The Miracle of Purging Adultery

The Ramban states that there is only one open miracle in the Torah that is part of the fabric of everyday life – and that is finding out the adulterous woman!

Nothing more and nothing less than having her drink bitter waters, that taste like ink, the flavor of Hashem's name being erased, careening through her intestines. The bitterness, writes the Ramban, comes up to her lips at the same time as her hips, the place where she sinned, dislocate, and her inner organs distend and spew out of her body.

Why is adultery such a grave sin – one of the Ten Commandments – and if God had to choose one open miracle, why did it have to be this?

Shlomo Hamelech prays to Hashem when he consecrates the Beit Hamikdash that all prayers come to that place and even if a person can't seek justice within the normal legal realm, Hashem should hear his prayer and do justice by him.

It would seem, thus, that the reason is two-fold. Both for the one above, that a man really can't know if his wife has done anything behind closed doors (the same goes for the other way around), and so, he needs to invoke Hashem's help, in our case, in a very demonstrative way.

But perhaps, secondly, and more importantly when the sanctity of the very identity of our parents becomes obfuscated, and unclear, and the integrity is eroded to the point where we can't even know who our parents are, Hashem, whose presence is extant when that love and trust is present between husband and wife, needs to intervene and secure and ensure the sanctity of His very own name by allowing it to be erased, so that it can be sanctified again!

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