Sotah – Don't Gel Too Soon

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY FOUR – THE SOTAH AND MEA SHEARIM

Thursday morning I sent myself an email that said this: We are just leaving Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood and I am so freaked out. Maybe the SOTAH story had more impact than I realized. I told my husband that I was close to tears, that my chest was tight and I was someplace between scared and angry and he said – "You mean you felt like the Sotah, huh?" Well.

She does haunt me. Even now, when I have learned so much that mitigates the horrors of her treatment, I can see her, standing there, as they pull off her hair covering and stand her before God (and the priests), forced to drink the waters full of dirt and ashes. And what does that have to do with Mea Shearim? I’m the intruder there; the very Orthodox residents who choose to remain largely on the outskirts of the rest of the world and live a highly structured and mostly literal interpretation of every law and passage in the Torah – didn’t invite me to go wandering around looking at them while my husband bought a new Tallit (prayer shawl.) Even so, for some reason every time I go there I get so sad.

My husband once accused me of "overidentification with the oppressed." Maybe that’s it. The men are so clearly the ones with the power here, walking by in 2’s and 3’s while harried mothers and kids run errands and see to 3 or 4 children under 5. I have no right to consider them opressed. Or unhappy. Or anything else. What happens is that I imagine myself – stubborn, curious, eager to see and know everything – growing up here and wonder what would have become of me. Maybe I would have had a peaceful and loving life, but my projections won’t let me think about that. I just struggle with the stories I write in my mind about these families (these women) and their lives.

I have always loved The Chosen, and I have great respect for Chassidic Jews, for the most part. But there is something about this infinitely old, infinitely tired part of Jerusalem that just breaks my heart. As I write this, I suddenly wonder if perhaps it has more to do with me and my issues — that their lives are their own and I’m not sure that’s true of mine.

I’m writing this Thursday night in case I can’t finish it before Shabbat tomorrow — so Shabbat Shalom.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0: DAY THREE EMERGENCY CORRECTION SOTAH AND PUNISHMENT***

In yesterday’s post I wrote, about the trial and punishment mandated for the wife suspected of adultery, "Basically,it seems that asking a woman accused of adultery to stand before God to be judged (the only time God concerned Himself in this way with the laws of men), to drink water mixed with dirt from the Temple floor and the ashes of the burned paper accusing her, and then to wait to see if her belly swelled up or not (yes was a sign of guilt) seems to subjecte her to something both terrifying and humiliating. But once past that, even if she was guilty, there was no physical punishment, only a mandated divorce – and her lover was also punished."

My wonderful teacher, Tovah Leah Nachmani, read my blog(!!!) and noted gently that:
you wrote that no harm befalls her if she is guilty, after drinking the waters. but that isn’t the case.

1. if she confesses guilt before drinking the waters, then no harm befalls her and her partner in crime, but she and her husband divorce. and she can’t marry the partner.

2. but if she drinks the waters and is found guilty, she suffers the deforming of her body, or- according to other commentators -death, and so does her partner suffer either deforming or death.
in addition (if she doesn’t die) she is divorced from her husband.

3. one last point: if her husband is also guilty of any sexual offenses, even if the wife is guilty, the waters do not harm her.

So. I stand corrected and apologize. I was so tired; she had indeed taught us about the deformity but I just plain forgot. I’m grateful for the chance to fix it – it’s important.

Oh and here are your security photos for today:
At the place where we had lunch, and

the place where we had dinner.

I hope you’re getting the idea; it’s a part of life here to guard against terrorism in a way that affects every person, every minute, every day. It’s a brave place.

More trip diary tomorrow before Shabbat. Erev Tov.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY TWO (CORRECTED): THE SOTAH, THE HEBREW AND THE MEANDERINGS OF THE DAY

Isn’t this funny? We passed it walking home from dinner tonight and I just thought I’d share it. We’ve had quite a day, one that I’ve already written about once and then, somehow, allowed the post to be devoured by the ethers of the Internet. I’m going to try again but far more briefly as it’s getting late.

First, here’s my daily security photo – from outside the coffee shop where we had breakfast. And yes, this young man is patrolling THE MALL with a machine gun.

After that well-guarded breakfast we went to our first class of this trip at Pardes, a wonderful educational entity that’s tough to describe and even tougher not to love. Our teacher today, as she was last year, was Tovah Leah Nachmani (she’s on the left.) She’s an inspired and inspiring teacher and we had a blast discussing the laws of the Sotah (a woman accused of adultery) and, according to the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar), what should happen to her. You can read it here – beginning with verse 11. It’s fairly horrifying on first (or second or third) reading but this time we ended up with an unusual perspective.

Tovah sent us out with our Chevruta (study partner – mine was my husband) to try to figure out what the commentators were asking themselves as they wrote about this passage -and how they answered. As we did so, a strange perspective emerged. SEE DAY THREE POST FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THIS: Basically,it seems that asking a woman accused of adultery to stand before God to be judged (the only time God concerned Himself in this way with the laws of men), to drink water mixed with dirt from the Temple floor and the ashes of the burned paper accusing her, and then to wait to see if her belly swelled up or not (yes was a sign of guilt) seems to subjecte her to something both terrifying and humiliating. But once past that, even if she was guilty, there was no physical punishment, only a mandated divorce – and her lover was also punished. SEE DAY THREE POST FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THIS

There’s more to it though: if his possibly adulterous wife stands before God to be judged, no husband however outraged is going to play God and punish her himself -by killing her ashe could in so many other cultures or even by beating her. The ordeal in fact protects her from worse. In addition, it’s clear to all that the preservation of the family was so important that only God could adjudicate when it was so jeopardized.

There’s lots more to it but it’s really late. Suffice it to say that it was exciting to learn how much more lay behind this disturbing ritual. Even so, it’s all of a piece. )Our hair is dangerous, our voices are dangerous, even the potential for adulterous behavior is dangerous. WE are dangerous. And it’s not, mostly, for what we might do but for what we might cause to be done that is the big issue. Granted, the Sotah has to have been formally warned in advance by her husband that she shouldn’t hang around alone with a specific man he suspects of having designs on her – and she can only be tried if she has done just that, but even so, these rules don’t apply equally to husbands.

One of the most valuable things I’ve learned in the couple of years since I began studying this stuff, however, is that you can’t read it only from the perspective of the present. The culture of the times is a critical variable in the mission and outcome of divine commandments and their enforcement. And of what we can allow ourselves to learn as we read.

Enough already. We also had an amazing walk around the city, bought me an orange hat and had a three hour Hebrew lesson. But that’s for another day. Goodnight for now… and, as I learned today – erev tov.