Sotah Straw

The Person and the Page, April 20th

Note: This is a paid preview of my Jewish Link articles before the Thursday publication date. I don’t want to undercut the magazine, so placing it behind the paywall in general feels like the right approach. I still have to decide, but likely, you won’t even see this preview portion, since I’ll send it to paid subscribers. But I will still be posting links / images to the newspaper website later in the week, with roughly the same content.

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The typical administration of the bitter Sotah waters are via her drinking them, as it states (Bemidbar 5:24) וְהִשְׁקָה֙ אֶת־הָ֣אִשָּׁ֔ה אֶת־מֵ֥י הַמָּרִ֖ים הַמְאָֽרְרִ֑ים, “he shall cause the woman to drink”. But what if she were to take them intravenously, because she cannot tolerate the extreme bitterness? Would that be effective, since the verse ends  וּבָ֥אוּ בָ֛הּ הַמַּ֥יִם הַֽמְאָרְרִ֖ים לְמָרִֽים, implying that so long as they enter her, it works? The answer is an obvious no, since we immerse Hashem’s Ineffable Name in these waters, and one of the Ten Commandments is not to take Hashem’s name in vein.

Jokes aside, this question has practical ramifications, in terms of fasting on Yom Kippur. In some circles, the practice has arisen for people to set up IV drips for hydration, for the ill, or nursing or pregnant, on the theory that this doesn’t count as drinking.