תלמוד על סוטה 4:2
Jerusalem Talmud Sotah
It was stated: Rebbi Jehudah says in the name of Rebbi Eleazar ben Matthias: It says, “but if the woman was not impure but was pure100Num. 5:28..” Would we not know that if she was not impure she was pure? Why does the verse say, “but she was pure”101In Sifry Num. 19, the double expression is justified: R. Ismael holds that she only is permitted to her husband if the procedure had shown her innocence. An anonymous source notes that if she got a divorce after the procedure or her husband died, she was free to marry the man she was suspected of having an affair with; if she was divorced for adultery, the adulterer would be forbidden to her.
The Yerushalmi text is copied in Num. rabba 9(50).? Only that at the end the Omnipresent rewards her for the abuse, that if she was sterile she will become pregnant102In the Babli, 36a, and Sifry Num. 19, the first clause, about the sterile becoming pregnant, is R. Aqiba’s; all the others are attributed to R. Ismael. In the Babli Berakhot 31b, the attributions are switched., [if she] was having difficult births she will have easy ones, [if she] had ugly children she will have good looking ones103This clause is missing in the parallels. In Babylonian historical spelling, it would be כעורים., black ones she will have white ones, short ones she will have tall ones, females she will have males, single children she will have twins. Rebbi Simeon ben Laqish104This attribution to a second generation Amora is quite impossible in a tannaїtic text; in the Babli and Sifry Num. the argument is R. Ismael’s. It seems that the Yerushalmi refers to R. Simeon ben Ioḥai, quoted in the next sentence. said to him: If it were so then all women should be misbehaving in order to become pregnant! But does Rebbi Simeon not interpret “she will be found innocent and become pregnant with seed”? He does, legitimate seed, not illegitimate105In Halakhah 4:1, a similar (anonymous) argument is quoted to show that a divorcee married to a priest cannot be subjected to the procedure of the suspected wife because even if she was innocent she could not have legitimate seed from the husband forbidden to her; her children from the priest are desecrated..
The Yerushalmi text is copied in Num. rabba 9(50).? Only that at the end the Omnipresent rewards her for the abuse, that if she was sterile she will become pregnant102In the Babli, 36a, and Sifry Num. 19, the first clause, about the sterile becoming pregnant, is R. Aqiba’s; all the others are attributed to R. Ismael. In the Babli Berakhot 31b, the attributions are switched., [if she] was having difficult births she will have easy ones, [if she] had ugly children she will have good looking ones103This clause is missing in the parallels. In Babylonian historical spelling, it would be כעורים., black ones she will have white ones, short ones she will have tall ones, females she will have males, single children she will have twins. Rebbi Simeon ben Laqish104This attribution to a second generation Amora is quite impossible in a tannaїtic text; in the Babli and Sifry Num. the argument is R. Ismael’s. It seems that the Yerushalmi refers to R. Simeon ben Ioḥai, quoted in the next sentence. said to him: If it were so then all women should be misbehaving in order to become pregnant! But does Rebbi Simeon not interpret “she will be found innocent and become pregnant with seed”? He does, legitimate seed, not illegitimate105In Halakhah 4:1, a similar (anonymous) argument is quoted to show that a divorcee married to a priest cannot be subjected to the procedure of the suspected wife because even if she was innocent she could not have legitimate seed from the husband forbidden to her; her children from the priest are desecrated..
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