Naso (Midrash)

Parshat Naso is particularly important for a page concerned with Midrash, as this portion in fact enjoys the lengthiest and richest treatment in the entire Midrash Rabbah. The midrashim on Naso in fact occupy more than half of the entire text of Bamidbar Rabbah, the midrash on the Book of Numbers (in Mirkin’s edition, more than 300 out of a total of 600 pages)—even more than Parshat Bereshit. It is not entirely clear why this is so; one explanation is that the festival of Shavuot, which always falls during the week immediately preceding this parshah, provided an apt opportunity for preachers to develop particularly elaborate homilies.

Perhaps the most difficult and problematic subject in this Torah portion is that known as Sotah—the “trial by ordeal” of the woman suspected of unfaithfulness to her husband (Num 5:11-31). Chapter 9 of Numbers Rabbah contains no less than 49 midrashim on this chapter—a symbolic number, prompting speculation that this may have been deliberate. Hazal speak of 49 “gates of impurity,” and there are 49 days between Pesah and Shavuot. Interestingly the tractate Sotah also has 49 pages, and some Habad Hasidim do in fact read this tractate every year during the days of counting the Omer.

In brief, the Sotah law requires that a woman suspected of adultery be brought to the Temple by her husband, where they bring an unadorned barley offering (“like animal fodder, for she has committed the act of an animal”); the curses that will befall her if she was in fact unfaithful are written on a scroll, which is then dissolved in water; to this, some dirt taken from “beneath the altar” is added, and the woman is required to drink these “bitter waters.” These waters “test” the woman: if she was in fact unfaithful, her belly swells and her thigh falls away, and in short order she dies; if not, her innocence is vindicated, and she is blessed with fruitfulness.

Many of the midrashim here emphasize the gravity of the sin of adultery: several dwell on the fact that she has trespassed against both her husband and God, in thinking that she can conceal her misdeed from Him as she has from her husband (§§ 8, 9); another midrash explains that one who commits adultery violates each one of the Ten Commandments (§12). How so? By performing such an act in secret, she implicitly denies God’s omniscience (“I am the Lord”) and the zealous God (“you shall have no other gods…”); causes her lover to take a false oath; confutes the honor due to parents by bearing a bastard who won’t know who his real father is; possibly causes murder, as the adulterer is prepared to “kill or be killed” if caught in flagrente delicto; commits the act of adultery itself; is guilty of theft, by giving another man that which rightly belongs to her husband alone (and illicit relations are metaphorically called stolen: “stolen waters are sweet” – Prv 9:17); bears false witness; and the adulterer, by coveting his neighbor’s wife, comes to covet all that is his. There is even a rather intricate explanation as to how this may bring about Sabbath violation.

There is hardly any need to elaborate the difficulties this chapter presents to modern people. The test itself seems very cruel and demeaning (as it was indeed intended to be); it is based upon highly patriarchal assumptions, portraying the woman as subjugated to the man in a non-reciprocal way, there being no corresponding trial for a philandering husband. It also seems arbitrary, being based upon the assumption of direct Divine involvement through which the waters miraculously “test” the woman drinking them; lacking this, they are a farce. In fact, the medieval commentator Nahmanides already took note of the fact that this is the only mitzvah in the entire Torah based upon God’s active, miraculous intervention (Ramban al ha-Torah, Num 5:20); for that very reason, he notes, the Mishnah states that “Once adulterers became numerous, the bitter waters were abolished” (m. Sotah 9.9). That is, it was an act of Divine grace which only lasted so long as the Jewish people were in fact on the whole modest and chaste.

At this point, I would like to reiterate something that has been implicit in all of my writing on Torah from the very beginning. I believe that it is important for us to take a hard and objective look specifically at those elements of the tradition that we may find distasteful from a modern perspective: not to dismiss them out of hand, nor to prettify them with artificial apologetics, nor to retreat to dogmatic affirmations, and simply say “this is the Divine Word, and we must accept it” (faith affirmations may come after going through this process). Rather, we must try to understand and confront what is written in its own terms, without preconceived notions. We must simultaneously look at tradition through modern eyes, while holding modern values up to scrutiny from the perspective of the sources considered here. There is a danger involved in a certain superior attitude inherent in modernity, thinking that we have made progress over the ancients and are somehow wiser than them. Increasingly, I am convinced that whatever progress we have made over the centuries is basically technological and scientific; in terms of basic values, I doubt whether we are more advanced than Abraham, Moses, or Rabbi Akiva. True, we have wonderful techniques for preserving and enhancing life, but also more powerful tools of destruction. And, we have more sophisticated, scientific rationalizations for doing what the Yetzer Hara wants. (Thus, a recent issue of Newsweek explained that men are biologically driven to multiply their genetic impact, the implication being that it’s not only understandable, but almost OK, for powerful and wealthy middle-aged businessmen to divorce their menopausal wives and marry young “trophy” wives.)

To return to our text: some of the midrashim on this chapter reflect a more ambivalent, complex approach to this problem. Thus, the midrash on the very final verse, in Numbers Rabbah 9.44:

“And the man shall be clean of iniquity” [Num 5:31]. That he not say: Woe is me that I have killed a daughter of Israel!

The final verse of the chapter, “and the man shall be clean of iniquity” is puzzling. What sin is it speaking about? Throughout the chapter, the Torah has been talking about the woman’s sin! This midrash considers three possibilities. The first is that he feels guilt about causing her death, or putting his wife through this physically and psychologically trying ordeal. This phrase, echoed by several of the classical commentators (Rashbam, Sforno), seems to express the ambivalence involved in marital jealousy, in which there are mixed together hostility and even hatred towards the woman, with love.

At one time, jealousy was widely considered a sign of true love. Thus, the attitude of nineteenth century Romantic heroes, shown pining away and dying for unrequited love (e.g., in Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther). Today, according to the politically correct dispensation that dominates our culture, with its self-righteous sense of absolute certainty, male jealousy is seen as motivated, not by love, but by a possessive attitude toward woman. Jealousy, we are told, is based on a view of woman as chattel, and chafes because it is really an injury to the ego. The husband prone to jealousy is likely to be a violent, wife-beating husband. True love, we are told, entails freedom, respect for the autonomy of the other, a constantly renewed choice to love. This approach reached its logical—or was it its absurd?—conclusion in the “open marriage” of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.

I suspect that life is more complex than any theories, and that the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. The PC standard of non-possessive love seems so high and pristine as to be unattainable to the average person. Love of the other may be authentic, even if mixed with possessiveness. In a few words, the midrash has painted a very realistic and human portrait of the husband who finds himself in this situation: he wants her to drink the waters, to put his mind to rest as to whether or not she has in fact ”cheated” on him, but simultaneously he loves this woman—he empathizes with her in her ordeal, and feels guilty about putting her through it. But let us continue:

Woe is me that I laid with one who was impure [to me]! Therefore it says: “and the man is clean of iniquity.” “And the man is clean of iniquity.” -- He need not be concerned that her punishment may have been suspended because of merit. Should she also not be concerned lest she was not punished due to merit? The Torah says: “And that woman shall bear her sin” [ibid.] And there is even one who says: merit suspends [punishment] and is not recognized.

The second answer refers to certain halakhic concerns: namely, that the adulterous wife is prohibited both to her husband and to her lover. Note that this is very different from the terribly “civilized” Western attitude that one should “forgive and forget” and work on improving the marriage so it won’t happen again. According to the strict halakhah, if there really was an act of unfaithfulness, there is no option but divorce. The ground attitude is that a sexual act is a very serious business indeed; far more so than in our society, which invites a certain casualness in such matters. (To which an anthropologist or sociologist might add: because hardly any birth control existed then)

In any event, the concern here is that the husband may have scruples that he unwittingly slept with his wife between the time that she was first with her lover until he began to suspect that something was going on. (The repeated use here of the word “impure” here is interesting; adultery, or any sex with another, generates tum’ah, just like bodily discharges; cf. Deut 24:4). Hence, the verse is interpreted here as saying: your responsibility does not go beyond what you knew. There is no accountability for unwitting, “metaphysical” sin (belying the concept of shogeg found elsewhere?).

The reference to “merit” (zekhut tolah) has to do with the concept that if the woman had some other, unrelated meritorious deeds to her credit, these may outweigh the sin of adultery, so that the waters will not in fact “test” her, and the dramatic bodily upheaval will be “suspended” for one or two or even three years, or possibly not even take place at all (see m. Sotah 3.4). This is an interesting concept, and the possibility that a woman may be learned in Torah and thus meritorious is discussed in this context—but that will take us too far afield of our subject.

Another thing. “And the man shall be clean of iniquity.” If the man is clean of iniquity, the woman shall bear her sin, but if the man is not clean of iniquity, the woman does not bear her iniquity, for the water does not test her. As is said; “I shall not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery [for they {the men} themselves go aside with harlots, and sacrifice with {cult} prostitutes, and a people that does not understand shall come to ruin”—Hosea 4:4]. When they commit adultery, he says to them: since you pursuit whoredom, the water shall not test your wives. Therefore it says; “And that man shall be clean of iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.”

The third answer is a call for purity on the part of the man. Hazal seem to be troubled here by the implied double standard; the idea is that purity is demanded of all. The bitter waters don’t test the wife of a philandering husband—in one view, any man who has ever in his life engaged in unlawful intercourse, even long before his marriage. This is a clarion call against hypocrisy, especially in sexual matters. Only the pure can demand purity. Again, the implicit idea that the waters are a miracle, an act of Divine grace, only meted out when the people, and the individual family, live their lives on a high spiritual and moral plane.

Postscript to Shavuot

Our reference above to Chapter 9 of Sotah brings us full circle to the beraita of R. Pinhas ben Yair, mentioned in connection with Shavuot. “Once murders grew numerous, they abolished the eglah arufah [broken-necked calf; see Deut 21:1-9]; once adulterers grew numerous, they abolished the bitter waters.” These two sentences begin the coda to this tractate, in the form of a lengthy dirge about the decline of the generations, and the disappearance of the men who embodied various exemplary qualities—piety, fear of sin, holiness, modesty, etc. It ends with a picture of the days preceding the Messiah, when “arrogance will grow… son will rebel against father, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law… the face of the generation will be like the face of a dog,” punctuated by the thrice repeated lament, “On whom can we rely? On our Father in Heaven!"

In this context, R. Pinhas b. Yair’s concluding beraita comes to say: we can rebuild all that has been ruined and contaminated by renewed dedication to personal piety. The message is that of many men of spirit since time immemorial: the repair of society must begin with the individual, with each and every person repairing his own self. In this spirit, he portrays a series of upward spiraling positive qualities, culminating in piety and the Holy Spirit, and then “the Holy Spirit will bring the resurrection of the dead, brought by Elijah the prophet.”

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My wife Randy had an interesting insight about the Shavuot-Naso combination. She noted the presence of several allusions to bitterness: Naomi renames herself Marah (“call me Marah, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” – Ruth 1:20); in the chapter on Sotah we have the bitter waters; and one of the clans among the Levites, whose task is described at the beginning of the portion, is Merari, from the same root. (The Sukatchover, in Shem mi-Shemuel, says that his task is to “embitter the existence of the Yetzer Hara”).

Perhaps the idea hinted at in these passages is that accepting the yoke of Torah, sweet as it may ultimately be, also involves more than a little bitterness, in the stern discipline and breaking of natural habits and inclinations for which it calls. One is also reminded of the midrash which states that Sinai is called thus because “from there descended sin’ah, hatred, on the part of the pagan nations.” In other words, anti-Semitism is rooted in resentment of the Jewish spiritual mission and God-saturated culture.