Timeless Torah

Life, as described by the Kabbalists, is a marriage of body and soul. The soul is to be considered the active, vital force in the relationship, which in the language of the ancient mystics is its ‘male’ component. On the other side of the relationship is the body, which at first glance seems to be nothing more than the vessel that receives the soul and channels its energies. To paraphrase once again the kabbalistic parlance, it is the ‘female’ partner of the relationship.
Common wisdom has it that spirit is loftier than matter and thus the soul is automatically superior to the body. There is much credence given to this perspective as it is the soul which maintains a perpetual awareness of its Creator. In contrast, the body which is susceptible to the enticements of the physical is often the culprit in man’s tendency to forget, stray, and betray.
But this is a ‘male’ vision of life. From this vantage point the body is at best no more than a servant of the soul, a mere conduit of the divine. But there also exists another perspective on reality; a perspective in which being is greater than doing, and earthiness is truer than abstraction.
Our Sages tell us that this truth will be realized when the supremacy of the female will come to light: A time when the material will equal and surpass the spiritual as a vehicle of connection to G-d: A time when the soul shall draw its nourishment from the body.
Therein lies the deeper significance of the laws of the sotah (the wayward wife), legislated in the fifth chapter of Numbers. Therein we are told the story of a man who suspects his wife of unfaithfulness and has evidence that substantiates his fears. The Torah states that the woman was brought to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem where the Kohen would fill an earthen vessel with water from a Temple well and mix in earth from the Temple grounds. The priest would then inscribe the oath of faithfulness (recorded in the passage) upon a parchment scroll, which he also placed in these “bitter waters.” When the words were finally dissolved in the water, the suspected wife would be compelled to drink it.
This unique ceremony only available to us in antiquity produced miraculous results. If the woman had been indeed guilty of adultery, the mixture of “bitter waters” would spell her end. If however, her husband’s suspicions were unjustified, this magical potion not only didn’t harm her in any way, it actually enhanced her relationship with her husband and the productivity of her marriage. Understandably, this open manifestation of G-d’s intervention in our lives eventually ceased when the era of kings, prophecy and Temple was no longer part of our Jewish landscape.
It is significant that the suspected wife was vindicated by means of water placed in an earthen vessel. This stands in stark contrast to the law regarding the Chanukah lights, which instructs that one should avoid kindling them in a clay lamp or other earthen vessel. The reason given is that the placement of oil in such utensils yields unaesthetic results. Indeed, the lights in the Holy Temple, (after which the Chanukah lights are modeled), were lit with the finest olive oil in a candelabrum of pure gold. While the Chanukah lights are not held to such a high standard of purity, they do require a utensil of metal or any other easy to clean material.
Why is there such a distinction between these two models; one demanding the purest of oils, the other satisfied with simple water? And why do both ceremonies that originate in the Holy temple diverge so drastically; the first to be housed in a Menorah which in our tradition G-d Himself fashioned, the other ending up in an undistinguished piece of pottery?
The Chanukah lights proclaim the supremacy of spirit over matter. It is only natural that something of such a spiritual character would shun the earthen vessel. The spirituality of Chanukah is also expressed in its oil, whose nature is not to mix with other liquids but to rise above them, as spirit holds itself aloof from the physical and the earthly.
But there is also a fluid of another sort. “The Torah has been compared to water,” writes the author of the Tanya, “Because just as water tends to descend from a higher place to a lower place, so has the Torah descended from its place of glory, until it has clothed itself in physical things and in matters of this world.”
When a soul contemplates the body and finds her a “wayward wife,” contentious to his spiritual goals, he may wish to conveniently blame it all on the body’s physical and earthly drives. But if he truly desires to achieve harmony between them, he must learn to incorporate her feminine vision into their marriage. He must understand that life is more than spiritual oil flickering in vessels of purest gold; it is also water that gravitates earthward to fill the most material containers with its divine essence