Returning Shortly
אִישׁ אִישׁ כִּי תִשְׂטֶה אִשְׁתּוֹ וּמָעֲלָה בוֹ מָעַל (במדבר ה, יב) A MAN WHOSE WIFE STRAYED AND WAS UNFAITHFUL TO HIM. (BAMIDBAR 5:12)
A sotah is a married woman who is suspected of adultery and prohibited from being with her husband until she proves her innocence. The term sotah means, “woman who strays,” and comes from the verse in the Torah, “A man whose wife strayed (sisteh) and was unfaithful to him.” The word shtus, meaning foolishness or irrationality, stems from the same root. By using a term synonymous with foolishness to describe the sotah’s sin, the Torah teaches us that it is simply inconceivable that a Jew would transgress the Torah’s laws unless he or she is not thinking rationally (Sotah 3a).
The Torah’s allusion to this principle in the context of the laws of a sotah also teaches us that, like a sotah, a Jew’s distance from G-d through “foolish” transgressions is only temporary. A sotah is not necessarily guilty of adultery; she is deemed a sotah simply because she behaved in a manner that allowed for suspicion. Such conduct is, in and of itself, immodest for a Jewish woman, and temporarily bars her from her normal married life. Once she drinks the miraculous “sotah waters,” however, and establishes her innocence, she returns to her husband and they continue living together. In fact, the Torah promises that her marriage will now be even more blessed than it was previously (see Bamidbar 5:28). If she was barren, she will now conceive; if she gave birth painfully, she will now give birth with ease; if she used to give birth to unattractive children, she will now give birth to beautiful children (see Talmud, Sotah 26a; Jerusalem Talmud, Sotah 3:4).
The same is true concerning the distance we put between ourselves and G-d when we sin. The Jewish people as a whole are regarded as G-d’s “wife,” which is why our conduct is of such significance to Him. Yet even when the foolishness of the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, gets the better of us, our distance from G-d is only temporary. Ultimately, every Jew will certainly do teshuva and be cleared from sin, and our relationship with G-d will be renewed and enhanced.
—Likutei Sichos, vol. 2, pp. 313-314
