One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
סוטה
Sotah 1
Sefer Nashim · Woman Suspected of Infidelity · The closing treatise of Sefer Nashim opens: what makes a husband's warning binding, what voids it, and the long list of things that close the bitter waters entirely.
2
Witnesses the warning requires
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Egg roasted and swallowed: the seclusion measure
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Witness to adultery ends the waters
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Absent husbands the court warns for
Part 1The Warning, and What Fails as One
- Kinui is a spoken, witnessed act. He tells her in the presence of witnesses not to enter into privacy with one named man. It binds even where the named man is her father, her brother, a gentile, a servant, or a man physically incapable of fathering a child (1:1)
- Seclusion has a measure. Privacy with that named man, before two witnesses, lasting long enough for relations, which the Rambam gives as the time to roast an egg and swallow it. She is then forbidden to her husband until she drinks; where the waters are unavailable she is forbidden permanently and divorced without her ketubah (1:2)
- Three warnings that are void. "Do not speak to him" is not a warning at all; witnesses who saw only conversation saw no seclusion; and where no warning was ever issued, even two witnesses to a full seclusion leave her permitted to her husband. A boy under nine or an animal cannot be the subject of a warning (1:4-6)
- Nullification has a window. He may forgo the warning before she secludes, and then it is as though he never warned her. Once she has secluded he cannot, since the obligation is now the Torah's and not his. Divorce nullifies it, and remarriage requires a fresh warning (1:7)
RememberA suspicion he will not say out loud, naming one man, in front of two witnesses, has no standing in law whatsoever.
Part 2When the Warning Is Not His
- The court warns for an absent husband. Where the husband has become unable to hear or speak, has lost control of his mental faculties, is overseas, or is imprisoned, the court itself warns a woman who is being gossiped about. The aim is not to have her drink but to disqualify her from her ketubah (1:10)
- What the court's warning accomplishes. If witnesses then testify she secluded with the named man for the full duration, the court forbids her to her husband forever and tears up her marriage contract. On his return, recovery or release he must give her a get, and he cannot make her drink, because the warning was not his (1:11)
- No second drinking over the same man. A woman who drank and did not die cannot be made to drink again on that man's account; a fresh warning about him followed by seclusion forbids her permanently with no ketubah. A warning about a different man reopens the waters, and this can recur several times (1:12)
- A new husband, the very same man. After divorce and remarriage, the second husband may warn her regarding that same man and may make her drink, because he is the second husband. Even a hundred successive husbands could each do so (1:13)
RememberBefore the seclusion the warning belongs to him. After it, it belongs to the Torah and he cannot take it back.
Part 3Everything That Closes the Waters
- His own eyes, and the town's talk. If he warned her properly and himself saw the seclusion, or if the gossip has spread until the women weaving at night by moonlight chatter about her, he is forbidden to stay married to her: he divorces her and pays her ketubah in full. His certainty cannot compel the waters, which require two witnesses (1:8)
- One witness to the seclusion. If the husband considers that witness faithful and relies on him, he must divorce her and pay her ketubah. If he does not rely on him, she remains permitted to him (1:9)
- One witness to adultery ends it. After a valid warning and a witnessed seclusion, a single witness to relations forbids her forever, bars her from drinking even if she wishes to clear herself, and costs her the ketubah, from "there is no witness against her." This holds even if he is one of the two seclusion witnesses (1:14, 1:20)
- Anyone may testify, and then the count decides. A woman, a servant, a maidservant, a relative or one disqualified rabbinically may testify to the adultery; the five presumed hostile women are believed only to forbid her, not to void her ketubah, which she collects. One witness here equals two, so a later contradiction is disregarded, while a simultaneous one sends her to the waters. Among unacceptable witnesses the majority rules, and an even split means she drinks (1:15-19)
RememberThe waters operate only inside genuine doubt. Every fact that becomes known shuts them, and leaves an ordinary get and a ruling about money.