Iyun Masechet Sota: 10b

 

After seven daf and countless shiurim in which we have encountered unfaithful couples and treacherous, disloyal women, after following the halakhic scent that points to a wife's betrayal of her husband as a major element in the sota drama, the agaddot at the end of the perek balance this lopsided legal perspective - that deals by its very nature as a legal system with the unscrupulous exceptions - with heroic historical figures who retained their faith and courage in the face of overwhelming circumstance.  Tamar, Miriam, Shifra, Puah and all of the courageous "nashim tzadkaniot" in Egypt are presented to us as models of faith and loyalty in these dapim (in contrast to Shimshon and Avshalom).

 

Let us begin with Tamar.  The entire story of Yehuda and Tamar revolves around the contrast between the loyalty of Tamar towards her fellow human being, even though she has been abused and mistreated by him, and the faithlessness exhibited towards her by Yehuda and his family.  Two statements in our gemara relate to this point.  The first emphasizes Tamar's absolute fealty to Yehuda and her respect for his human dignity by claiming that she would have preferred death to the humiliation of Yehuda, had he not admitted his involvement.  The second points out a connection between Yehuda's behavior towards Tamar and his treatment of Yosef.  The common denominator, as we shall see, is the callousness displayed towards a fellow human being.

 

The cardinal sin this story (Bereishit ch.38) is not the sexual licentiousness of the parties involved, but the treatment of Tamar.  Both Yehuda and his sons treat her as an object to be used (or abused) for their own benefit and pleasure, refusing to relate to her as a human being worthy of respect and recognition whose needs, emotional and other, must be taken into account.  Initially manifesting itself in the crude and boorish behavior of Er and Onan, it is true of their father as well.

 

Er and Onan treat Tamar as a sex object.  Desiring of sexual pleasure, they are unwilling to assume the attendant responsibility of parenthood nor do they take into account the needs of Tamar, yearning to realize herself as a mother.  Their egotism can only view other human beings as means for serving their own needs and cannot recognize the value or autonomy of their fellow human beings. 

 

This approach, though, does not originate with them, for it is characteristic of their father as well.  Yehuda's response to the deaths of his two sons is to force upon Tamar a waiting period of years, without consulting her or attempting to understand her perspective.  The tragedy of a woman who has lost two husbands, seeking physical and emotional security and stability, disinclined to marry yet a third brother of the same family, not necessarily interested in a solitary existence as a young and wasted widow, waiting for a young child to mature at his father's leisure, is totally ignored by Yehuda.  Tamar may indeed have been willing, as Ruth in a later day, to remain faithful to the house of Judah; that, though, is not of any consequence in evaluating Yehuda's behavior.  The crucial point in this regard is Yehuda's ordering her to do so, fully expecting her to comply with his directive.  The contrast between Yehuda's subordination of Tamar to his needs and the deep feeling of gratitude exhibited by Na'omi and Bo'az towards Ruth clearly highlights the nature of Yehuda's actions. 

 

[Rashi in Chumash takes this approach a step further, laying at Yehuda's doorstep the even more serious allegation that he never intended that Shelah, the youngest son, marry Tamar at all, presenting Yehuda as being willing to relegate his former daughter in-law to perpetual widowhood, so that he could preserve his family's dignity.  Whether or not we accept this claim, it certainly reflects the mind-set guiding Yehuda at the time, as understood by Rashi.]

 

Having, nevertheless, accepted upon herself to stay at her parents home and, Tamar eventually makes a move to force a confrontation with Yehuda over the matter, by engaging him in the episode of her harlotry and the subsequent dealings that ensue. 

 

The client-prostitute relationship is, obviously, the extreme form of using a fellow human being for one's own needs, each party utilizing the other for its own purposes.  The I-Thou personal relationship has been replaced with the I-It attitude towards others, as the most intimate and private act, born of the union of two souls revealing themselves to each other, is transformed into a business transaction.  What was intended and described by the Torah as inner knowledge of a close partner is perverted and corrupted into momentary physical contact with a coincidental fleeting stranger, without any lasting obligations or responsibilities.

 

Yehuda, though, is not bothered by this. Whatever we may think about possibly interesting halakhic calisthenics which may or may not be appropriate to discuss in regard to this case, they are certainly not the issue.  The issue at hand in this story is the need for interpersonal relationships and responsibilities, based upon mutual recognition of the unique human personality of the other.

 

Yehuda does not understand this and therefore misinterprets her intentions when she demands his personal belongings as collateral.  From his business-like perspective, the only reason that someone would insist upon belongings of a highly personal nature is that they are an effective means of assuring payment.  Tamar, though, is interested in these belongings as expressive of personality and as a vehicle for establishing a personal relationship.  She doesn't want money in return for the sexual favor, her desire is for the establishment of a relationship.  This is what will legitimize and justify the liaison, not Yehuda's sending over a fat check.  However, Yehuda in his current state lacks the awareness and understanding to appreciate this.  He therefore attempts to redeem the personal possessions which he gave to Tamar by sending a courier with a more valuable object (from a monetary perspective) to replace them.  Since it is all about monetary value and not personal contact, there is no problem in having a courier deliver the goat, as long as the price is right.  That he himself should come in person and further the relationship never occurs to Yehuda. 

 

However, the harlot is nowhere to be seen and the people tell his messenger that there never was a prostitute.  Understood in a deeper sense, they are absolutely right - Tamar was not attempting to compromise or entrap Yehuda, so that she could force him to release or marry her, and therefore acting as a harlot for an evening, only to return to conventional life afterwards.  From her point of view, the meeting between her and Yehuda was meant to serve as the beginning of a relationship and therefore even then it wasn't harlotry.  Indeed, if we look closely at the pesukim, it never is written that Tamar dressed or acted as a harlot, only that in YEHUDA'S EYES she was considered as such.

 

Yehuda's response upon hearing that the harlot couldn't be found is revealing.  He instructs his companion to set aside the intended payment "so that we shouldn't lose face." It is not the disappointment or the obligation towards the individual which concerns him, but the fact "that it's bad for the business."

 

The climax is reached at her trial.  Here, too, Yehuda's approach is determined by his perspective, the basis of condemnation being her violation of the family's dignity.  [Rashi and Ramban on Chumash seem to disagree on this point.  Rashi's view is that she was condemned because of the sin of adultery, while the Ramban is of the opinion that the issue is Yehuda's dignity, either as head of the family, or in an official capacity as a local ruler.] Tamar, though, responds by once more reiterating his personal commitment to her.  She produces his personal belongings, emphasizing that to the person whose personality is embedded within these objects and who has been willing to reveal and hand them over to her and to whom she was, and is, willing to establish a deep loving relationship, she is pregnant and obligated. 

 

It is at this point that our sugya chooses to highlight the issue by underscoring and championing Tamar's loyalty by stating that had Yehuda not admitted his involvement, she would never had betrayed him, even at the cost of death.  That is the degree of responsibility towards fellow human beings and the level of commitment towards their needs, even if they have betrayed her, that Chazal attribute to Tamar.

 

The dramatic display of Yehuda's insignia and other private belongings, accompanied by Tamar's impassioned plea that Yehuda recognize his obligations to others and establish personal I-Thou relationships with them, is the climatic point in the clash between the two differing perspectives of Yehuda and Tamar and it achieves the desired effect.  Yehuda undergoes a transformation, recognizes the truth of her words and embraces the relationship. 

 

The presentation of Yehuda's private possessions and the accompanying demand of recognition ("haker na") that place Yehuda at the mercy of Tamar's faithfulness are dramatically associated by our sugya with the preceding episode in the Torah.  There it was he who enjoyed the position of power as his younger brother's fate hung in the balance.  Sitting in his court, with his reputation and dignity at stake, inwardly pleading that Tamar not compromise him, he suddenly realizes the depths of human indifference and callousness that he had reached when he turned a deaf ear to Yosef's pleas. 

 

Yehuda not only recognizes that his behavior at that particular moment was improper.  He achieves a deeper awareness that his entire conduct throughout the episode is based upon his inability to treat others as independent autonomous human beings that are deserving to be treated as subjects, worthy of respect and relationship, and not as a means to his ends.  The sale of a human being as an object is the utter nullification of the human element within him, transforming him from a subject to an object.

 

[This is the reason that the Torah treated kidnapping as such a severe sin and combined the issur of theft with sale, for it is the sale of the kidnap victim that degrades him from a subject into an object (see Sanhedrin 85b-86b for the detailed halakhic discussion of the relationship between the act of kidnapping and the subsequent sale).]

 

The original plan of the other brothers to murder Yosef by throwing him into the pit, while morally heinous, did not treat him as an object.  In this regard, the brothers were more respectful of Yosef than Yehuda.  They viewed him as an enemy towards whom they felt a need to express their feelings of hatred and jealously; such feelings recognize and respect the uniquely human qualities of the rival, even as they attempt to harm him.  Yehuda, on the contrast, viewed Yosef as problem which has to be disposed of.  He does not want to exhibit feelings of hatred towards Yosef, nor does he want to force upon himself the need to take a morally committing position.  His goal is to remove Yosef from the scene without having to dirty his fingers in the process.  He prefers banal, seemingly non-committal evil upon emotional involvement, his perspective being the legal rather than the human aspect of the issue.  As with Tamar, his concern is for himself and his perspective does not take into account the suffering of others.  Neither his father's nor his younger brother's pain and agony interfere with his plans, as he approaches Yaakov and declares: "haker na!"

 

Thus, the sugya draws a direct line between Yehuda's behavior in both cases and sees his humiliation in the latter episode as the return of his own methods upon himself.  Had he not confessed, it would have been retribution of mida kneged mida, if Tamar had so willed.  However, Yehuda's confession and recognition of his errors, elevate it from punishment to Teshuva, from defeat to victory, and from humiliation to catharsis.  Henceforth, Yehuda is a paradigm of loyalty, a transformation that finds expression in his renewed relationship to Tamar, as our sugya emphasizes, and in his efforts and concern regarding Yaakov and Binyamin in his encounter with Yosef (Bereishit ch. 44).

 

Miriam is the second heroic figure that the gemara presents as a paradigm of commitment and loyalty - commitment to an idea and loyalty to a helpless newborn brother.  Here, too, there is a contrast between a woman that advocates the proper courageous course of action and a misguided man that she corrects and steers unto the path of proper action.  The figure in this case is Amram and the problem is despair.  The gemara (11b) identifies a strong strain of despair amongst the male population of Bnei Yisrael in Egypt that expresses itself in the unwillingness to procreate.  Not only is life so difficult and depressing in Pharaoh's gulag that all sexual desire is buried under the oppressive circumstances, but they also see no point in bringing children into a harsh cruel and hopeless existence.  From the vantage point of the enslaved Jews, there is no hope in sight nor do they see any light at the end of the tunnel.  They refuse to expose the next generation to suffering and pain of such a world.  Tired and exhausted, despair is the only emotion that they feel.  The gemara (12a) presents Amram, too, as abstaining from conjugal life, expressing the sentiment that procreation in a genocidal world is futile. 

 

Those who do not despair but insist that survival is possible and, therefore, imperative, that advocate action and hope, are the female characters.  Shifra and Puah care for the newborn babes, look after them and give them gentle and loving care (11b).  Moreover, they have the vision to state that a child will be born who will redeem Israel from the Egyptian nightmare (11b).  It is this same hope that the gemara (12a) attributes to Miriam.  It is she who confronts Amram and insists that there is a Jewish future that must be provided for and attended to through the birth of the next generation.  Despair, not Pharaoh, is the mortal enemy.  Not surprisingly, the gemara identifies Miriam with Puah; both fight for the survival of Jewish boys and see hope in the future and both act with mesirut nefesh to realize these goals.  The same willingness for self sacrifice exhibited by the midwives in their encounter with Pharaoh is displayed by Miriam when she emerges from the bushes to meet Pharaoh's daughter, without taking her own danger into account. 

 

The tension between hope and despair that the gemara presents to us is played out between different figures, who may be representative of a more basic split between classes of people.  [Our presentation has focused upon the gender issue that itself may be dependent on the level of oppression to which each group has been exposed.  Alternately, it is possible to emphasize a generational perspective, esp. since the sugya presents Aharon as cooperating with Miriam (12a), while Yocheved wavers somewhat (13a).] The most intense and interesting drama of the tension between the two poles of hope and despair is yet to played out.  This will be an inner struggle within the soul of a single person in which the pendulum will swing from one extreme to the other and back until the decision will be made in favor of hope and action.  The person is Moshe Rabbeinu and the struggle within him occupies a great deal of parashat Shemot.  It is not part of this aggadata, though, and beyond the scope of this shiur (part of this analysis was presented in a VBM parasha shiur a few years ago; be"h, the rest will also find an audience in due time).

 

SOURCES FOR NEXT WEEK'S SHIUR:

 

You Should finish the aggada at the end of the first perek in the coming week, to the extent possible.  Next week's shiur will discuss "vehalakhta bedrakhav" (14a).