"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24)
OK, so today isn't Sunday (or Saturday, depending on who you ask concerning which day the Sabbath really occurs). And that's not the main topic of today's post, although I found myself pleasantly surprised with the decent weather we've been enjoying up in Northfield. Honestly, I wouldn't mind a warm and sunny winter this year. I really wouldn't.
On to today's topic...
Alternate post title 1: "Who'd'a thunk the book of Numbers could be PG-13?"
Alternate post title 2: "Sacredness of a woman's womb"
[Now you see why I rated this post PG-13. I'm a guy, and I kind of feel weird talking about this, but at the same time, today's reading combined with relatively recent past readings kinda made me think. So here goes...]
After having read AJ Jacobs' book (and currently in the process of re-reading it), I found myself a little more interested in going through the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible, for those who care about political correctness). Today I found myself starting to go through the book of Numbers, the point in the Torah I had stopped a couple years ago during a previous attempt ["http://n8daoggblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/so.html"] ["http://n8daoggblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/im-no-job.html"] to read through the early Scriptures. I came across this passage about a ritual people would perform when a man would bring in his presumed-unfaithful wife to the priest. I'm not going to quote the whole thing (it's rather long), but I will break it down into sections.
The first section (Numbers 5:12-13,15): "If any man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, if a man has had intercourse with her but it is hidden from her husband ... (basically a couple more instances that could apply to the situation) ... then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour ... (plus a couple other provisions for said offering)." This section is the statement of the issue, in this case, infidelity or suspected infidelity. I will go ahead and say now that while this ritual, like many others in the early books, are considered obsolete, there is a point to it I will explain after the story is all told.
The second section (Numbers 5:16-18): "Then the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord; the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. The priest shall set the woman before the Lord, dishevel the woman's hair, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. In his own hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse." In the rest of this section, the priest makes the woman take an oath to drink a water that would put a curse on her if she were unfaithful (specific details to the curse's effect not intended for children 12 and under). Conversely, if she had been faithful, then the water would have no effect on her.
The third section basically has the priest write down the curse and then wash it off into the water, then has the woman drink it. The priest will also take the grain offering that the man (the accuser) gave him, and offer it to God. It can be a potentially very humiliating scene, one that apparently stays with the woman (if she is indeed to have been unfaithful) for the rest of her life.
Were I to have come across this passage anytime earlier in time, I probably would have brushed it off and called it unimportant. After all, Christians say that Jesus' death and resurrection made many rituals as outlined in the Hebrew Bible defunct. But having read Jacobs' book has drawn me back, to understand the significance of them. The passage goes on to say (Numbers 5:29-31): "This is the law in cases of jealousy, when a wife, under her husband's authority, goes astray and defiles herself, or when a spirit of jealousy comes on a man he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall apply this entire law to her. The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity."
In his book, Jacobs tackles the issue of impurity, specifically not touching women in the first week after their discharge (like I said, content may not be suitable for children 12 and under). At first glance, it seems quite absurd that said individuals would be considered "unclean" at this time, but what he had gathered was that it signified respect for them, and for the loss of a potential life, rather than an act of shunning them. In the movie "The DaVinci Code" (and I assume the book as well), the characters talk about the womb's sacredness, specifically the Virgin Mary's. The chalice (for those who don't receive traditional communion, it's a cup in which wine or sometimes grape juice is poured and given for churchgoers to receive towards the end of a Sunday service) also resembles this symbol.
This argument could very well translate to the significance behind this ritual and argument against infidelity. Going off the sacredness-of-the-womb theme, if one is unfaithful, it could be seen as a loss of sacredness. The individual who cheats defiles her womb, and therefore (at least symbolically) part of her dies. I can understand that. I myself find beauty in purity, and in today's society it appears to be quite sparse.
On the other hand, I don't exactly think it's a good idea nor necessary to render a woman barren via some kind of weird potion in response for infidelity. I mean, I understand the kind of frustration that might come with a loss of purity and sacredness, but that's just taking it too far. Besides, the same passage also lists the woman as completely under her husband's authority. Why should he decide what happens to her body? And if it's right that he should have such powers, shouldn't she then have at least a say in what happens to his body? (As in, castration for him sleeping with another woman?)
Maybe we're focusing on the wrong part of the moral. Far too many people are obsessed with sin and punishment, as if everyone should have their reproductive system removed when they make even one mistake. If that were true, the human population would probably be 1/10 of what it is now. Instead, maybe we should celebrate purity and those who succeed in staying pure. That's the tactic teachers are encouraged to employ with at-risk children; focusing on positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement. At the very least, we could let God handle all those negative cases. He would do a much better job at it than all of us.