A Cure for Jealousy

Parashat Naso, Numbers 4:21-7:89

by Jared Eaton, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

Parshat Naso contains one of the most difficult and uncomfortable passages in the Bible: the details of the Sotah Jealousy Ritual found in Numbers 5:12–31.

A man becomes suspicious that his wife has been cheating on him. He has no proof, only his feelings of jealousy. So, the husband publicly accuses his wife of adultery and brings her to the temple to perform a ritual to prove her guilt.

The woman is brought before the priest and has her hair uncovered and loosened, not a big deal in our society, but in communities where keeping your hair covered is a sign of modesty, this is the equivalent of being stripped naked.

The husband makes an offering to God and then what almost seems like a magic spell happens. The priest fills a bowl full of holy water then mixes dirt from the temple floor into it. The priest then writes on a parchment, that if the woman has been unfaithful, then God will curse her. He will cause her belly to become swollen and her insides to rot. The woman must agree to this curse and then the priest mixes the parchment into the dirty water and then the woman has to drink the foul concoction. If the woman is guilty of adultery, then immediately the waters will become bitter inside of her and cause her to rot from the inside out. If she is pregnant with another man’s child, the child will die and she will be accursed among her people for as long as she lives, which will not likely be long. The woman will bear her guilt, but the husband will be free of guilt.

Pretty nasty stuff. Even apart from the hideous death it promises to unfaithful women, it seems so humiliating, even to the innocent.  

Is this what the Bible teaches? To brutalize the weak, to treat our wives like property? To resort to superstition and mysticism when dealing out justice? Or is there something deeper going on here?

The Sotah ritual does sound like magic. It’s complex and deeply symbolic and difficult for the modern reader to wrap their head around. So, let’s imagine a contemporary   situation, in which the temple still exists and biblical law is still in effect, to illustrate how the Sotah ritual as interpreted in the Talmud (b.Sotah 2a) might be used.

Meet Sara and Lenny. They have a happy marriage, but lately things have been rough. Sara works at a downtown office, and in recent months has become friendly with one of her coworkers, Bob. Sara and Bob eat lunch together every day, talk on the phone often, and have started to spend time together outside of work.

Lenny isn’t feeling good about this. He feels that Sara and Bob’s relationship is undermining his own relationship with his wife. Lenny asks his rabbi what to do and the rabbi tells him that the Talmud states that he should confront his wife about his feelings and do so in the presence of two close, trusted friends, so there will be witnesses, who can intervene in case things get heated.

Lenny takes the rabbi’s advice. In front of their friends Joe and Jane, he asks Sara to not be alone with Bob anymore. Sara agrees that she won’t see Bob anymore and the issue seems like it’s resolved, but a week later, Joe and Jane are out taking a walk and what do they see but Sara and Bob together? They follow them for a bit and to their dismay they see Sara and Bob walk into a hotel.

They feel obligated to tell Lenny what they witnessed. Lenny is distraught and asks them if they are sure; did they actually see the adulterous act? Joe and Jane have to admit that they didn’t actually witness any adulterous activity; all they saw was the opportunity for adultery.

So once again Lenny confronts his wife. He tells her what Joe and Jane saw. Sara admits, that yes, she went into the hotel with Bob, but it was only to have lunch at their restaurant. She swears that she didn’t do anything else with Bob and that she has been faithful to her husband. 

Lenny and Sara are at an impasse. Lenny has good reason to be jealous. Sara continued her relationship with Bob even after her husband had asked her to end it. Sara insists that she has been faithful but doesn’t have anything other than her word to prove it. What is this couple to do?

Lenny and Sara go back to their rabbi, and he tells them that there are only two possible solutions at this point. Either they can decide to dissolve the marriage immediately, regardless of Sara’s guilt or innocence, or they can choose to re-establish a trusting relationship based on Lenny’s acceptance of his wife’s innocence.

Lenny and Sara love each other, and they don’t want to split up. But how can Lenny trust Sara now? She insists that she’s innocent but there’s no way to prove what really went on after they went into that hotel. There’s no way for Lenny to dispel his lingering doubts. Their marriage seems doomed.

But then the rabbi suggests a solution. There was a witness to what happened in the hotel he says. God! Sara’s innocence can only be attested to by God himself. “How?” they ask. So, the Rabbi tells them about the Sotah ritual.

Lenny and Sara go to the temple and the priest instructs them on how to perform the Sotah Ritual.

First, the husband has to bring an offering for his wife to demonstrate that they are participating in a mutual effort towards reconciliation.  

Next, the priest takes a clay jar, and fills it with water from the sanctuary wash bin, and takes dust from the sanctified earth on which the temple stands.

Finally, the priest writes down the two possible consequences of the Sotah test. If Sara has been unfaithful to Lenny, the water will turn bitter inside her, but if she is telling the truth and has been faithful, the water will not harm her, and she will be blessed with fertility and bear children. Sarah then has to voluntarily agree to the terms of the test. If she doesn’t agree the whole test becomes invalidated.

Finally, the priest places the parchment into the jar, and the writing becomes dissolved into the water, and then comes the moment of truth.

Sarah stands before the priest and has her hair uncovered and let loose over her shoulders. It sounds unnecessarily humiliating, but the rabbis argue that this isn’t done as punishment. If it were, they would have done it in public where everyone can see. Instead, she loosens her hair only once she’s sequestered with her husband and the priest as a symbolic representation of her vulnerability and dependence on the mercy of God.

Sarah holds up the bowl to her lips and tilts it back. At that moment Lenny realizes that this all has been a huge mistake, he realizes he doesn’t care what Sara may have or have not done, she’s the love of his life and he can’t imagine life without her. He doesn’t need some crazy test to tell him that he wants to be with her forever.

Lenny leaps to knock the bowl from Sara’s hands but it’s too late, she’s already drunk the waters. Lenny stands back motionless, unable to even breathe as he waits to see what will happen to his wife. After moment, Sara grimaces and says, “That tasted awful! But otherwise, I feel… pretty good.” Lenny bursts into tears of relief and he rushes to embrace his wife. Sara has passed the test. She has proven herself a faithful woman. And the trust between her and her husband has been restored.

So, what happened here? Is the Sotah test magic? The truth is Sara was never in any danger at all. The water she drinks, while dirty, is completely harmless by itself. In order for the water to harm her, God would have to come down and perform a miracle in order to prove her guilty!

At no point in the whole process is the woman forced to do anything against her will. According to the Talmudic interpretation of the biblical text, if Lenny demanded the test and Sara didn’t want to do it, she always had the option to ask for a divorce instead. In fact, since there was no evidence that she had committed adultery, the divorce would have been considered no fault and Lenny would have to pay her alimony.

The Sotah test can only be taken voluntarily and only an innocent woman would agree to it. If Sara had really been unfaithful, she almost certainly would have taken the option of divorce rather than face the dire consequences of the test. Only a woman who still genuinely loves her husband and wants to restore his trust in her would have the courage and faith in God’s justice to take the test.

When Sara entered the temple, her reputation was in shambles. Her friends, family and coworkers wondered if she was an unfaithful wife and thought less of her for it. But when she emerges from the temple whole and unharmed, hand in hand with her husband she is vindicated before the whole community. Both her reputation and her relationship with her husband have been restored. Soon after, according to Gods promise, she and Lenny conceive their first child and continue on in their journey together.

 I love a happy ending.

The great medieval scholar Ramban notes “there is nothing amidst all the ordinances of Torah that depends upon a miracle, except this matter.” In every other case, God tells us to rule amongst ourselves according to his laws. But when a marriage is threatened, God himself steps off his throne and comes down to deal with it personally.

God’s involvement in the Sotah test demonstrates the level of his presence in every marriage. The union between husband and wife and their faithfulness towards each other is a special object of Gods attention. How much more should we value that relationship ourselves?