Weekly Torah portion: Naso

One of the lessons that we may learn from the sotah narrative is a warning against the destructive force of absolute control of one sex over the other

Rabbi Valerie Stessin|Published: 05.25.07 , 08:08

In this week’s parasha, we read that a jealous husband may bring his wife before the priest. The priest shall “make the woman drink the water of bitterness” – water of purgation. The priest adjures the woman in accordance with a fixed formula, and informs her of the conditions of the test, and the woman responds “amen, amen.” In the course of the ritual, the priest endows the water with the power to test the woman. He places the water in an earthen vessel, takes earth from the floor of the Tabernacle and puts it in the water, then writes the formula of the oath on paper and rubs the writing off into the water of bitterness. The woman is then given the water to drink. If she has had intercourse with another man, the water will make her terribly ill, while if the suspicions are false, the water will cause no harm and she will be blessed.

This test of the suspected adulteress - the sotah - is unique in the Bible. It is surprising and exceptional. According to such scholars as Jacob Licht (A Commentary on the Book of Numbers), it represents a form of trial by ordeal. Such trials were common in many cultures for ascertaining guilt in the absence of hard evidence. The trial was performed by means of an impressive ritual that usually employed some harmful element, like fire, to yield a supernatural sign in the body of the accused that would attest to innocence or guilt. Did the Bible borrow a magical ritual from other contemporary societies and adapt it to Israelite beliefs in order to solve the problem adultery, or did it develop a uniquely Jewish ritual?

Testing the sotah by means of the water ordeal raises many questions. What is the nature of the phenomenon? How does it affect the woman? Will she die as a result of drinking the water, will it serve as proof of her infidelity and render her an anathema, or will she be tried for adultery? When do the symptoms appear? Are they immediate, or do they appear at some indefinite time in the future?

The sin of adultery appears in the Ten Commandments, which testifies to its severity in biblical law. The Priestly Code includes it in the list of sins for which God will drive the People of Israel form its land and sentence them to death. The ancients took a very stern view of adultery, and it would not seem that the punishment of a woman who failed the ordeal should be less severe than that of an adulteress who was tried, convicted and executed without pity. However, some scholars argue that the punishment of the sotah was infertility, inasmuch as there were no witnesses to her sin, and no way to bring her to trial in the usual manner.

Modern feminist interpretation requires that we read the narrative from a different perspective that questions the assumptions and social norms grounding the ritual. In her article The Suspected Adultress: A Study of Textual Embodiment, Haberman emphasizes that the ritual of the sotah assumes a societal basis of clear gender-based definitions. Society instructs men as a group – as a collective – to accept the process, identify with it, and to view a woman’s potential adultery as a threat to male identity.

This reading emphasizes the place of women in the text, their role, status, voice, and the underlying gender assumptions. The sotah narrative derives from male jealousy that apparently lacks any evidence. The husband does not believe his wife, and suspects that she has been unfaithful. The woman is put to the test. She is given no opportunity to defend her innocence or to speak out against the rumors. The only voice is that of the male religious institution. The spectacle at the Tabernacle is humiliating and frightening, and itself constitutes punishment of a person whose guilt has not yet been determined. It is hard to imagine what the relationship may have been between husband and wife after the woman was found innocent of all wrongdoing, and how she could overcome the trauma of the ritual and the public impression it created.

In patriarchal, biblical society, the husband had the right to be jealous and to express what was primarily a fear of harm to what was deemed his property – his wife and her sexuality. At the same time, he enjoyed the privilege of having sexual relations with other women in the framework of polygamous marriage, or outside of the marital framework. There was neither equality nor mutuality. If that is the case, must we continue to pass down the messages of the sotah narrative? I believe that this narrative must be taught critically from an early age. It must be taught in a manner that emphasizes the patriarchal societal framework of the period, and the gap between that situation and the egalitarian social norms towards which we strive. Perhaps one of the lessons that we may learn from the sotah narrative is a warning against the destructive force of absolute control of one sex over the other.