Marital Commitment and Social Media

By now all the syndicated news outlets are talking about a certain New York Congressman and his online behavior. They are debating his political future, his marriage and all other sorts of sundry details. In my opinion, the most interesting element of this story is the medium by which his actions were committed. As Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker pointed out this scandal is "the first to have been conducted entirely via e-mail, and online social media." 

Is an affair an affair when it is conducted entirely online? Is it cheating when a spouse engages in intimate communications with another person but never meets them in person? If this situation transpired with a Congressman then it is most likely occurring in the lives of other people as well, although their stories do not make the evening news.


It seems to me that while this is one area where traditional Judaism gets criticized, it is also the specific teachings from this aspect of Judaism that can contribute much to the conversation. The Talmudic sages understood that acts of marital indiscretion do not, for the most part, manifest spontaneously but rather are the product of emotional attachment and lustful yearning. The power of these hirhurei aveirah - passing thoughts of indiscretion, to build and gather until a person finds themselves in a scenario they would later regret is tremendous.

In fact, the rabbis argued that these thoughts can be even worse than the act itself (Yoma 29a). The reason being that these thoughts of fantasy and lust can be so utterly overpowering that they end up consuming the life of a person thereby disrupting their marital harmony and could even extend into other areas of their personal and professional life.

It is because of these concerns that Jewish tradition has taken a very cautious stance towards casual relationships between people. One should be thoughtful about the sort of friend one chooses as inevitably friends come to influence and shape each other. This caution is even more strongly adhered to when it comes to relationships between people who have the potential to be attracted to each other. While some in contemporary society may find this caution to be overdoing it, like whether one can shake the hand of a person of the opposite gender (see for example Igrot Moshe Orach Chayim 1:113 and Even HaEzer 1:56) the values that form the foundation for these practices are values that ought to be well heeded in our modern era.

The wisdom from Jewish tradition tells us that a relationship is a relationship regardless of whether or not a physical encounter occurred. Indeed, by the time one meets in person, the relationship is most likely well established and the damage to one's moral life is well under way. It behooves us to inject an element of caution, perhaps even some formality, into our societal norms, even in the arena of Twitter and Facebook.