In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes the procedure of dealing with the wayward wife. Unfortunately, many marriages are broken by infidelity and we read stories about it. Recently, a husband was murdered by his cheating wife who drugged his milk and then killed him (He was Jewish). Even though he caught her cheating with spywear on her email , it was not enough to spare his life. This is the danger of cheating. It can lead to terrible circumstances for all the parties of the relationship, including family members as well. Based on the code findings, even the One Above knows about the actions and thoughts of the cheating spouse.The Torah says, kgn uc vkgnu u,at vya, hf, “if his wife will go astray and commit a trespass against him” (Numbers ) . If we take the acronym of the encircled letters rearranged, it spells v - hthe Tetragammatron. The one who thinks that she/he can get away with it is dealing with the One Above who probes our hearts. According to the sages of Israel, a sin in secret, God makes it public. Hence, we see that in ancient times, a wife that would cheat on her husband in secret would eventually be put to public shame. Isn’t the wife supposed to be home cooking and taking care of the children? The Torah sees to the end of times where we hear stories of office romance (as noted on CNN). However, if she was found innocent after going through the procedure, she would bear (beautiful) children to her husband (see Rashi at Numbers and Talmud Berachos 31b).
Why did the Torah discuss about a wayward woman and not a man? Why does it not apply to a man? First of all, according to the sages of Israel, the sotah waters will not be effective if the husband cheats on his wife as well. Both parties are taken into account. In my opinion, it focuses on a woman because the woman was created to serve man (see Genesis ). Hopefully, by reading about it in the Torah and looking at the codes we realize that it is always good to study the Torah, to read between the lines, and then think things out before one takes any action. Hopefully, in the path of the Torah.Living life is not all that easy, from stress of the family, work, school, & health etc. We need all of the strength that we can muster. In fact the Torah gives us strength. The Torah says at the beginning of the Parsha, iuard hbc atr ,t tab, “Take a census of the children ofGershon”(Numbers ). If we take the acronym of the encircled letters, it spells the term, rcd, gibor, meaning strong. We must have strength to cope in this world. It is God that gives us strength and blessings as in this Parsha we learn about the priestly blessings. In fact, the Torah itself is a source of blessings as we see it encoded where God commands Aharon and his sons regarding the formula for the blessing. The Torah says the following, ktrah hbc ,t ufrc, vf rntk uhbc ktu irvt kt rcs, “Speak to Aharon and his sons says, so shall you bless the children of Israel” (Numbers ). The last letters of the encoded letters (rearranged) spells the term vru,, Torah. Moreover, it blesses us entirely from a to z. We see that allusion from the first letter code where
the encircled letters of the phrase,t ufrc, vf rntk, in reverse spells two words including ,t es, which represents the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and kf , kol, meaning all. Hence we see that the Torah envelopes us with blessings and gives us peace. The top news this week (6/8/06) was the killing of Al Zarqawi, the top terrorist in Iraq by two 500 pound bombs launched by a US air strike over his “safe house”. His death will provide some relief and peace to the embittered people of Iraq and the rest of the world. May we all have strength and blessings to carry us through our trying times.
A refuah shlaima to my father, Yaakov Zev Ben Malka Blima, who is recovering from stroke at Vanderbilt Nursing Home, SI, NY Shabbat Shalom.
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