It’s Never Too Late

This week’s Torah portion discusses a situation where a woman (the sota) is accused of adultery by her husband. This married woman had secluded herself with a man other than her husband long enough to cohabitate with him. Prior to this event, the husband warned her not to seclude herself with the man, but the woman did not heed the warning and put herself again in a precarious situation. Two witnesses testified that they had seen the married woman and the man alone together, ruling out an overly paranoid husband.

There is a very detailed – and supernatural – protocol how to determine whether this woman is guilty or innocent. If the woman is proven innocent, then the Torah tells us that she will “bear seed”. The famous Torah commentary, Rashi, explains this to mean that she will have children and if previously had a difficult labor, she will now have an easy one. Other famous Torah commentaries, the Ibn Ezra and Rashbam, explain this to mean that God will bless her with a child to compensate her for her ordeal. (5:11-28).

While it is very nice that God will bless her with a child for her troubles and humiliation, she is not completely innocent. The whole situation came about because she secluded herself with a man after her husband already asked her not to. Why then is she rewarded?

Lesson:

While we all strive towards being our best self, sometimes we make mistakes. Thank God, we’re human! There are those mistakes that we make and only realize that we erred after the fact. Then, there are mistakes that we make and become aware of during the act of making the mistake. There are also mistakes that we make, being fully aware that they are not the right decision, but feel that the right decision is too difficult and beyond the grasp of what we can do.

The sota in this week’s Parsha makes a mistake, not just once, but twice. She didn’t randomly find herself in this precarious situation; she put herself in this situation. Rabbi Elya Lopian zt”l explains that despite setting herself up for failure, she overcame her yetzer hara, her evil inclination, at its peak and was able to withstand her temptation.

While we sometimes know we are making the wrong decision, we think that we are already so engulfed, so far down the wrong road, that it is too late to turn it around. However, the sota teaches a beautiful lesson that it is never too late to grab hold of your yetzer hara and do the right thing. It is for this reason, for turning herself around despite being so far down the wrong road, that she is rewarded.

It is never too late to turn things around and change direction, to reel ourselves in, regardless of where we currently stand. And when we do, God will no doubt reward our efforts, courage, and resolve, just like He did with the sota.

Exercise: If you become aware mid-transgression, stop yourself from going any further. For example, you are talking to your friend and before you know it, you are in the middle of relaying some juicy gossip. Instead of thinking it is too late, you might as well finish the story, reel yourself back in and stop yourself from transgressing further.