Shabbat shalom everyone! My parsha is Naso. A lot of people who have my parsha for their b’mitzvah focus on the Priestly Blessing, the thing from Star Trek, and the oldest blessing in the Torah, but the thing that most caught my eye is how women are treated in the Torah and Haftorah.
Something that happens in my Torah portion is called the Sotah ritual.
Gd speaks to Moses and tells him to tell the Israelites that if a man becomes overcome with jealousy and thinks his wife is cheating on him, he should have her go through the Sotah ritual. The ritual includes making the woman drink a concoction of water, a bit of dirt from the Temple floor, and written text describing the ritual, and then seeing if she gets sick or not.
This is unfair to women for a bunch of reasons.
First, she is made a public embarrassment to her ENTIRE TOWN. They do this ridiculous ritual in the middle of town for everyone to see, and anyone can watch. Let’s say she does get sick from drinking this bitter drink, she will be considered unholy and be comparable to the people who have leprosy.
Second, let’s say the woman is not okay with the ritual. She finds no dignity in it - she is made a public embarrassment, and if she’s innocent, her husband just goes on with his day - THAT IS NOT FAIR!
Third, just because HE feels jealous that she, for example, went over to her friend's house and talked to her friend's husband, she has to go through this whole ordeal! And if she's innocent, her husband will just shrug his shoulders, and say, “Oh guess you weren’t unfaithful!” and just move on with his day. HOW IS THIS FAIR?!
Fourth, we have something these days called “girl code.” And almost every girl out there knows that if your friend gets hurt by a boy or her husband, you are hurt by that person as well. In addition, if your friend is accused of cheating by her husband, you might also start questioning how much your husband likes you and how faithful he is to you. So this ritual also has ongoing effects for the rest of the village.
Fifth, after this whole thing, how is she going to have any respect for her husband?! Let’s say she doesn't get sick after drinking the disgusting drink. Her husband probably doesn't even apologize! He’s probably like, “Oh, I guess you didn't cheat after all!” There’s going to be a problem in their relationship, and frankly, it becomes a problem for the entire town when the women’s friends all start questioning their husband’s love for them.
Also, guess how many wives the man is allowed to have? I’ll give you a clue – it’s more than one.
As you just heard, my Haftorah focuses on the birth of Samson. And if you don’t know the story about Samson, it’s another instance of a woman being treated unfairly. Let me explain how. Samson is a Nazarite, and he can never cut his hair. He is one of the strongest warriors. He marries Delilah, a Philistine woman, and the Philistines are enemies of the Israelites. Delilah asks Samson what his weakness is, and he lies to her. She asks again; he lies to her again. She asks a third time, and he gets so annoyed - he says, “Why do you keep asking?” and tells her that his strength comes from never cutting his hair. Delilah summons the Philistines, who chop off Samson’s hair. Without his hair, he has no strength and can’t defend himself, and Samson is captured by the Philistines.
That sounds pretty terrible of Delilah- it sounds like she’s obviously the villain in the story. Who would do that?
But when you think about it more, Delilah really isn’t in the wrong! In my opinion, this is another instance of a woman being blamed unfairly. She was told to marry Samson and to get his secrets from HER family and her close trusted friends. If your family and friends told you to do something, would you do it? If they told you someone was very mean and terrible and an enemy, would you trust that person?
Of course you wouldn’t trust them! You would do whatever your family asked of you to get rid of them. Because your loyalty is to your family!
In my Haftorah, Gd speaks to Samson’s mother. It’s one of the only times Gd speaks to a woman in the entire Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. After Gd speaks to her,
she tells her husband about the experience, and her husband says, “Okay skooch out of the way - I want to talk to Gd. Gd, it’s so nice to meet you!”
In both my Torah portion and Haftorah, there are many instances of women being treated unfairly.
But, let’s look at the fair side of things. When I first read about the Sotah ritual, I immediately thought of the Salem Witch Trials. They both have a person being accused of something with no real evidence or proof. And in both cases, if she’s guilty, she’s an outcast and is shunned by society, or - in the Salem Witch Trials - she dies. And if she’s innocent, she’s still an outcast, because she’s been embarrassed in front of her entire village for having to do the Sotah ritual. Or in the Salem Witch trials, she dies.
The Salem Witch Trials are a lose-lose situation. If you are considered a witch, they’ll throw you in the water. If you float, you are a witch, and you have to be killed. If you sink, you are not a witch, but oh well, you died. That is a lose-lose situation.
But in the Sotah ritual, the Priests sneak in a way for the women to not DIE when they are accused of something with no proof or evidence. They have the woman drink a drink; it’s not poison, it’ll just make them feel a bit sick. I think that’s way more fair than them dying.
The Rabbis also seem to think it’s unfair and put some fairness criteria on it. The Rabbis said that if a husband suspects that his wife is cheating on him, her husband must warn her, and two witnesses must see it and agree that she has spent enough time with another man to have an affair. The Rabbis are basically saying, “You have to have two people who can testify that she spent enough time with so-and-so to be cheating,” so it prevents a husband from saying, “I’m in a bad mood today - are you cheating on me?!”
Today, I think women are treated much more fairly, and both girls and boys have b’mitzvahs. The first girl to have a Bat Mitzvah - her dad was a rabbi, and he basically said to her, “hey you’re going to read some stuff from the Torah
tomorrow - you ready?” She just read it quickly, and she was a Bat Mitzvah. Her dad, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, was the founder of Reconstructionst Judaism, which is the type of Judaism we follow at HBT.
What it means to me to be a Bat Mitzvah is to do good things in the world. To not say, “Oh that stinks - that person is suffering.” Instead you say, “Are you okay?
You look like you are having a hard day.” You take responsibility for your actions and try not to put so much pressure on yourself. For my Mitzvah Project, I volunteered at the library. When you hear this, a lot of people think “shelving books,” but at my library, I did a lot more than that. I helped do craft projects and art projects with little kids. And little kids usually means crying. So I helped out the little kids when they were upset that there wasn’t enough pink paper for them to draw their monster on, or to do the craft on. I tried to help as best as I could, and I showed them a lot of care and kindness. What I learned from it is that not everyone’s the same - a lot of people have struggles or challenges, and the best thing you can do is help them work it out - and just show a little kindness.
I want to thank my moms, who have helped me practice, and my amazing friends who have supported me along the way, Rabbi Aliza for helping me write my d’var, Rabbi Barbara for being my first rabbi, and Benita for helping out with this entire Bat Mitzvah. Thank you to Hannah, my tutor, for helping me learn all of my prayers and blessings and giving me a solution to when I get stressed out. And thank you to Jon, my Hebrew School teacher, for teaching me most of what I know about the Torah.
Shabbat shalom!