Q:
Why don’t we judge Yehudah more severely for soliciting the services of what he thought was a prostitute? After all, he was pretty strict with her punishment?
A:
Yehudah was about to sentence Tamar to death because she was forbidden to anyone except to one of the brothers and now she was pregnant. That’s the law that they had before Matan Torah; that’s the law of yibum before Matan Torah.
So the question is what about Yehudah himself? Didn’t he do a sin?
And the answer is the sin that Yehudah did was the same as if you were walking down Kings Highway and you saw a fruit stand with delicious apples and you took out, let’s say, twenty five cents from your pocket and you paid for the apple and you’re munching the apple and walking down the street. If Yehudah was eating an apple on the street it’s exactly the same sin as when he came to Tamar when she was by the wayside. It was absolutely permitted. It’s not the slightest sin at all. Before matan Torah it was an apple. That’s all, as simple as that. No prohibition. Kodem matan Torah it was absolutely permitted.
Of course if a rosh yeshivah with a nice big white beard is eating an apple on the street, it’s not so good. Of course האוכל בשוק דומה לכלב – if he eats pas, if he eats pizza in the street this rosh yeshivah, so he’s compared to a dog. But an apple? If a rosh yeshivah is eating an apple in the street it’s not so fancy but still you can’t condemn him. Sometimes he’s late for the shiur and he didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast. He’s running to the yeshivah so he bought an apple. He paid for it. It’s a kosher apple, a glatt kosher apple. It’s a little embarrassing; if one of the talmidim see it, he’ll try to hide the apple. But no sin.
Yehudah did nothing wrong. But Tamar was thought to have done a crime that according to the laws in all the nations at that time; it was considered a crime of adultery.
TAPE # 687
