How do we deal with parts of ourselves that are primal? This week’s reading in scripture includes the case of the Sotah, the suspected adulteress against whom there is no evidence. But the husband’s jealousy will not be assuaged. (This is a practice that only existed during Ancient biblical times). There is no court case, instead a magical ordeal which publically embarrasses the suspect ensues. Unbelievably, to save a marriage from a husband’s jealous rage, the Priest/Kohen, who first tries to get her to confess, is commanded to write a curse using G8d’s name YHVH on parchment, to mix it with water and dust. The water will dissolve the ink from the parchment and erase G8d’s name! The suspect then drinks the mixture. It is of course, exceedingly unfair that only the woman has to undergo an ordeal that it is so public: the priest undoes her hair removes her ornaments, and embarrasses her purposely. There are very pointed prohibitions on embarrassing someone! Commentator Rafael S’forno call the jealous man a fool. And drinking dust mixed with ink and water is not gonna hurt anybody unless of course you believe it will, and then anything is possible.
Rashi the medieval French commentator has a very interesting comment on the Sotah. With a word play on the root for the word Sotah, he writes “Adulterers do never sin until a spirit of madness enters into them”, as it written, of her Key tisteh “if she becomes mad”, taking Tisteh in the sense to become a Sotah. Wait, the husband is insanely jealous, and Rashi places the madness on the wife? Jealously is the true madness. It is a projection of madness, distortion of a taboo
I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man~ Robert Louis Stephenson,
It often men whose anger and lust are out of control. The Incredible Hulk is our myth of the uncontrollable side of our personality. Another myth is that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, check out this trailer from the 1941 movie. I’ve only just noticed (I know, so lame on my part) the wordplay on Hyde/Hide. The movie was billed as a horror movie in ‘41. Jekyll tries to separate the repressed parts of himself, in a “scientific” (controlled) way. He liberates it by drinking an elixir and names the emerging part of himself Hyde. Spencer Tracey, who plays both, has said the elixir is not mystery, it’s alcohol, and the need for more and more of it, an addiction. He also becomes addicted to the transformation, and the sexuality it releases.
The illusion of Biblical control of men over women and what could be hidden from them by women, is an illusion, just as with Jekyll. Rashi suggests it is really a fear of madness – which is only controllable with the help of supernatural assistance. Imagine a universe out of control. Mystics say the universe was created with somewhat unequal doses of womb-like compassion and structural rigidity/judgement. An earlier world made with too much rigidity/judgement shattered! Just as at the start of the universe, there must have been an excess of matter over antimatter sparking into existence, more compassion than judgement was needed for the world to endure.
Some people find madness, the loss of their inner world with what they think is excessive compassion, not enough rules. I find madness in a world that is unkind due to the worship of money and power, and that breaks rules of decency and honesty. Yeats wrote this verse in response to world war 1.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre; The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
Faith and spirituality means feeling in your bones that G8d is with you, not “out there” somewhere. That all the earth and all you do is sacred if done with loving intention. Including sexuality, which is not “original sin” in Jewish theology, but a command to “be fruitful” There are three partners present in conceiving each child: the mother, the father, and the Presence or (Shechinah). The union found in a loving marriage is potent enough to heal the heavens, you will even allow G8d’s name to be erased and drink bitter waters, rather than giving in to the madness of love turned into jealousy.
The madness of breaking taboos of ethics and replacing them with old taboos on sexual expression is in the same was as the Sotah ordeal, a projection of madness, distortion of a taboo. Below: Edvard Munch 1885: Jealousy
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