#sotah

ben azzai: how long does it take a man and woman to start intercourse if they're alone and in a hurry I say as long as it takes me to roast an egg

rabbi akiva: ha, more like the time to eat that egg

you can pour the bitter waters down my throat, all at once,

you can hear me say amen amen amen amen and I’ll swallow every word, gulp them down

with a smile, and you’ll stare, maybe wondering  why it is these words of

Remember how the Bible has two different Flood stories, but they were interwoven by a later editor, so we have to reconstruct them?  I believe that this passage does a similar thing with legal rituals around unfaithfulness.  In the Bible, the two are interwoven — but they can be separated into two coherent rituals with different purposes.

The first ritual, I believe, was a magico-medical response to a suspicious pregnancy.  If a woman seemed pregnant, and her husband knew it wasn't his, he could bring her to the priest, who administered a concoction of myrrh [1], a common ancient abortifacient; the ensuing miscarriage would prove his suspicions.  In contrast, the second ritual stemmed from a situation where men wanted to put their wives on trial because of a "spirit of jealousy"; the solution of pure water and dust would have no medical effect on the woman, but the ritual would clear her of suspicion.

Ritual 1 (12b-13, 16, 18b-20, 22-24, 27, 31):

For every man whose wife strays (in that she acted unfaithfully to him, for someone ejaculated his seed [in her] while her husband was unaware), and she is undetected (she is defiled, but there is no witness to it, for she was not caught), the priest will bring her near, and he will stand her before YHWH.

In the hand of the priest will be the curse-bringing waters of myrrhs.  The priest will make her swear, saying to the woman, "If a man did not lie with you, and if you did not stray to uncleanness while under your husband's authority, be unaffected by these curse-bringing waters of myrrhs!  But if you strayed while under your husband's authority, and if you were defiled, and a man put his 'intercourse' in you outside your husband's authority, then these curse-bringing waters will go into your belly to bloat your womb and make your 'thigh' fall out." [2]

The woman will say, "amen, amen," and the priest will write this vow on a scroll.  Then he will wipe it into the waters of myrrhs, and he will make the woman drink the curse-bringing waters of myrrhs, and the curse-bringing waters will go into her as myrrhs.

When he makes her drink the water, it will be thus: if she has strayed, and she has acted unfaithfully to her husband, then the curse-bearing waters will go into her as myrrhs, and her womb will bloat, and her "thigh" will fall out, and the woman will become an expletive amidst her people.  The man is free from guilt; but as for the woman, she will bear her guilt.

Ritual 2 (14-15, 17-18a, 21, 25-26, 28-30):

This is the law of jealousy, whenever a woman strays while under her husband's authority and is defiled; or whenever a spirit of jealousy passes over a man, and he becomes jealous of his wife.  He will stand the wife before YHWH, and the priest will do to her all this law.

When a spirit of jealousy passes over him, and he becomes jealous of his wife, because she is defiled — or a spirit of jealousy passes over him, and he becomes jealous of his wife, but she is not defiled — then the man will bring his wife to the priest.  He will bring an offering for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley flour; he will not pour out oil on it, nor put incense on it, for it is a grain-offering of jealousy, a grain-offering of remembrance, bringing remembering of guilt,

Then the priest will take holy water in a clay bowl, and the priest will take some of the dust on the floor of the sanctuary, and he will put it into the water.  The priest will stand the woman before YHWH, and he will uncover the woman's head, and in her hand he will put the grain-offering of remembrance, which is the grain-offering of jealousy.

Then the priest will make the woman swear an oath of vowing, and the priest will say to the woman, "May YHWH turn you into an expletive amidst your people, when YHWH makes your 'thigh' fall out and your womb bloat."

The priest will take the grain-offering of jealousy from the hand of the woman, and he will wave the grain-offering before YHWH, then bring it near to the altar.  The priest will take a handful of her memorial from the grain-offering, and he will burn it on the altar; afterwards, he will make the woman drink the water.

If the woman has not been defiled, and she is innocent, then she will be unaffected, and she may be impregnated with seed.

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.

Naso – How it could have ended

The Haftarah tells the story of Shimshon’s birth. Shimshon’s mother, Mrs. Manoach, was barren until she was visited by an angel. This is how she tells her husband what happened:

וַתֹּאמֶר לְאִישָׁהּ לֵאמֹר אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים בָּא אֵלַי וּמַרְאֵהוּ כְּמַרְאֵה מַלְאַךְ הָאֱלֹהִים נוֹרָא מְאֹד וְלֹא שְׁאִלְתִּיהוּ אֵי מִזֶּה הוּא וְאֶת שְׁמוֹ לֹא הִגִּיד לִי: וַיֹּאמֶר לִי הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן She spoke to her husband, saying: “A Man of G-d came to me, he looked like an angel of G-d, very frightening, and I did not ask him where he comes from, and he did not tell me his name. He said to me, ‘You are going to be pregnant and give birth to a son… (Shoftim 13:6-7)

If the story were told by a neighborhood “yenta”, it might have looked like this:

“You know that Mrs. Manoach, the one who’s barren, nebech? Guess what, she’s pregnant! But did you hear her story? She was out in the field, and an angel came to her. Yeah, sure, an “angel”… Poor Manoach. He’s so clueless.”

In the ancient world, there were many fables of women “visited” by divine beings, and the supernatural children that they bore. If Manoach had doubted his wife’s fidelity, nobody would have held it against him.

Parshat Naso offers a solution for a husband whose wife has been compromised and there is no way to know what happened: the Sotah ritual. Her husband can take her to the Temple, where she is made to drink a potion that kills her if she is guilty, or blesses her with fertility if she is innocent. It is an ordeal, in every sense of the word, but at least it provides closure. It is a way for him to prove to himself and to society that she was in fact innocent, a way to stop the rumors and the pitying looks, a way to repair their relationship.

But Manoach did not take his wife to the Sotah ritual. Their relationship did not need to be repaired.

In the conditions for the ritual, we find the following:

וְעָבַר עָלָיו רוּחַ קִנְאָה וְקִנֵּא אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ וְהִוא נִטְמָאָה אוֹ עָבַר עָלָיו רוּחַ קִנְאָה וְקִנֵּא אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ וְהִיא לֹא נִטְמָאָה And he was seized by jealousy, and was jealous over his wife, and she had become impure; or, he was seized by jealousy and was jealous over his wife, and she did not become impure. (Bamidbar 5:14)

It is not enough for the woman to have appeared to stray. The husband must also be seized by jealousy. If he is not, then the ritual is not necessary.

What was Manoach’s reaction to hearing that “a man of G-d came to” his wife? He begs G-d to send him again, to hear what else he has to say. What was Manoach’s reaction when he shows up again, not to him as requested, but again to his wife, out alone in the field? Does he question her, or blame her, or wonder what the Man of G-d wants with her? None of that. When she runs in and tells him, “He is here again, the man that came to me the other day” –

וַיָּקָם וַיֵּלֶךְ מָנוֹחַ אַחֲרֵי אִשְׁתּוֹ Manoach got up and went after his wife (Shoftim 13:11)

Manoach is nothing like the husband in the Sotah ritual. Not only is he not consumed by jealousy, but the thought does not even cross his mind. She is his wife; he goes where she leads.

So that we don’t miss this point, the Haftarah’s twenty-four verses use the phrase, אִשְׁתּוֹ “his wife”, seven times. Instead of saying, “he said to her,” it says, “Manoach said to his wife.” Instead of saying, “she answered,” it says, “his wife answered.” Similarly, in the Parsha of Sotah, the phrase, “his wife”, is repeated four times. Additionally, both sets of text use the somewhat rare term, אִישָׁהּ “her man”, three times in close proximity. This linguistic mechanism is meant to highlight that what is at stake here is the idea of “man and wife”.

The relationship known as “man and wife” goes back to Creation. Whereas the betrayal of this relationship, adultery, is one of the cardinal sins listed in the Torah, the Parsha takes it one step further, and tells us that jealousy alone might be equally destructive. It also offers a way to resolve it. The Haftarah takes it one step further than that, and tells us that jealousy is not the only possible reaction to such circumstances.

If Mr. and Mrs. Manoach had not thought of each other as “man and wife”, if he had not believed in her, if his faith in her had been affected by slander and sinister glances, than he might have taken her to be a Sotah.

If the husband of the Sotah had been more like Manoach, and had trusted his wife and stood by her even when things looked bad, then he would not have had to put her through the ordeal.