New answers tagged pregnancy-birth
1
Your assumption that זרע only means semen isn't correct even in terms of simple biology. A better translation would perhaps be gamete which can be either from the male or the female in terms of offspring. And this is actually how the concept is related in the Oral Torah like Niddah 31a which says in the name of Rabbi Yitzchok quoting Rabbi Immi:
אמר רבי ...
5
What a word in the Torah means is best determined not by the most frequently-used English translation of that word but by examining how that word is used in context in the Torah or possibly in parallel texts.
If you look at the places where the noun "זֶרַע" is used in the Torah, you'll find plenty of examples of it meaning, in context, the child, ...
0
Rav Hirsch does indeed translates the word זרעך as descendants. The term זרע is used as the idiom for the offspring or that which causes offspring to to arise. An idiom is not taken literally and in any case this particular idiom does not refer solely to the male source of offspring (sperm).
0
The simple answer is that not every man is included in the injunction.
Whilst the Sefer HaChinuch writes:
ונוהגת בכל מקום ובכל זמן (קדושין לו, ב) וחיב אדם להשתדל בה משהוא ראוי לה, והוא הזמן שנתנו חכמים ז''ל (אבות פ''ה מכ''א) לשא אשה. ומצוה זו אינה מוטלת על הנשים, והמבטלה בטל עשה וענשו גדול מאד, (קדושין כט, ב) שמראה בעצמו, שאינו רוצה להשלים חפץ השם לישב ...
-1
Tosafos Sanhedrin 59b explains the reason it's not listed in the 7 mitzvos is because active mitzvos aren't included. Only negative commands. However Tosafos says it's also a negative command not to waste seed. Tosafos implies that it's not included in the 7 mitzvos because they don't have it nowadays. Gemara 59b says that non jews lost the mitzva during ...
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