Sotah 021
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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He now comes to the writing of the scroll. From which place does he write? – From 'if no man has lain with you … But if you have gone astray.' Then he omits 'then the priest shall cause the woman to swear' and writes 'God will make you a curse and an oath … and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.' Then he omits 'The woman shall say, 'Amen, Amen.' Rabbi Yosé says that he makes no omission while Rabbi Yehudah says that he doesn't write the whole passage, only 'God will make you a curse and an oath … and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels…' and he omits 'The woman shall say, 'Amen, Amen.'
EXPLANATIONS:
1:
The Torah requires the officiating priest to adjure the woman and to warn her graphically of what could happen to her if she drinks the potion. It then says [Numbers 5:23] –
The priest shall write these curses down in a book, and he shall dissolve them out into the cursing waters.
Our present mishnah is concerned with the exact text that is to be copied out by the priest.
2: 3:
The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman,'If no man has lain with you, and if you haven’t gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse. But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:' then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, 'God will make you a curse and an oath among your people, when God makes your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell; and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.' The woman shall say, 'Amen, Amen.'
Rabbi Yehudah is of the view that very little of this passage is to be copied out by the priest, and that it is only the essential core or the adjuration that is to be written out:
'God will make you a curse and an oath among your people, when God makes your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell; and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.'
Rabbi Yosé believes that what is to be written out is not the words of adjuration as such, but the whole passage from the Torah as such, including the instructions.
Tanna Kamma – whose view is accepted halakhah – requires the whole passage to be copied out except for the interrupting instructions:
If no man has lain with you, and if you haven't gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse. But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband, then God will make you a curse and an oath among your people, when He makes your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell; and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.
DISCUSSION:
We are still concerned with the term which I translated 'wicker basket', in Hebrew 'kefifah mitzrit'. You will recall that I had originally suggested that the term does not mean 'Egyptian basket' as might have been supposed. Josh Peri suggested that the word was an early typo. Albert Ringer now writes:
If we are down to conjecture, we could argue that an Egyptian type of basket might be of papyrus. I tried in vain to find some evidence for this idea. Papyrus was extensively used for cheap baskets in Eretz Israel. Papyrus grew along the Jordan, there are still small patches left. The Mishna uses different words for the material (Gomer, Papyr, sorry, not Mizrit). The Tosephta even tells us that baskets from papyrus where more expensive than simple reed baskets. I comment: I still think that the term comes from a root meaning 'to saw' or 'to lop off', and that it indicates a basket made from interwoven palm leaves, but Josh's etymology is also plausible if we compare this mishnah with what was said in 1:6. |
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