cellio | daf bit: Sotah 2

We start a new tractate this week, Sotah. The sotah ritual is described in Numbers chapter 5; if a man accuses his wife of unfaithfulness but there aren't two witnesses to testify against her, he can force her to undergo a ritual in which a kohein (priest) writes a curse on parchment and dissolves it in water, she drinks the water, and if she's guilty she will become visibly ill and die. If she's not guilty, nothing happens and she is declared to be innocent. (There's much more detail in the torah passage.)

The first mishna of the tractate teaches: a man can warn his wife not to associate with a certain man (of whom he is jealous). This warning requires two witnesses. Then if she associates with him anyway, R' Eliezer says he can force the sotah ritual with one witness while R' Yehoshua requires two witnesses. (The man can be one of the witnesses.) These witnesses are testifying to opportunity; if there were two witnesses who directly witnessed them having relations, we'd be out of sotah territory and into adultery territory instead.

If the man warned his wife and she then talked with the other man, she is not yet forbidden to him -- they can continue to have marital relations. But if she was secluded with him long enough for them to act, then she is forbidden to her husband until the matter is resolved and, should he die before the sotah ritual is completed, she is not eligible for levirate marriage (wherein his brother would marry her to, effectively, continue his marriage to produce a child). (2a)

(Today's daf is 3.)