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Best wishes,

Mordecai Kornfeld

Kollel Iyun Hadaf

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Sotah 006: R. Shimon's Opinion

ari asked:

According to R' Shimon neither the fact that eidim exist nor the fact that the woman may have merit prevents the water from working because of the reasons listed in the gemara.

Our mishna lists cases in which a woman does not eat trumah. One of them is when eidim come to testify.

The gemara earlier goes back and forth and says the case is talking about when the eidim come after the fact. ( no need to mention the case of when they come before she drinks).

How does R' shimon learn our mishna, meaning if the fact that nothing happened to the woman after she drank the water cannot be attributed to a merit that she has or cannot be attributed to the fact that eidim exist who can testify- then shouldn't the fact that nothing happened to her after she drank prove that the eidim who come later on are lying?

I guess you would have to say that according to R' Shimon when the mishna says that a woman does not eat trumah when witnesses come to testify it is talking about when they come before she drinks( even though that statement is somewhat obvious).

what do you think?

ari, USA

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The Kollel replies:

I think it is simpler to say that Rabbi Shimon disagrees with our Mishnah and maintains that if witnesses came from overseas and said that she was unfaithful, she may continue eating Terumah. R. Shimon is a Tana and is quite entitled to take issue with the Tana of our Mishnah.

The reason she can continue eating Terumah is because we say that the witnesses must be liars. Since the Mishnah discusses a case where the witnesses came after she drank the water (as our Gemara concludes, and not like you suggested according to R. Shimon) the fact that nothing happened to her through the drinking, proves that she must be a Tzadekes because one cannot say that the reason she did not suffer is (1) she possessed merits or (2) because the water does not check out a woman if witnesses exist overseas, since R. Shimon maintains that neither of these possibilities prevent the water from punishing her.

KOL TUV

D. Bloom

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Ari Nat responded:

In such an instance according to R' Shimon would we need proof beyond the fact that she survived the water to prove that the eidim are lying?

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The Kollel replies:

At first sight it would appear that if the witnesses came after she had drunk safely and said that she had been unfaithful, nevertheless this is not a sufficient proof that they are liars according to R. Shimon. This is because there are additional reasons why the water might not have proved that she was unfaithful:-

(1) The Gemara (below 28a) states that the water only checks the wife if the husband is free of sin but otherwise it is not effective. The Rambam (Hilchos Sotah 2:8) explains this to mean that if the husband had any forbidden relationship in his adult life, even a relationship which is forbidden mid'Rabanan, the water will no longer check his wife.

(2) The Gemara (below 47b) extends this to mean that not only if the husband is not free of sin does the water not work, but even if his sons or daughters are not free of sin, it is not effective. (However Tosfos Ha'Rosh writes there that this refers to where the husband knows about his childrens' misconduct, but even so did not rebuke them).

(3) In addition I saw in the Notes of Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Shlita (Sotah 6a, bottom of p.34) that if the Kohen is a Chalal, the water also does not check the wife, so therefore it is possible that the Kohen is invalid but this was not known. In fact, this Din is pointed out by Toras Ha'Kena'os here, and by Minchas Chinuch Mitzvah 365:35 DH ve'Im, who cite the Rambam Sotah 4:9 that a Kohen must write the scroll, which suggests that if a posul Kohen wrote it, this is invalid.

However if one looks into this more, it appears that the above possibilities are not so frequent and one does not have to be concerned about them, unless one has a strong reason to believe that they happened.

A similar idea is stated by the Tosfos ha'Rosh here (DH ve'Hai). He asks on Rav Yosef - who says that possibly Zechus helped her - why did Rav Yosef not mention a different possibility, the husband may have had relations with his wife on the journey and if so the water would not be effective? Rosh answers that this possibility is not sufficient to render the witnesses valid. He proves this from the fact that otherwise R. Shimon should also say that you will give the righteous women a bad name because people will say that really she was unfaithful but afterwards she had relations with her husband on the journey and therefore the water-test did not work. From the fact that R. Shimon did not say such a thing, one can conclude that this is a far-fetched possibility.

It seems to me that in a similar way one must say that the 3 possibilities we mentioned above are unlikely, unless one has a good reason to believe they actually happened. Therefore we would have to rule in our Gemara that the witnesses who said she is Tamei are invalidated for further testimony if she had previously safely drunk the water, because we assume they are liars.

However I am still not sure whether we can say for certain that they are lying, and it is likely that we would only give them a Din of liars because of a Safek, but would not give them lashes, especially for instance if we have reason to believe the husband may have had some forbidden relationship sometime during his life, as we mentioned above (1), according to Rambam.

KOL TUV

D. Bloom

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Naftoli commented:

Could a simple case be where the husband is "doing the same thing as she is"and therefore the water does not work on her. It only works if he is a"tzadick"

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The Kollel replies:

Your question - why do we not say that the water did not check her because her husband had been doing the same thing? - is asked by the Tosfos Rosh here DH VE'HAI. He asks why do we not say that the husband had relations with her on the journey so that the water-test is no longer effective?

(The Rosh's question is applicable according to Rashi's explanation - 28a DH BIZMAN - that when the Torah says the husband must be free from sin, this means that he did not have relations with his wife after she had become forbidden to him.)

[See the Mishneh Le'Melech Sotah 2:8 DH ASHER who writes that he did not find anywhere that Rashi wrote that a different transgression of the husband will prevent the water from checking his wife, and cites several places in Shas where Rashi writes that the husband had relations with his wife after she was alone with the suspect. However I did find that Rashi Sotah 47b DH MENUKEH writes that "free of sin" means forbidden relations with any woman prohibited to him, either his wife who had been secluded with the suspect, or with another woman.]

Tosfos Rosh answers that this is not a sufficient reason to say that the witnesses were truthful because:

(a) according to the Rabanan in the Mishnah (below 7a) that 2 witnesses accompany the couple on the journey, one certainly need not be concerned that they had relations.

(b) according to Rebbi Yehudah there that the husband is believed, one also is not concerned about this, because since we tell him that the water-test will not be effective if they had had relations, in the latter case there is no reason why he should give his wife to drink.

However the above applies according to Rashi's explanation, but the Rambam (Hilchos Sotah 2:8) explains "the husband is free of sin" in a different way, namely that if the husband had had any forbidden relationship, even forbidden mid'Rabanan, during the course of his adult life, then the water will not test his wife.

According to the Rambam, your question seems to be strong - why not say that the test did not work because of a sin that the husband did a while ago?

On the basis of the Sevara mentioned by the Rosh [mentioned above (b)] it may be possible to answer that the very fact that the husband gave his wife to drink the water proves that he must know he is free of sin because otherwise it would be futile for him to engage in the entire exercise.

See also the aforementioned Mishneh Le'Melech (DH UM'M). He writes:

"There is a great "Umdena" (estimation) that if the husband would not have been free of sin he would not have given his wife to drink, for what purpose is there for him to give her to drink since it will not work? Therefore there is a powerful "Chazakah" that he had not sinned and this Chazakah is sufficient to override the witnesses because it is a big Umdena."

(I saw in the notes of Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Shlita (Sotah 6a p. 34 DH VE'HOSIF) that he writes that it is a big Chidush to say that this Umdena is sufficient to override witnesses. However we have seen now that the above Tosfos ha'Rosh also uses this Umdena.)

KOL TUV

D. Bloom