The Law and Lore of the Wayward Woman
By Adina Roth
Torah—with its rich narratives and poetry, glimpses of the Divine and profound wisdom—is a text we turn to for inspiration, intellectual stimulation and meaning. Yet there are moments in the Bible when culturally located prejudices come to the fore and the reader is left struggling with the tension between timeless writing and context-bound oppression. One such moment is the law of the sotah—or wayward woman—found in Parashat Naso.
The law reads as follows: If a man has suspicions (also translated as “jealousy” or “zealous indignation”) that his wife has had an affair, he brings her before the kohen (priest), who makes her drink a mixture of holy waters and earth. He removes her head covering (which implies shaming) and warns her that if she has indeed been with a man other than her husband, the ingested waters will cause her thigh to collapse and her stomach to distend. The sages are divided on whether this refers to miscarriage or the explosion of her uterus and genitals. Either way, the gruesome punishment seems to be a direct response to the alleged crime: sexual ‘waywardness’ is followed by sexual shaming and maiming. Alternatively, if the woman is revealed to have not been with another man, she returns home with her husband to bear a child—an uncomfortable consolation prize for one who has just been publicly defamed.
Having heard the kohen’s warning and just before drinking the water, the woman must answer “Amen, Amen.” In this context, we realize that ‘Amen,’ despite its benign, comforting associations today, actually means to submit to God’s will. ‘Amen’ is sinister here, as the woman is forced to surrender her fate to forces beyond her control.
It’s ironic that in this rare instance when a woman is given the opportunity to speak in a biblical ritual, she is simultaneously restricted in what she can say; these robotic and depersonalized words silence any defense she might have offered of her guilt or innocence. The subservient quality of ‘Amen’ also contrasts with her alleged waywardness. If she has been wayward, ‘Amen’ signifies the beginning of her return to compliance. If not, it is her forced acceptance that this shaming ordeal is God’s will despite her innocence.
In contrast to the passivity of the woman’s ‘Amen,’ the text places all of the agency and power among men. Her husband brings her to the male kohen, who administers the ritual. And the rite itself carries out the will of a Deity who is characterized as masculine in a biblical context. In this web of husband, priest and God controlling her fate, the woman’s story is absent.
In fact, it could be argued that the patriarchal nature of the ritual depends on the absence of her authentic voice and story. Her story—with all of its intricate details of how she got married, the nuanced unfolding of her relationship with her husband and her private desires and hopes—would identify the woman as an individual. In expressing her individual, lived experience, the woman’s complex story could pose a challenge to the unequal power dynamics and absolutes that the law attempts to enforce.
If the suppression of the woman’s story enables the oppression of women in the sotah ritual, it makes me think that the telling of women’s stories in their own voices can be a powerful antidote to oppression. Women’s stories are, in their own way, forms of “waywardness”—positive, powerful rejections of the status quo. By telling stories, we can challenge sexual norms, question the entire patriarchal system and develop women’s agency over their lives. Stories can serve as activist tools to help women in all cultures move beyond ‘Amen Amen’—and into empowerment.
Women across all cultures are working to author their own stories. Whether it is the sharing among Jewish women in a Rosh Chodesh circle or the oral narratives of women travelers in sub-Saharan Africa, stories are being used to make room for today’s wayward women’s voices to be heard.
Consider the story of Mukhtaran Bibi, a courageous warrior woman in Pakistan. After a tribal council determined that she should be gang raped to redress a family honor crime, Mukhtaran did not shrivel up in despair or commit suicide. Instead, she chose to step forward and, at great risk to herself and her family, she told her story. It created ripples, which turned into waves, and generated such interest that she became an activist, building schools and establishing networks to empower women further. She prosecuted her rapists and her courage gave strength to other women in similar situations to speak out and tell their stories. Individual stories are so powerful that they can inform and inspire activism and even bring about policy change.
It is worth contemplating how women’s waywardness is still punished in overt and subtle ways in the 21st century. The law of sotah in Parashat Naso invites us to consider how women’s stories have been suppressed and controlled by patriarchal conventions—and how unlocking them can lead to change in our own time. Storytelling, with its complex portrayals of humanity, helps shift women from the subservience of ‘Amen’ to the power of having a voice. Only then do they have the freedom to author their own lives.
Roth, Adina. "Parashat 5774: The Law and Lore of the Wayward Woman." American Jewish World Service. (Viewed on May 31, 2014). http://ajws.org/what_we_do/education/publications/dvar_tzedek/5774/naso.html
Tasting Life’s Bitter Waters
By Chana Weisberg
You are intensely committed, to a vision, a goal, a dream. You are devoted to this vision because you know it will make the world a better place for yourself and everyone else. You believe that regardless of the effort it takes, following through with this goal will ultimately make your life more fulfilling, more altruistic, loftier.
Then along comes life. And with it the ups and downs, the challenges and the obstacles. You’re not sure of the cause, but at some point you find that you have swerved from your path, strayed from your morals. It might have been restlessness or boredom with the monotony of the day-to-day minutiae. Or perhaps it was a spirit of impulsiveness, a rebellion against the swerves that life has thrown you.
Maybe you can be blamed for losing your vision and forgoing your ideals. Or maybe you couldn’t ever have been expected to rise above the harsh circumstances of your life. Whatever the case, you wake up one morning to the realization that you have changed. You are no longer leading the life that you had always believed you would. You have strayed from your moral vision. You have betrayed your dream.
You may ask yourself: If I do change paths now, what will be the end result?Is there a path of return? Do I want to take it? Are the costs too high? Is it worth the effort? If I do change paths now, what will be the end result? Will I ever fully succeed?
Common wisdom, laced with its jaded cynicism, says there’s no turning back the clock. Move on with life, leave your childish idealism behind and face the reality of adulthood. Life is not a bed of roses; you need to look out for yourself and your needs. Forget your lofty ideals; a path of sacrifice is not where you will find fulfillment. And anyways, once you have already veered off the path, it can never be the same. It’s simply too late.
Torah wisdom, of course, asserts the opposite.
This week’s Torah reading discusses the law of the ishah sotah, the “wayward wife” who is suspected of adultery.
Moralists see the story of the ishah sotah as expressing the sanctity and holiness of marriage in Judaism.
Others see G‑d’s willingness to erase His holy name for the sake of marital harmony as an indication of the importance of peace between man and wife, and amongst mankind in general. It is a question here of simple existence, whether the marriage will or will not continue
Kabbalists see the story as a cosmic metaphor of the “marriage” between G‑d and the “wayward” Jewish people, who are tested and eventually exonerated through the “bitter waters” of exile.
But perhaps we can also see, in the story of the sotah, a promising lesson for each of us in the personal sojourns of our own lives.
The ishah sotah is labeled a wayward wife because she has “strayed,” deviated from the prescribed moral road, even if she has not been implicated in actual adultery. Her husband has warned her in the presence of two witnesses not to seclude herself with her suspected lover. She has ignored this warning. Her behavior prevents the marriage from being permitted to continue.
At this point, the husband or the wife can decide to terminate the marriage, without any admittance of guilt. Neither the husband nor the wife can be forced to have the test of the bitter waters. But should they wish to resume their marriage, the suspecting husband brings his wife to the Holy Temple, where the kohen enacts the ceremony of the bitter waters. The husband then brings an offering for his wife, making it clear that he wishes to continue the marriage should his wife be vindicated.
The offering consists of unsifted, coarse barley flour, the commonest grain, without the oil or incense that accompany other grain offerings. It is a question here of simple existence, whether the marriage will or will not continue. An animal food—barley—is brought to signify the wife’s questionable moral standing: even if her guilt has not reached the point of actual adultery, she has veered from the pure path and followed her animalistic instincts.
Relevant passages from the Torah were written on a scroll and dissolved in the “curse-bearing waters.” The name of G‑d appeared in these passages, and in the process it would be erased. If the woman was guilty of actual adultery, the waters would cause her an accursed death. If not, she would be blessed with offspring, and her marriage would enjoy a newfound commitment and happiness.
But since the ishah sotah had strayed from the proper path—even if she had not actually committed adultery—why was she blessed so abundantly?The ishah sotah, like each of us struggling with the vicissitudes of our own lives, has never really entirely strayed
Because in truth, the ishah sotah, like each of us struggling with the vicissitudes of our own lives, has never really entirely strayed. We are still “married” to our ideals and vision, since they are so much a part of our soul. We simply need to be reunited with our true, inner self.
Like the ishah sotah on her path of exoneration and return, this takes effort. It takes strength of character. It might involve humiliation or sacrifice. But if our resolve is firm enough, if our character is up to the challenge, if we persevere in what we know is true and right, ultimately we will succeed.
G‑d stands at our side. Once we have demonstrated our commitment, He will defend us, even allowing His own name and honor to be “erased” while assisting us in our endeavor. Moreover, not only will we succeed at realigning our own life to what it was originally, but our commitment and the fruits of our commitment will be more productive and more blessed, leading to greater yields and to a more mature relationship with ourselves and with our world.
Because we haven’t just returned to what we were. We have grown through the process. True growth is not about only persevering on one straight path. Only after tasting of the bitter waters of life, only after struggling and stumbling and standing up against the darker forces of our world, does one become a greater, more courageous and enriched human being. Only after straying and then rebounding are we driven with a stronger yearning for inner unity and divine life. Only after experiencing the darkness of life’s night and the desolation of its winters do we attain an even more intense and meaningful bond with G‑d.
The lesson of the ishah sotah to each of us, man or woman, is that though our path may be a difficult and twisted one, when we victoriously face down the wearying struggles and tempting choices we emerge as greater individuals, and as a redeemed people, in a redeemed world.
Wesiberg, Chana. "Tasting Life's Bitter Waters." Chabad.org. (Viewed on May 31, 2014). http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/390606/jewish/Tasting-Lifes-Bitter-Waters.htm
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