06-05-2025 Torah Commentary

This week’s parashah may be one of Hebrew Scriptures’ most unique and unsettling sections.  Called Parashat Naso, you can find it in the Book of Numbers 4:21 – 7:89. 

What makes this section so problematic is that it is the only place in Jewish law where there is a “trial by ordeal.”  The section centers on the theme of a woman who is suspected of being unfaithful to her husband.  In this section we learn the methods by which her husband can test her honesty.  

In reality the woman was placed in an untenable situation.  Rather than being seen as innocent until she was proven guilty, her guilt is assumed and it is beholden on her to prove not only her innocence, but also that the event never occurred.  Perhaps it is for this reason that the rabbis changed the text’s emphasis from that of the unfaithful wife to that of the jealous husband.  This change of emphasis is one more example of the fact that Judaism is not the Bible but rather it is how the Jewish people have interpreted a Biblical text. 

Classical Judaism feared the destructive power of jealousy seeing it as an “emotional tornado.” The rabbis understood that to be jealous is to claim ownership of another human being. They questioned if jealousy was simply an emotional form of bondage, and that we can be both physical slaves and emotional slaves.

The rabbis understood that Israel had to get beyond jealousy if it were to reach the promised land of human dignity. It is for that reason that the rabbis argued that only G-d has the right to be jealous,  There is still another side of Naso that speaks directly to our world today.  Just as the accused woman was placed in an untenable situation too many of our so-called journalists have done the same to both politicians and to citizens.  These “jealous” journalists have replaced fact with hearsay and declare a person guilty conducting a full investigation.  We have seen too often that many in the media decide who is guilty and who is innocent even before there is a trial or a hearing of the facts.   Even worse too many journalists quote each other as a means to create trials by ordeal and seek to uphold unsupported accusations by insinuations.  

This week’s parashah is not against punishing the guilty, but it is against trial by hearsay rather than by an examination of the facts and the person’s right to confront his/her accuser.  Is this a warning against the use of the politics of personal destruction as a political tool?  

In much of the world the media, from all political spectra have lost the public’s confidence.  Perhaps they need to read Parashat Naso and learn what happens to a society when trial by ordeal replaces trial by law.  What do you think?
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