Naso- ‘There is NO moral equivalency!’
For Year 2 of Parsha Lesson, I will be focusing on one practical middah, character trait, to think about in the week ahead and steps we can take to attain it.
Background
In this week’s Parsha we learn about the ‘sotah,’ the ‘wayward wife’. The Torah lays out for us a process whereby a woman who is suspected of having been unfaithful can either be vindicated or found to have strayed. As part of the process the woman drinks a special drink which contains Hashem’s name in it which will ultimately show whether or not she is innocent or guilty.
The Medrash tells us that the water for this special drink is taken from the ‘kiyor’, the special container of water from which the Kohanim would wash their hands before doing the service in the Beis Hamikdash. The reason for why the water for this drink was taken from the kiyor is because the kiyor was made out of the mirrors that the Jewish women used in Egypt to beautify themselves for their husbands.
The Eitz Yosef (a commentator on the Medrash) explains that specifically the kiyor, made by the mirrors of these righteous women, will be able to properly ‘accuse’ an unfaithful woman who herself descends from these same righteous women. The waters of the kiyor will ‘stand as the prosecutor’ and will claim ‘how can the daughter of such righteous women sink to such degradation?”
Question
It would seem to not be such an accusation! True, the righteous women of Egypt used these mirrors to beautify themselves for their husbands, and throughout the long enslavement of Egypt not one (!) strayed unfaithfully. However, the very tool that they used to enable intimacy with their husbands would seem to not be a very good ‘prosecutor’ of a woman who was unfaithful!
In fact, it would seem to be that the ‘wayward wife’ is a descendant in fact and in deed of this particular aspect of the women of Egypt’s otherwise righteous lives. How can this specific aspect, beautifying themselves in order to encourage their husbands, be seen as not only completely different than the wayward wife’s behavior, but in fact an indictment of the ‘wayward wife’?
Answer
Even though there may seem to be similarities between the righteous women of Egypt beautifying themselves for their husbands and the wayward wife’s behavior, they are in fact not at all similar. One is an act of faithfulness and the strengthening of the bonds between husband and wife and building a holy union into which Hashem himself is a partner, while the other is an immoral degradation and descent which causes discord and hatred.
When one looks into the circumstances, intentions and context of the actions of these two women’s behaviors, one sees two completely different stories: one an immoral rebel who has, with her actions, caused domestic destruction and corrupted that which is upright and the other a righteous woman who was the source of the holiness of the Jewish nation.
Lesson
One can look at very similar actions in a myopic vacuum and see people and situations that are ‘morally equivalent’, when in reality they are completely and diametrically opposed to each other.
Over the last couple of weeks there were in the world many people who were expressing tremendous outrage at Israel for ‘killing civilians’ and accusing Israel of being the same, if not worse, than the terror group Hamas. The truth could not be more different. But people, with an agenda and with a bias towards a certain narrative that they prefer, want to see both upstanding and righteous people as being ‘pretty much equal’ to people that are evil.
This corrupted moral judgement would be similar to viewing as evil a person who kills someone who came to kill them. In fact, the person defending themselves is even more evil- they in fact killed their attacker while their attacker only attempted to commit murder!
While the folly of such equivocating can seem to us to be foolish and outlandish, the lesson we need to take is the ability for people to rationalize. In situations where we prefer a certain narrative, are we not just as egregious in our judgement?
It is incumbent on all of us to see where WE may be afflicted with this same in our own areas where we have bias. How often do we interpret our friend’s behavior negatively and then interpret our own exact similar behavior positively? How many times do we rationalize our own bad behavior with equivalences to other people with righteous behavior?
First Step
The First Step towards developing as a person and growing is to take a hard, critical look at our own behavior. The Ramchal in his sefer (book) on ethics and personal growth, Mesillas Yesharim, advises a person to first analyze a situation from an outside perspective and determine first ‘what is good and right and what is bad and wrong’ and only then, afterwards, to apply it to one’s own life.
One must first gain moral clarity and judgment in situations where one is not biased and then, honestly and earnestly, put their behavior up against the barometer that has been established.
Have a wonderful Shabbos!
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
