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25 years of ‘Kosher Sex’
This summer is 25 years since I first published “Kosher Sex” in Britain in 1998. The book, which in many ways changed my life, was written in response to two factors. First, my lifelong desire to turn my parents’ painful divorce into a blessing by giving married couples advice how to have passionate and exciting relationships. Marriage should never be a prison. And second, as an outcome of all the relationships advice that my students at Oxford University were seeking when I served them as rabbi between 1988 and 1999.
I never expected “Kosher Sex” to be a big deal or to sell. In fact, I only got it published by insisting it be included as part of a two part-deal with Duckworth Publishers – a prestigious but high-brow imprint – which had asked me to write a book called “An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Judaism,” which was indeed published in
due course.
The first printing of “Kosher Sex” was tiny, about 5,000 copies. But lo and behold, from the moment it came out, it captured international headlines and had me invited to speak on the subject all over the world.
Part of it was controversy. Why was a rabbi writing a book about sex? Was it appropriate? Wasn’t it downright scandalous? Would I be stripped of my rabbinical title? Was my wife embarrassed?
My eight-year-old daughter, Mushki, came home from school crying that she had been bullied. “Your father wrote a naughty book,” the other children told her — which in Britain passes for criticism but here in America would be high praise!
But the other part of the book’s instant popularity was the sheer need for it. To use the British understatement and to sound profoundly American, most people’s sex lives suck. I don’t only mean married couples, who quickly fall into boring routine and prefer watching Netflix to lovemaking. I mean even singles, who have to contend with sex that is a performance for which you are rated and that lacks intimate connection.
This summer my wife and I visited Croatia for the first time. I was amazed when a nationally prominent journalist brought me my “Kosher Sex” book to sign at a speech I was giving in Zagreb. What? The book was translated into Croatian? I’ve had the same experience in places like Belgium, the Czech Republic, Spain, Holland, and many other countries, including translations that I’ve only seen in print, in Thai and Mandarin.
Regardless, the book established me as someone to whom couples turned to for advice. I could not keep up with the number of people who were getting in touch for marriage, sex, and relationships counseling. Till today I am stopped all over the world by people telling me, “I read your book.” I invariably say to them – especially if they’re religious, in order to tease them – “which one? I’ve authored dozens of books.” “You know,” they say, “the one, well, the one on.. er.. um.. intimacy.”
That answer always makes me happy.
