4 June 2011 | 2 Sivan 5771 | Numbers 4:21-7:89

In my work with engaged couples, I am often asked what makes for a good relationship. After seven years of marriage, I can tell you that the answer is complicated. I have found that there are many factors that make for a good relationship. Reliability, patience, passion, understanding, all play a role in the strength of the connection between two people. In my opinion, it is difficult to single out one quality and identify it as the lynch pin for a successful matrimony.  Notwithstanding, trust is an attribute which plays such a significant role it is hard to quantify it. The Torah appears to concur.

In parshat Naso, we are confronted with one of the most difficult rituals in the Bible a married couple would have to engage in. Known as the Sota, a woman who is accused by her husband of adultery is subjected to a very intricate and degrading public ritual where she is either vindicated or condemned. If a husband suspects infidelity he brings his wife to the high priest where she is handed a jug of water. Dirt from the ground is thrown into the water and then a grain offering is placed in her other hand. Then the priest gives her a warning about the water: If she has been faithful then the water will not harm her; however, if she has strayed then she will suffer greatly upon drinking the water.  During the priest’s pronouncement he invokes the name of God. All that he says is written down, including the name of God and then rubbed off into the jug of dirty water. The woman is ordered to drink the water while everybody watches to see if she was faithful or not.   The Sota ceremony is so problematic I don’t really know where to begin. Besides being misogynistic, unless you believe in voodoo or magical powers, how can it work? All the priest is doing is making a woman drink dirty water. Of course, if the participants truly believed in this ritual and its extraordinary magical consequences, they are susceptible to a fear factor that will persuade them to confess or change their mind before the ritual is over. Without this, I can only imagine that in ancient times, every woman who underwent the Sota ritual was vindicated. After all, the only thing that dirty water really does is leave a bad taste in your mouth.  Maybe the Sota ritual is not to vindicate the woman at all. Maybe the focus of this bizarre set of actions is more for the accuser and less for the accused.

To explore this, let us look at one section of the ceremony – the curse.  On its face, a curse is very unusual for a high priest to pronounce.  After all, the role of the priest in ancient Israel was to lessen the burden of the people from sin and sufferings, not to increase it.  So the idea of placing a curse on the woman is odd in and of itself.  Even more startling is the disparaging use of God’s name. Not only is God’s name invoked in a curse.  (Remember, our holy duty as Jews is to bring the world to a consciousness and awareness of God’s name as a blessing, not a curse.) However, here, God’s name is used to curse the woman.  Even more abhorrent is that once written, God’s name is rubbed out into the water. This haphazard and disparaging use of God’s name should immediately strike us a problematic.

Since early on in Jewish tradition, God’s name, even as a symbol for the unknown, unpronounceable name of God, is to be handled with the utmost respect and care. Papers, books or objects that have the Hebrew spelling of God’s name are never to be discarded like waste.  Instead, they must be placed in a geniza (burial place for ritual objects and papers.) Understanding how our tradition reveres and cares for the name of God makes this rubbing off of the name into the water all the more bizarre.

The Talmud tractate Shabbat has an interesting story which bears some semblance to the Sota ritual.  There was once a rabbi in the land of Israel who heard about an artisan necromancer who constructed amulets bearing the name of God. Disturbed by the news, the rabbi decided to search out and confront the man on his abhorrent constructions.  Apparently, the Talmud doesn’t think highly of those who dabble in witchcraft and especially people who use the divine name for their sorcery. Upon entering the residence, the craftsman heard the footsteps of the rabbi and immediately threw his amulets into a bucket of water, dissolving God’s name. The story ends by the rabbi informing the magician that his latest action, blotting out the name of God, was worse than having used it for spell-binding in the first place.

Returning to our Sota ritual, I believe that the story from Talmud tractate Shabbat helps us to understand the High Priest’s actions. Implied by the rabbi’s words to the necromancer is a statement about the importance of God and God’s name—it is better to use the name of God in a twisted and dishonest way, like inscribing it on an amulet, rather than blot God’s name out, severing and dissolving the relationship completely. Although not explicitly stated it appears that even an unhealthy relationship with God is better than no relationship since the former has the potential of turning around and improving. It is when a person erases God from their life that true despair is found. I believe this is where we find our high priest in the Sota ritual. His proclamation appears to be less of a curse and more of a statement about the relationship between the accusing man and the suspected wife. When a couple has been brought down to this level of mistrust, this inability to communicate honestly and openly, we find a relationship that lacks the presence of God. This is the power of trust. Although trust shares the requirement of other characteristics in that it needs to be built and earned, there is something special about trust that makes it truly magical, truly divine. Without it, all our other feelings for our partner seem to disappear, like they were dissolved in water.

Shabbat Shalom.