Torah Study Blog

In biblical times, adultery was a capital crime. However, adultery in biblical times did not mean the same thing we think about today. In biblical times, women were the property of men. When a daughter was born, she was the property of her father (who would have been in his right to sell her into slavery - Exodus 21:7). When she married, she became the property of her husband.

Adultery in biblical times meant that an owned woman had sex with someone with whom she was not allowed to have sex. If a man had sex with a woman who belonged to another man, that would also be adultery. But, if the woman did not belong to anyone else, it would have been acceptable for a man to have sex with that woman and not be guilty of adultery.

This week’s Torah portion addresses the steps a husband could take if he suspected that his wife had sex with another man. Before we look at the passage, we need a paint a picture of what the floor of the Temple might have been like. The Temple was the place where animal sacrifices took place regularly and we can imagine the copious amounts of animal blood and body parts that might have reached the earthen floor of the Temple. Now, according to Numbers 5, when a jealous husband suspected his wife of adultery, he would bring her to the Temple and:

The priest shall take sacral water in an earthen vessel and, taking some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall put it into the water... The priest shall ...[say] to her, “If no man has lain with you, if you have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to harm from this water of bitterness that induces the spell. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself, ... may the LORD make you a curse ... among your people, as the LORD causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend; may this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.”

... [After] he has made her drink the water—if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband - the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; and the woman shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and able to retain seed. (Numbers 5:11-28)

This is a magical Trial by Bitter Water. People today might not be moved by the threat of divine punishment. But, in biblical times, this type of threat would have had meaning. Neighboring cultures also took the crime of adultery quite seriously. King Hammurabi of Babylon, author of the law code known as the Code of Hammurabi, codified that a woman suspected of adultery had to swear her innocence on the life of her god, and then leap into a river to prove her innocence. In biblical times, people were not swimmers. Our scholar-in-residence, David Sperling, told us that there is no word for “swim” in the ancient Akkadian language of the time.

While this test might seem barbaric to us, it is noteworthy that the Torah does not say it would be okay to beat up the wife if she was thought guilty of adultery. There was a judicial system put in place to determine her guilt or innocence.

The passage here indicates that, if the woman is innocent of adultery, she will be “able to retain seed.” Although it is not specifically stated what this means, one of the interpretations is that, if the baby was her husband’s, the wife will be able to retain the pregnancy. If she was guilty, she will miscarry.

Rabbi Jaech pointed out to us that this interpretation is, in effect, saying that God will induce an abortion of the baby if it is from an illicit relationship – and our ancestors had no issue with that. In the Reform movement, there is not a concept that an unborn fetus has the same value as a child born into the world.

In Christianity, the Gospel of James, which is not part of the Christian canon but was saved as an extra, or apocryphal, story, recounts when Mary was given the Trial by Bitter Water.

Later writings by the Rabbis indicate that society had taken a turn for the worse and the number of cases of adultery had increased, and the Trial by Bitter Water was not proving to be useful anymore. The Rabbis

acknowledged that there was no corollary for husbands who were unfaithful, and the ritual had simply lost its force, so they discontinued it. In this stressful time, when we are questioning the role of law in our society, Rabbi Jaech pointed out that we need to guard against throwing up our hands and saying, “There is nothing we can do.” She asks us all read, research, and remain engaged.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter