham who told me that his rebbi also said that only the actual hole is the oso makom, but he would not tell me the name or phone number of that rebbi, so, once again, I was left with someone making a claim that I could not substantiate or disprove. Finally, there is one more talmid chacham who cited a Gemara in Maseches Niddah 42b that strongly implies that “oso makom” is only the actual hole. However, I responded to him that there is another Gemara in Maseches Niddah 47b that strongly implies that the “oso makom” is the entire ervah, and that it is entirely possible that “oso makom” (which literally means “that place”) is sometimes used to refer specifically to the hole and sometimes used to refer to the entire ervah. The upshot of that exchange is that his proof is unconvincing, and that in the absence of a chashuveh Posek unequivocally stating that this is what he holds is the halacha, one would not be licensed to rely on such a lenient approach on the basis of one’s own sevara or proofs.
So, for the time being, I am left without any reliable mesorah as to this opinion that certainly seems to have “made the rounds” that the “oso makom” is only the actual hole, and therefore I do not feel that there is a sound basis to not define “oso makom” in this context as being the same as “ervah”.
Mechaber Kuntreisim