As we read Parshat Naso, which presents the rules governing the Sotah ritual, I am brought back to my time in Rav Soloveitchik’s shiur at YU, where we studied Masechet Sotah in depth. The Rav’s ...

The enigmatic process of the sotah (Numbers 5:11-31) is found in this portion of the Torah. Many rationales have been used to explain this concept, but this week I would like to show how the sotah ...

The sotah laws seem so out of sync with our ethical sensibilities (Numbers 5:11–31). To demand that a woman suspected by her husband of infidelity drink “the waters of bitterness” and, if guilty, ...

As a reminder to readers, this column is continuing an analysis of married women’s head covering that was started in my previous column. The biblical verse cited as textual support for hair covering ...

It’s 3,000 years ago, you’re a local tribal leader, and you want to combat honor killings, what do you do? You already made murder illegal. You set up a court system. Honor killings are still ...

The celebrated first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (1865-1935) is recognized as being among the most important Jewish thinkers of all time. His writings reflect ...

In many Orthodox communities, it is standard practice for a woman to begin to cover her hair once she is married. It is interesting to note, however, that there is a wide range of ways in which this ...

Torah describes the case of the sotah, a woman accused by her husband of being an adulteress, at great length. The description itself is difficult to grasp and the mechanics of the Temple ceremony ...

In the late ’70s, I carried a beeper when it was my turn to be on call for a rape-victim helpline. One evening I had it clipped to my jacket during a faculty meeting at the community college where I ...

Based on this, Rashi (to Lev. 2:1) and Rashbam (to Gen. 18:6) maintain that the solet always implies “wheat flour,” thus accounting for this word’s absence from the Omer and Sotah offerings.