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The Bitter Waters

JL;DR SUMMARY Parshat Naso introduces the controversial Sotah ritual, where a husband, overcome by jealousy, can subject his wife to a test by ingesting bitter waters to determine her fidelity. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

MarriageBiblical InterpretationGender DynamicsDivine JusticeJealousyRabbinic TraditionSotahMoral DilemmasAncient PracticesRitual Suspension

Places mentioned

Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv District, Israel
"Ishay Rosen-Zvi spent years studying the Mishnaic Sotah text at Tel Aviv University and came to a provocative conclusion in The Rite That Was Not: The elaborate Talmudic descriptions of the Sotah ceremony may never have reflected actual practice."
Seattle, Washington, United States
"The psychologist John Gottman spent decades studying married couples at the University of Washington, and his research identified what he called the four horsemencontempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewallingas the most reliable predictors of marital breakdown."
New York, United States
"This project is made possible with support from the Simchat Torah Challenge and UJA-Federation of New York."

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Cairo Item ID 83465
Cairo Source ID 13
Retrieved 2026-05-28 05:30:38 UTC
Curated 2026-05-28 08:30:40 UTC