Every hand that frequently checks [for genital emissions]: in women, it is praiseworthy but among men you should cut it off.
[Translation by Rabbi Steve Greenberg]
Suggested Discussion Questions:
1. Note: While there is no biblical mention of masturbation as an independent problem in the Hebrew Bible, the rabbis of the Talmud do address it. Particularly where the rabbis had no Biblical foundation for their norms, they would speak with a measure of hyperbole. (There is no circumstance in rabbinic law where amputation is applied punishment for any crime.) Here the mishnah is critical of repetitive self arousal. It appears that in the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud, self-arousal was the issue of concern, while only in the editorial strata of the Babylonian Talmud was the "wasting of seed" portrayed as a halakhic problem.
Time Period: Rabbinic (Maccabees through the Talmud)