One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
סוטה
Sotah 2
Sefer Nashim · Woman Suspected of Infidelity · Who may and may not be made to drink the bitter water, what the husband's own standing has to be, and where the ketubah falls when no verdict can be reached.
15
Categories unfit to drink even if both wish it
2
Sound palms needed to hold the offering
0
Ketubah when she herself refuses the waters
36
Hours of unbroken town talk before it counts
Part 1Who cannot be put to the test
- Fifteen categories are unfit even when both want it. Among them a woman consecrated but not yet brought into the marriage, a yevamah awaiting yibbum, a minor married to an adult, an adult married to a minor, the wife of an androgynous man, and the wife of a man who is blind, lame, mute, deaf or missing a hand, along with a woman in any of those five conditions herself. Once the warning and the seclusion are established by witnesses, she is forbidden and divorced without her ketubah. (2:2)
- Each exclusion is a part of the rite that cannot be performed. The priest shall have the woman stand, which excludes a woman who cannot stand. He shall place it on her palm, which excludes a woman who cannot hold the offering, and since the verse is plural both hands must be sound. The woman shall say, which excludes a mute. He shall say to the woman, which excludes a deaf woman. Hidden from the eyes of her husband, which excludes the wife of a blind man. (2:3)
- The disqualification runs in both directions. Any physical factor that prevents her from drinking also prevents her husband from compelling her to drink, and any factor that prevents him from compelling her prevents her from drinking. She must be of sound body in every respect he is, and he in every respect she is. (2:3)
- Relations with the husband must have come first. A warning issued to a woman he consecrated, or to his yevamah, holds if the seclusion comes after the marriage is consummated, and she drinks like any wife. If the seclusion comes before her husband ever had relations with her, she does not drink: she is divorced without her ketubah and forbidden to him forever, learned from another man has lain with you other than your husband. (2:5)
RememberThe ordeal is something she performs with her own body and voice, so a defect in the husband ends it exactly as a defect in her does.
Part 2What the husband's own standing has to be
- The waters do not test the wife of a man who is not free of sin. If a man has engaged in any forbidden relations from the time he reached majority onward, the curse bearing waters do not test his wife at all. This holds even where the single act was with the woman he had consecrated while she still lived in her father's house, a prohibition of Rabbinic origin only. The man will then be free of sin, and the woman will bear her sin. (2:8)
- A wife who is forbidden to him cannot be tested. Where she is forbidden by a negative commandment, a positive one, or even a Rabbinic prohibition such as a sh'niyah, she does not drink and is divorced without her ketubah. A man who transgressed and married a woman pregnant or nursing by another man may still have her drink, since the prohibition there attaches to the child rather than to the relationship. (2:9)
- A childless man's barren wife is excluded. If he has no children and no other wife capable of bearing them and he married a barren woman, a woman past childbearing or an aylonit, she neither drinks nor receives her ketubah, since he is obligated to divorce her. If he already has children or another wife who can bear them, he may compel even an aylonit to drink. The verse that she will be cleared and will conceive promises an easier birth and sons, not fertility. (2:10)
- Her status is fixed at the warning, not at the seclusion. If his children or his childbearing wife died between the warning and the seclusion, she was already fit and is compelled to drink. If he had neither and his divorcee bore him a son in that same interval, the aylonit had already been excluded and that ruling stands. (2:11)
RememberThe water sits in judgment on her only when the man who brought her there is himself clean.
Part 3No verdict, and who carries the loss
- Refusing the waters costs her the ketubah; blocking them costs him. If she admits the adultery, or says she is innocent yet will not drink, she is divorced without her ketubah and forbidden to him forever. If the husband says he does not want her to drink, or had relations with her after the seclusion, she does not drink but is given her ketubah and departs, and is forbidden to him forever. (2:1)
- Who is judged like any other wife, and when the moment passes. A convert, a freed maidservant, the wife of a convert or of a freed servant, a woman of illegitimate parenthood, the wife of such a man and the wife of an impotent man all drink like any married woman. A pregnant or nursing woman drinks in her present state. If her husband dies before she drinks, she neither drinks nor collects her ketubah. (2:6-7)
- She becomes forbidden to the other man as well. Wherever a warning was given and a seclusion followed and she did not drink, for any reason at all, she is forbidden to her husband and equally forbidden to the man she secluded with. If that man marries her he is compelled to divorce her, even if she has borne him many children. (2:12)
- Unsavory behavior with no warning, and the weight of a rumor. Witnesses to a seclusion plus unsavory behavior, such as finding her tying her belt or wet spittle on the canopy: if her husband divorces her over it she may not marry the suspected man, and if she marries him anyway she stays if she has borne him children and is divorced if she has not. This applies only where the town talked for a day and a half or more without the talk ceasing, and only where neither of them has enemies spreading it. (2:13-14)
RememberA question the law refuses to answer still ends the marriage, and the ketubah follows whoever made the answer impossible.