Published with license by Koninklijke Brill NV | doi:./- © Shalem Yahalom,  | ISSN: - ( print) - ( online) The Review of Rabbinic Judaism  () – brill.com/rrj The Holiness of Riẓba: A Study of a Rabbinic Historiography Shalem Yahalom | ORCID: --- Ariel University, Ariel, Israel shalem.yahalom@gmail.com Received 21 June 2021 | Accepted 26 December 2021 | Published online 10 October 2023 Abstract This study deals with the public declaration by the Tosaphist R. Yitzhak ben Abraham (Riẓba) about his inability to consummate his marriage during its first few years. Ephraim Urbach, the great mid-twentieth century Jewish historian, considered this confession to be an expression of holiness and purity and to the ability to dissociate sexuality from feelings of guilt and shame. This assessment reflects the pretensions of Judaic studies of the era to understand the characters and predilections of rabbinic figures at a remove of hundreds of years. This paper rejects Urbach’s conclusions, maintaining that the compunctions associated with nudity and sexuality are modern phenomena. In medieval Europe, men and women bathed together, and this practice was considered perfectly acceptable in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles. Likewise, the intimate lives of married couples were not private. Consequently, Riẓba’s disclo- sure does not attest to his being holy or pure to an unusual degree. Keywords Yitzhak ben Abraham – Tosaphists – Ephraim Urbach – sexuality in religion The renowned twentieth century scholar Ephraim Elimelech Urbach’s monu- mental work The Tosaphists is a foundational volume in the field of rabbinic