Sotah-So-Good For Marriage?

Parshat Naso

by Rabbi Avi Billet

R. Shalom Isaac Mizrachi (Divrei Shalom Responsa YD 9) was asked a question: If a person slaughtered an animal but did not cover the blood, is the meat of the animal permitted to be eaten?

He begins his answer quoting the Shulchan Arukh, who says there is a mitzvah to cover the blood (based on Vayikra 17:13), and the Rama who says that mitzvah is separate from the valid slaughtering which is still good even if he deliberately did not cover the blood.

            

As in any good responsa where the Shulchan Arukh is the tip of the iceberg, he goes on for pages and pages. He distinguishes between this case and circumstances which arise in the Torah in which an antidote is prescribed for a problem.

            

A slaughtered animal is permitted to be eaten regardless of whether one followed or violated the mitzvah to cover the blood. However, a person would remain 'tameh' forever had we not had a mitzvah of the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer). He goes on to say that if we did not have the mitzvah of the Sotah drink (Bamidbar 5 – our parsha), peace would never be attainable for a husband and wife living under a cloud of suspicion and jealousy. The doubts of faithlessness would be enough to force a mandated separation.

            

As he develops the comparison between covering the blood of the slaughtered animal against the Parah Adumah equation and the Sotah, he further distinguishes between the former and the latter two cases. Without the covering of the blood, one can still derive benefit from the slaughtered animal. But it is only with the ashes of the Red Heifer that one derives the benefit of becoming 'tahor.' It is only with the Sotah drink that one derives the benefit of achieving the peace in the home that comes from the divine clarification that leads to a clear conscience.

            

In explaining how he derives these comparisons from the words of Rashi, the Divrei Shalom says, "Had we not been commanded about the Sotah drink (literally 'the dirt of Sotah' which is dissolved in the drink) there would not be peace between husband and wife."

            

This final formulation is a little different than before. Earlier he suggested that peace would not be attainable under the circumstance of suspicion, and now he is suggesting that peace would be impossible in general, were the mitzvah of Sotah not in the books.

            

Is he suggesting that the possibility of undergoing the Sotah embarrassment is meant to be a deterrent? That knowing that "a mere suspicion of faithlessness could be enough to possibly end a marriage" would cause people to be scrupulously attentive to their spouses and to behave in a manner that is, at all times, above suspicion?

Was Sotah, like the mitzvah of the rebellious son (Devarim 21:18-21), which the Talmud (Sanhedrin 71a) claims never happened, a ritual placed in the Torah as a warning and deterrent, simply for us to learn the lesson of how to and how not to behave?

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai abolished the Sotah ritual (Sotah 47a) because, as the Talmud suggests, it did not serve very well as a deterrent during his time.

Nowadays, the idea of Sotah seems so anachronistic, on the one hand, and so chauvinistic on the other. And yet I wonder what such a deterrent would do for marriages today.

There are different ways people look at marriage. Some go into it and are committed to stick with it through thick and thin. Some have a very special relationship built on a mutual respect, a shared vision of a life, and the ability to communicate well with one another. Some view it as a commitment that will last as long as it feels right. Some might even assume that they will one day become a statistic.

We don't have the Sotah ritual, but we live in a world in which faithlessness can't hide forever, only to be exposed in some divine ritual. It eventually comes out. And the inevitable exposé doesn't stop those (men or women) who will not respect their marriages.

But maybe there is something to a deterrent of some kind. If Rabbi Mizrachi is correct that peace would be impossible for husbands and wives to achieve without the Sotah ritual being "out there," there are grounds to say that a good number of people will heed the "warning" and will view their marriage commitment as sacred. The "Shalom Bayit" – peace in the home – they will achieve will be elevated by their efforts to renew their love and kinship on a regular basis. They will see only one another, and will never even be tempted to see if there's someone better out there. And any attempt of the yetzer hara (Evil Inclination) will be scornfully turned aside, because "There is none more beautiful in my eyes, or more appropriate for me than the one to whom I am married."

May we merit to think of the Sotah ritual in this way, as an encouragement to find and bring out the best in our spouses so that our marriages can be elevated in the Bayit Neeman B'Yisrael we are all blessed at our weddings to build until we reach the age of 120.

In Good Faith

Parshat Naso - Being Faithful

by Rabbi Avi Billet

I cherish the fact that the Torah does not hide from truths, and does not whitewash unpleasant situations. Biblical narratives in and beyond the Torah include examples of individuals who struggled with the most primal of human urges. More than monetary fraud and tax evasion, this sin remains, to this day, one that ends even the greatest of political careers (unless you were U.S. president for most of the ‘90s).

Yosef, Shimshon, and King David are three examples of great Jewish leaders who faced these challenges. Yosef triumphed, David failed, and Shimshon dealt with his desires through a faithful intermarriage in order to infiltrate the enemy’s inner circle.

With this background, however, one can still argue that nothing about the circumstances surrounding the Sotah, the suspected adulteress, is particularly pleasant. It is nice that our parsha instructs in how to deal with a real-life possibility of unfaithfulness, but the focus is on exposing the unfaithful married woman, and there is no particular focus on her partner-in-sin, nor whether he is likewise married.

Not to say that he is faultless, blameless, or unpunished in the Torah’s presentation of the case or in the Talmud’s subsequent analysis of the circumstances. [Aish.com takes a stab at explaining this conundrum]

But in the Torah’s depiction of the particulars, it seems translators have a debate as to what really happened.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s translation of the verses (5:12-13) reads thus:
“[This is the law] if any man's wife is suspected of committing adultery and being false to her husband. A man may have lain with her carnally, keeping it hidden from her husband, and they may have acted secretly so that there could be no witness against [the woman]. [The woman] was not raped.”

ArtScroll translates the same words, “Any man whose wife may go astray and commit treachery against him; and a man could have lain with her carnally, but it was hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she became secluded and could have been defiled — but there was no witness against her — and she had not been forced.”

Rabbi J.H. Hertz translates the same words, “If any man’s wife go aside, and act unfaithfully against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, she being defiled secretly, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken in the act.”

The husband’s jealousy follows, and the Torah then says she may have or may have not actually committed the act.

In all cases, she is brought to the temple, and the procedure with the kohen and the special waters follows.

Clearly there is talk of her husband being suspicious. The Hebrew text (5:13) says “V’shakhav ish otah shikhvat zera, v’ne’elam me’einei ishaH.”

Where Rabbi Kaplan and ArtScroll translate “a man may have” and “a man could have,” Rabbi Hertz writes “and a man lie with her.” The question therefore goes beyond, ‘does her husband have real grounds to suspect, beyond his warning to her?’ The question is, “Did she or didn’t she? And is it only because her husband warned her that she goes through this process?”

Hertz’s translation is the most literally accurate. The Torah does seem to suggest at the outset that the woman is guilty, before it retracts and says she may have or she may have not committed the sinful offense against her husband. Could it be, then, that she might maintain a complete secret from her husband, and though personally guilty of adultery, nonetheless get away with it on the human level?

It would seem so.

In our Jewish community, we value and focus on the nuclear family, and are meant to do our utmost to preserve its sanctity. Some of our communities have a standard of conduct that prevents married men from becoming too “familiar” with married women, and vice versa. The Mishnah in Avot 1:5 (see part I and part II) even suggests a healthy distance, to avoid problems.

In explaining the custom that women would not work in the evenings of Sefirat Haomer (Shulchan Arukh 493:4), Shibbolei Haleket (Pesach laws 235) compares the Omer offering to the Sotah offering — both are a tenth of an eiphah of barley — and says because the Omer offering might cause us to think of a Sotah and thus arouse suspicion that our righteous women are unfaithful, it is to their continued honor and glory that they refrain from work during these evenings, because they are above suspicion.

May all of us, men and women, continue to live up to the category of “above suspicion” of the Shibbolei Haleket, as we model ideal family life for ourselves and for our children.