For the source text click/tap here: Kiddushin 81
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Today we continue the Rabbinic concern with private interactions between men and women lest they lead to sexual impropriety, and the laws of yihud – of forbidding a man and woman from being alone in a secluded place.
Our daf clarifies that in circumstances where the likelihood of impropriety is small – e.g. ba’alah ba’ir (the woman’s husband is nearby) or petah patu’ah le-reshut ha-rabim (there is an open entrance to a public place) – the prohibition of yihud does not exist.
Those exceptions notwithstanding, the text is well aware of the power of sexual drives, and recounts tales of upstanding members of the community who were saved from sinning only at the last moment.
We explore the rabbinic attitudes towards lust.