Sotah – “Errant Wife” – The Mind of Dan Perlman

Sotah – “Errant Wife”- How Can I Trust You Again?

The Hebrew term sotah has several meanings. In context, as a title, it refers to an adulterous wife, and is also the name of what is sometimes thought of as a trial by ordeal for a woman so accused. But it also means fool, and can and has been interpreted to refer to the husband who accuses his wife of adultery, based on no more than circumstantial evidence (usually something to the effect of “my wife was alone with another man”). And, although it’s a near automatic first thought that the whole trial by ordeal is a ridiculous patriarchal punishment, it has been noted by numerous scholars and historians that the ritual itself was a farce, involving having the woman drink “bitter waters” – water in which some dust from the Temple and some ink from a sacred text – would have a detrimental effect on her. As to why the Talmudic rabbis instituted this process (which comes from Numbers, in the Torah) in the way they did is variously interpreted. The most common theories are that it was simply a way of calming down an over-reacting jealous husband, or, that it was a way of putting him in place, a sort of “put up or shut up” move, or that it was a quick and easy way for a woman to prove her innocence. In each case, there was intent to preserve the sanctity of marriage on the part of the rabbis.
3/31/23, Chapter 1, Page 2 – We open, with a husband warning his wife to stay away from a particular man. It’s made clear he’s a jealous husband, though it’s not made clear if it’s his wife or the other man whom he doesn’t trust. As part of the conditions for this warning, it must be made in the presence of two witnesses. The next step, we are told, is that she is seen by one or both witnesses talking to and/or going into a closed room with the man she’s been warned against being with.
4/1/23, Page 3 – A woman who commited adultery was not just punished, but adorned with the proverbial scarlett letter, while a man who commited adultery recieved the same punishment, but not the long-lasting social disapprobation. At the same time, if a man’s wife was scorned by society, that reputational damage was shared by him and his descendants. And this was why a man was required to publicly, i.e., in front of witnesses, warn his wife away from a situation that would sully both their reputations. It wasn’t mandatory in general, but it was if he later wanted to not be considered complicit.
4/2/23, Page 4 – I love the Talmud’s units of measurement. How long is the period a woman is secluded with a man before it becomes suspicious? Obviously, the amount of time required to “complete the initial stages of intercourse and appease her”. But, how long is that? Well, obviously, the amount of time to drink a glass of wine. No, the amount of time to prepare the glass of wine properly. No, the amount of time to roast and eat an egg. No, no, it’s the amount of time to eat three roasted eggs. Very egg-zacting!
4/3/23, Page 5 – Arrogance bad. Stop it.
4/4/23, Page 6 – In typical Talmudic fashion, we’ve jumped way ahead in the timeline. If a woman has indeed been unfaithful to her husband, and he divorces her, and she marries the man with whom she was unfaithful, and he dies childless, is his younger brother required to marry her in levirate marriage? You remember levirate marriage, the continuation of the clan obligation, right? Oh, and the answer is “no”, no he isn’t. After all, she’s demonstrated that she’s unfaithful.
4/5/23, Page 7 – Back on topic… prior to the trial by ordeal, a husband brings his wife before a judge to make his accusation. He has to be accompanied by at least two other men, to prevent him from succumbing to the wiles of his wife, who, if guilty, might seduce him into dropping his accusation. Then again, some women have been known to seduce up to ten men! The judge then gives her a lecture about wantoness, and offers her a way out, if she admits her infidelity, but can offer mitigating circumstances – wine, laughter, immaturity, and/or the bad advice of friends. If not, we proceed to the trial by ordeal.
4/6/23, Page 8 – At the beginning of this tractate I noted that many historians and Talmud scholars opine that the sotah trial was meant to clear a woman’s name and appease an overreacting husband, not to punish her or assume her guilt. I’m going to call bullshit on that, as today’s page details humiliating her in order to wear her down and force her confession – stripping her, removing her makeup, undoing her hair, and leaving her standing in the Temple courtyard, with the public invited to attend and watch.
4/7/23, Page 9 – The wife, accused and therefore presumed guilty of infidelity, is now forbidden both to her husband (that which she had) and her lover (that which she desired). The rabbis compare this metaphorically to the overreach of the Garden of Eden snake, who desired Adam’s death and to marry Eve, and was condemned to crawl, despised, on the ground; and various other figures we’ve encountered, like Samson, who desired Delilah and had his eyes gouged out. We’re going full tilt with the Jewish guilt here.
4/8/23, Page 10 – Half of today’s passage is devoted to an obsessive look at Samson, who, apparently in addition to his strength, hair, and animal cruelty, was possessed of a large, functional, and sperm-packed penis, even as a young boy; and the second half to Judah, one of Joseph’s sons, who was seduced by his daughter-in-law. The tie-in to this tractate is, apparently, that you can’t really expect women to not be promiscuous if the men they’re around are.
4/9/23, Page 11 – I got sidetracked on the story about pregnant Jewish women during the period of slavery in Egypt going into the fields to give birth surreptitiously, and quietly trying to raise their infants out there (to avoid being found in the camps). The Egyptians would send oxen out to plow the fields and thereby chop up the babies, but God let the earth absorb them into the ground until after the Egyptians left, at which time they would rise back out of the ground and return to their mothers. That is some weird, mystical sh*t going on out there.
4/10/23, Page 12 – Today’s page delves into the story of Miriam, you know, the one who plopped the baby Moses into a basket, set him adrift on a river, and hoped someone would rescue him before he drowned or was swept out to sea. You know, it’s one of those things that we all probably never questioned in religious school instruction – we were all so focused on the origin story of Moses that we didn’t stop to talk about a teenage girl literally tossing her baby brother out with the bathwater.
4/11/23, Page 13 – Today we return to Jacob and Esau. You remember that whole story. So, many moons later, Jacob has died and his kids and grandkids bring him to the Cave of the Patriarchs to bury him. But, Esau shows up and doesn’t want him buried there, because he wants to be. Much kerfuffle. In the end, one of Jacob’s grandkids, tired of the delay and disrespect, clubs Esau over the head so hard his eyes pop out, land on Jacob’s corpse, which opents its own eyes and gets a big grin on. Then they’re both buried side by side. WTF?
4/12/23, Chapter 2, Page 14 – I’m still not sure why we had the several day diversion into the stories of historical figures, as this new chapter starts, they aren’t brought into the theme of the tractate. Yet. Instead, today, we have the opinions of several of the learned sages on why the various attempts to exhaust and breakdown the sota, the accused wife, are really the Torah protecting her. More or less, it seems, because if she survives all the various ordeals, then her record is considered clean. A bit too much “guilty until proven innocent” in my view.
4/13/23, Page 15 – When a priest takes the meal-offering from the incensed husband, there are some rules. The meat must be salted properly before being placed on the altar. It should be accompanied by wine, olive oil, and, well, honey. At least God appreciates a proper meal. And, of course, it’s worth nothing that after the appropriate cooking time and appreciation of the aromas, the priests get to eat the offering. I have my suspicions about who laid out the rules for the offering.
4/14/23, Page 16 – We’re finally onto the infamous bitter waters for the sota ritual. They are supposed to be made from dust collected from around the marble tablet in the Temple sanctuary. But, the question arises, what if there is no dust? Can we use ashes from burnt offerings? Can we use hair clippings from nazirite shavings (way to bring in the last tractate guys!)? No and no. But, the priests can bring in the ashes of decomposed vegetables. I have just realized that the bitter waters are half the amaro digestifs made out there.
4/15/23, Page 17 – There’s gotta be a thread, a shade of blue like the sky, like a sapphire. Now, the color masters of the universe, Pantone, don’t seem to have a sky blue sapphire, and sky blue and sapphire blue are significantly different. If you google sky blue sapphire you get quite a range of images with shades of blue that differ just as widely. Blue is a big part of Jewish tradition, but even the greats disagree. The color of the Israeli flag is “tekhelet”, a biblical color based on a dye from the murex snail, which Maimonides said was the color of the sky at noon and Rashi said was the sky at twilight.
4/16/23, Page 18 – There are several parts to the sota ordeal, once all the humiliation part has been passed by. The bitter waters themselves, a ritual prayer, and a cursed scroll. The last gets today’s primary attention. The priest has to write out the scroll, on a single piece of parchment, without making a single mistake, or he has to start over. Once written, the woman drinks the water (straw is optional, apparently), recites the prayer, and then the priest erases the scroll. Then they all wait to see what happens to her.
4/17/23, Chapter 3, Page 19 – We’ve got the scroll, the bitter waters, the meal-offering. The “correct” order here is to erase the scroll after the prayers are said, confirm with the woman that she will drink the bitter waters, the priest takes a handful of the meal offering, waves it in front of the altar and then burns it (and sets the rest of the meal aside for himself), and the woman drinks. Until the offering is burnt, she can refuse to drink the waters (automatic assumption of guilt). Once the offering is burned, she can’t change her mind, and will be forced to drink.
4/18/23, Page 20 – The ordeal of bitter waters says that if the woman is guilty of adultery, after drinking them, she’ll turn green, and start to blister, or something. Setting aside that we’ve discussed that there’s nothing in the water that would cause that, other than divine intervention, because there is a ritual, what if she has that reaction at the wrong timing? Perhaps the scroll hasn’t yet been erased or the offering not burnt? Does her festering reaction mean she’s guilty or not? Perhaps she just has dust allergies?
4/19/23, Page 21 – The study of Torah serves as a guiding compass for life, and the practice of mitzvot are the steps along the path to Heaven. At least for men. Women are not obligated to study Torah, and while doing so does indeed offer credit to their journey through life (though “enabling one’s husband and sons to study Torah” seems to be their designated role), many of the rabbis were concerned that a woman who got her smarts from Torah study would put those to use in conniving ways that would lead to promiscuity. It’s just the way they are, you know?
4/20/23, Page 22 – We intuitively understand that there’s a difference in knowledge between someone who knows the Cliff Notes’ version of a subject and someone who has spent time studying it. The sages take this to heart, opining that people who expound or comment on a subject that they are not well-versed in, that they know the rote words or surface concepts, but have not studied to learn the deeper knowledge and meaning, do nothing but “erode the world”, diminishing discourse rather than enlightening anyone. Well, there goes social media’s reason for existence.
4/21/23, Page 23 – It’s the old Venus-Mars dichotomy. A priest’s wife or daughter who sleeps with someone else is “desacralized”, loses her status as a blessed individual in the community. If the priest sleeps around, nothing happens to him, but any offspring resulting are, of course, bastards, and disowned. On the other hand, men who are stoned to death are stripped naked, but women are not. Men can be hanged, but women cannot. Men can be sold to repay a theft, but women cannot be. Protected class rules, in different situations.
4/22/23, Chapter 4, Page 24 – If the husband who accused his wife of adultery should happen to die prior to her schedule trial by ordeal she does not have to undergo the trial, receives her full inheritance and marriage contract payment. Just sayin’.
4/23/23, Page 25 – The rabbis discuss cases where a woman is exempted from the trial by ordeal of drinking the bitter waters, and/or when and when not she can receive her marriage payment in the event of dissolution of her marriage. It’s worth remembering back to the beginning of all of this that the entire accusation is based on a husband hearing that his wife was alone with another man in a secluded spot for a certain minimum amount of time, not that she was “caught in the act”.
4/24/23, Page 26 – A lot of complicated relationships today, but I’d boil much of it down to that if a man and a woman willing enter into a marriage that is forbidden (for any of the various reasons we’ve seen in the past – underage, not the right religion, too close of a familial relationship, etc.), the husband loses his right to accuse her of infidelity and she is not obligated to undergo the bitter waters trial. At the same time, they may well be forced to divorce, without any marriage contract payments.
4/25/23, Page 27 – Assume there is a divorced or widowed woman who is “known” to be promiscuous; and, she has a daughter. The rabbis are faced with a dilemma of who is more marriageable, mother or daughter? Is it a case of you know what you’re getting with the mother, but don’t know the daughter’s true lineage (today, DNA testing would handle that); or you can’t trust the mother’s intentions, but grant the daughter the benefit of the doubt for her virtue. Sins of the mother and all that. The debate is not resolved.
4/26/23, Chapter 5, Page 28 – Well, finally. We’re four chapters into this tractate and someone gets around to noting that while things are on hiatus for the wife accused of adultery in terms of her relationship with her husband, there’s also another man involved. He hasn’t even entered into the equation so far, nor, at any point in the rituals and lead-up, is there a mention of him even being questioned. Even if she did have sex with him, was it consensual? It’s about time they went there.
4/27/23, Page 29 – If a woman has been accused of adultery, and has accepted her sotah status as an adultress rather than undergo the trial by ordeal, is forbidden from sexual relations with her husband, either before or after divorce. The rabbis, in an interesting twist, further extend that to forbidding her from any relationship with the man whom she was accused of sleeping with. That’s got to be a painful choice, in either the case where she’s guilty or innocent, if you think about it.
4/28/23, Page 30 – The sages discuss the imparting of impurity from one object to another. They’re using dough as their medium, and note that impurity can jump from impure dough to pure dough, but the type of impurity in the now formerly pure dough is secondary, and cannot be transmitted on to a third piece. So one places a small piece of pure dough between the larger bulks of impure and pure doughs to prevent transmission. I predict this is leading up to an intermediary separating the supposedly impure woman from supposedly pure men.
4/29/23, Chapter 6, Page 31 – The topic of abortion is contentious, we all know that. In Judaism, a lot rests on interpretations of the Torah, and historically, a baby was not considered truly a human being until 30 days after taking its first breath, which is where interpretation comes in, as some claim its breathing starts via its mother in the womb. That view might be bolstered by today’s declaration that a fetus can proclaim its belief in God because its mother’s womb acts as a lensing crystal that allows it to see the divine. That’s some mystical sh*t there. Also, side note on topic for the tractate, the witness to a wife’s infidelity can be a flying bird, who just happens to tell her husband it. Ditto the previous comment.
4/30/23, Chapter 7, Page 32 – Well that was the shortest chapter ever. Maybe due to its weird flight into mysticism? This new chapter launches with a discussion of whether prayers, and then by extension, the Torah, needs to be read in Hebrew to fulfill various rules and mitzvot. It was a controversial subject at the time of the writing of the Talmud, and continues to be, particularly among more Reform wings of Judaism, today. Which is more important, the actual words, or the meaning? The concern, understandably, is how much does translation alter the latter?
5/1/23, Page 33 – The language debate continues today, as the sages point out that while the most important prayer in Judaism, the shema, MUST be recited in Hebrew, other prayers, including the petition for the dead, the amidah, can be recited in any language. An assertion that “the ministering angels” don’t speak Aramaic, for example, is laughed off, as it is pointed out that Gabriel, one of the top of that group of angels, came down to earth and taught Joseph seventy languages in a day. Take that Duolingo and Babbel!
5/2/23, Page 34 – We are on another tangent with two biblical stories, one of the priests crossing the Jordan river while carrying the Ark, the other of Moses sending spies to scope out Canaan before entering. The gist of the discussion is centered around the perception of those involved, that what they see are the perils, the stumbling blocks in the road, rather than the goal at the end. And, it is asserted, it is because they’ve lost touch with the divine, and are making judgments and decisions based on fear, not faith. I’m guessing we’re headed towards a tie-in to either the mental state of the wife accused of adultery, or her husband.
5/3/23, Page 35 – Is eyewitness testimony reliable? That’s the question that in the background is being asked as the sages review the famous story of the spies Moses sent out in more detail. Is their reporting the perils of Canaan malicious or simply misunderstanding what they saw? It’s interesting as, for the most part, they come down on the side of misunderstanding and misccomunication about what they saw. Even more clearly than yesterday I think I see where this is leading in regard to the tractate topic.
5/4/23, Page 36 – I’m not clear why, but the rabbis are now discussing the hornets that assisted Moses and Joshua in driving out the Canaanites from Canaan and allowing the Israelites to enter. I don’t remember hornets! They refer back to passages in Joshua and Exodus. It appears that in most translations into English, the word tzirah is translated as plague or leprosy. But the Talmudic rabbis are quite insistent tha these were literal, not metaphorical, hornets who entered the fray alonside the Israelite soldiers. Murder hornets in the Talmud and Tanakh!
5/5/23, Page 37 – We’re getting into some dubious mystical math here. The Talmudic rabbis estimated there were 603,550 observant Jews in the world. For each there were 48 covenants made with God. That would be almost 29 million covenants. But… each observant Jew had a communal connection with every other observant Jew, and were party to those other covenants, albeit identical ones, and therefore, God was left keeping track of 17,485,084,920,000 (17½ trillion) covenants. No wonder he was cranky.
5/6/23, Page 38 – Why don’t Jews say God’s name? After all, the Tanakh declares proclaiming God’s name throughout the world as important. The more orthodox among us don’t even write God, they write G-d. It comes from the old “fence around the Torah” and the commandment about not taking God’s name in vain. If you simply never say it, you won’t slip up on that one. We don’t even say the tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew letters that spell out Yahweh, i.e., Jehovah (more or less, “I am what I am”), instead saying Adonai (“The Lord”). Interestingly, the orthodox don’t sub in a hyphen for one of the Hebrew letters.
5/7/23, Page 39 – I have, at times in my past, attended and participated in services in Conservative, Orthodox, and Hassidic shuls. It’s not uncommon, especially in the latter, for people to recite prayers at their own pace, and it can often become a bit of a cacophony. It’s interesting to read the Talmudic rabbis’ discussion over in-synagogue prayer being a conversation, with a recitation and response structure between the priest and the congregation that is to be fairly rigidly adhered to. It’s also interesting that in the most liberal synagogues, Reform, that is the de facto approach.
5/8/23, Page 40 – The argument between two of the Talmudic rabbis starts when one of them claims the moral high ground because he teaches “the important stuff”, the esoteric, the divine truths, to those who are ready to receive them. He is challenged by another who teaches “the small stuff”, the practical, the divine in daily life, to any and all. Sounds like the same arguments between those who espouse truths today. And, yet, millennia later, still none of them are willing to consider that both approaches have merit and positive impact on the world.
5/9/23, Page 41 – Flattery will get you nowhere. At least not among people who have a lick of common sense and intelligence.
5/10/23, Chapter 8, Page 42 – We seem to have left the accused wife behind and moved on to other topics. There is some vague connection today, as we have the origin story of the infamous Goliath. His mom, a married woman, is described in no uncertain terms as, well, a bitch, but literally called a female dog in ancient Hebrew. And in order to conceive Goliath, she enticed 100 men to have rough sex with her, and internally combined their… contributions, to produce Goliath. Then again, she wasn’t secretive about it, so maybe there’s no relation to the original theme.
5/11/23, Page 43 – While all able bodied men were expected to serve in the defense of the country, there were a lot of “outs”. If a man had a new home, a new vineyard, or a new wife, he could be sent home. Why? Because the leaders of the military felt that such a man might be worried about another man swooping in and taking his home, harvesting his grapes, or ravishing his wife, and therefore, wouldn’t have his whole attention on his duties. You don’t want soldiers distracted by, umm, thoughts.
5/12/23, Page 44 – We’re extending the draft exemptions from yesterday. If a man, or men, have or had a married brother who died, they are exempt from service, at least until that whole levirate marriage thing is settled. Because they might have to step up, you know? There are exemptions to the exemptions though, such as building a deck or an addition on your house doesn’t count, it has to be the whole house. And in the event that the war in question is a holy one, all bets are off, everyone, men and women, are called to battle.
5/13/23, Chapter 9, Page 45 – The rabbis are on the case. A body has been found, slain. Specifically, it must clear that the person was slain, such as sword or knife wounds. And the body must be laying on the ground. No hanging in trees, floating in water, or buried beneath a pile of rocks. It also can’t be close to a gentile dominant city, because then, obviously, the gentiles did it. If there is no clear evidence of who did the deed, a cow is brought to the scene, to have its neck broken in a mystic ritual. Details to come.
5/14/23, Page 46 – The focus today is on anonymity. The murder victim from yesterday’s page is, in this case, unknown to the people who found his body. The ritual is intended to absolve them of responsibility for his murder, because he is anonymous. Had they known him, they assert via a symbolic act of calf murder, he would have been housed, fed, and accompanied, and wouldn’t be dead, because a responsible society takes care of the anonymous, the unseen, the lost. Particularly poignant given the Jordan Neely case (and others) currently in the news.
5/15/23, Page 47 – Those of you who also follow my 929 feed might recall the recent story of the prophet Elisha asking God to send a couple of bears to kill 42 children who were teasing him (II Kings 1). There’s also a story of him excommunicating Gehazi and having God smite him or something, who through an ingenious use of magnets, caused an idol of a calf to float and convinced people it was God. Elisha becomes ill, and later dies, as God punishes him for doing these things. Which is totally weird, because God’s the one who did the deed on Elisha’s behalf. This is compared to the origin story of Jesus’ path, where he, too, was excommunicated by his Torah teacher, Yehoshuah, because he was constantly lusting after women. Jesus tries to get back in his teacher’s good graces, and when he does, misunderstands why, and runs off to start worshipping a false god.
5/16/23, Page 48 – Most of us know that the Tanakh (the “old testament” bible) is cobbled together from various sources, and that the disjointed narratives at times indicates there are probably some ancient scrolls missing. So when the extinction of the shamir, a type of worm, after the destruction of the 1st Temple is mentioned, it’s clearly important, and the rabbis try to address why this is so. Apparently a demonic worm created six days after The Big Bang, it had been immortal until this point, and was used by rulers, like Solomon, to cut through stone, metal, and diamond with its gaze. No clear reason is given for its extinction.
5/17/23, Page 49 – There is a mitzvah that two Torah scholars who are together are to “speak only the words of the Torah to each other”. The Talmudic folk discuss that that doesn’t mean they can only talk “about” Torah, but are to speak with each other, regardless of topic, with appropriate, respectful words, to engage and communicate with each other, not to denigrate each other or anyone else. The idea that we are enjoined to make the effort to engage in real communication, talking “with” rather than “at” each other, seems particularly relevant in this day and age, and a great way to end this tractate.

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