Daily Talk
The book of women ends with a husband deciding how to speak to his wife. After three chapters of courts, scrolls and a dissolving Name, the last halachot of Sefer Nashim forbid warning her in jest, in an argument, to frighten her, or at first before witnesses. Why does the whole book of marriage close on a rule about tone of voice?
The Warning Spoken Gently
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About This Talk
Chapter 4 closes Hilchot Sotah and Sefer Nashim with the fine print of the procedure and then a turn home. On the fifteenth of Adar the court, attending to communal needs, checks which women should be made to drink and which should be warned, though a sotah may be brought at any time of year; she drinks only by day, the whole day being fit, and never two women together. A refusal made out of fear may be retracted, but a calm refusal is an admission that cannot be withdrawn. Refusing before the scroll is blotted out sends the scroll to burial and the meal offering to the ash heap; refusing after it is blotted out, she is made to drink and told that the water is like a drug on the skin that harms only where there is a wound; admitting guilt even after the blotting means the water is poured out, since it is not holy. The scroll is invalid if written at night, out of order, before the oath, like a letter, on two sheets, on paper or untreated hide, by a non-priest or a minor, with permanent ink, with any trace left after blotting, letter by letter, not for her sake, or mixed with another woman's scroll; spilled water is replaced with a new scroll, water kept overnight or dust placed before water is invalid, dust may be brought into the Sanctuary from outside, ash may not serve but decayed matter may, and digging with an axe is improper but valid. The meal offering is burned whole if she admits or refuses before the fistful, if the husband declines, witnesses come, or either dies; a priest's wife's offering has its fistful offered and the rest scattered; and if the witnesses are false the offering was never consecrated. One offering covers warnings about several men, and by gilgul shevuah her Amen, Amen covers this man and others, betrothal and marriage, past and future, though not periods when relations could not have forbidden her to him, such as before marriage, between divorce and remarriage, or a yevamah's waiting period. The book ends with the mitzvah to warn, through which a spirit of purity enters a man, given never in levity, mid-conversation, in argument or to frighten, and first privately and gently before ever before witnesses, and with the ruling that one who does not attend to the ways of his wife and household is himself a sinner.