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whether the physicians could remedy his condition. Based upon the
above logic, the Kol Yehudah allowed him to emit semen, because
since it would not be done in a destructive manner. He compares this
to Eliyahu Rabbah (151) where it says that it is permitted to create a
recess in the wall of a beis haknesses in order to place a prayer stand
there – the prohibition of destruction is not violated since the goal is
improvement.

Basing himself on this logic – that emitting semen for naught
is only forbidden in a wasteful context – Teshuvos Maharash Engel
writes, (Vol. VII, index to 86) that when he is approached with
questions about the use of contraception by women who would be
endangered by pregnancy, he tells the woman to come to him without
her husband’s knowledge and permits her to use a diaphragm with-
out her husband’s knowledge. The husband is then not considered to
be wasting his semen, since he has no intention of wasting it because
he doesn’t know that it is being emitted for naught. The sefer Milu’ei
Even (12) also writes that if the woman can conceal the fact that she is
using a diaphragm from her husband she should do so.2

However, many poskim disagree with this logic, arguing that the
emission of semen bears no comparison to erasing Hashem’s name
or to the demolition of a shul even for constructive purposes. These
latter two prohibitions appear in the Torah in connection with the
command, “You shall destroy their name [i.e. of idolatry, whereas]
you shall not do so to Hashem your God” (Devarim 12: 3). In other
words, removing G-d’s Name or demolishing His sanctuary is only
forbidden when done in a destructive manner, as we are commanded
to do to idols. This is not the case with needless emission of semen,
the very act of which is a grave prohibition, even when not done in

2. See what we wrote earlier, in siman 226, quoting my father-in-law Rav Y.S. El-
yashiv zt”l, that it is correct to inform a husband that his wife has been allowed
to use a diaphragm so that if he wants more children he can divorce her and
marry another woman. Perhaps Maharash Engel’s ruling applies when it is clear
that the husband would not want more children, though this needs further
reflection.

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