This week's Torah portion, Naso, features one of the most fascinatingly bizarre rulesets in Torah: the ritual to be performed if a husband suspects his wife of adultery.

In my d'var at Radical Torah this week I draw on writings by Blu Greenberg and Rabbi Judith Abrams to bolster my notion that this text, while problematic for the contemporary feminist, is redeemable. And then I spend a little while looking at what Torah tells us about the grain offered at the beginning of the Sotah ritual:

I'm fascinated that the barley flour brought as an offering in this instance is not anointed with oil, nor glorified with frankincense, because it is an offering of jealousy. (Everett Fox calls it "a grain-gift of jealousy / grain-gift of reminding that reminds of iniquity.") There's a poetic kind of appropriateness to the lack of oil and spice. Jealousy negates what is rich and valuable and beautiful. When jealousy consumes us, we are dulled in a way that obscures the flavor of our relationships, even our relationship with God.

Read the whole thing here: Jealous bread and bitter water.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Torah.