If the woman had not been defiled, and she is pure, she shall be proven innocent, and she shall bear seed.[2]
It doesn’t seem fair. Sure, she was proven innocent. She can return to her husband, and live happily ever after. But why does she take home a trophy, in the form of conceiving a child? After all, no paragon of virtue is she. Why is she rewarded for her misbehavior with this blessing?
Her missteps were no small, innocent infractions. Pretty major, actually. The prohibition against yichud of a man and a married woman is almost universally held to be a d’orayso/Torah prohibition. She was certainly guilty of that; without that violation, she would not be given the Sotah potion to drink. Tzadekes, she wasn’t.
Moreover, she had been specifically warned by her jealous husband to avoid sequestering herself with the particular man in question. Despite the warning, she proceeded to put herself in a compromised position. Pretty tacky, to say the least.
The answer comes from the gemara[3] that deals with thoughts of mitzvah and aveirah that do not bear fruit. Hashem credits the former as if they were mitzvos in deed. Thoughts of aveirah, however, are not considered by Hashem to be aveiros in and of themselves.
Why the distinction? Some explain that the difference stems from a reality of human nature. We are inherently imperfect beings. We have passions, desires, and needs. When they well up inside of us, when their strength peaks, the realistic expectation is that we will succumb. Successfully resisting these strong temptations, when that happens, is a triumph of the spirit. It means that the yetzer tov has scored a round against the yetzer hora. Hence, HKBH reckons it as a mitzvah! On the other hand, when Man gives in to his nature, it is dog-bites-man. No news there. If it fails to morph into the actual commission of an aveirah – well, no great loss.
Back to our vindicated Sotah. She was foolish enough to ignore her husband’s warning, Torah law, and common sense, and spend time alone with a man other than her husband. This is evidence enough of a strong yetzer hora operating upon her. Still, she managed to extricate herself from it. She did not commit adultery. She left with her virtue – or most of it – intact.
For this, she deserves a reward. And the Torah gives it to her.
- Adapted from Divrei Shaul by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Sho’el U-Meshiv ↑
- Bamidbar 5:28 ↑
- Kiddushin 40a ↑