{"id":11808,"date":"2008-06-05T16:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T16:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/masechet_sotah_1319\/"},"modified":"2015-10-29T09:32:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T14:32:24","slug":"masechet_sotah_1319","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/torah\/masechet_sotah_1319\/","title":{"rendered":"Masechet Sotah 13a-19b"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coming Week’s Daf Yomi by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz<\/em><\/p>\n

This essay is based upon the insights and chidushim (original ideas) of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, as published in the Hebrew version of the Steinsaltz Edition of the Talmud.<\/em><\/p>\n

This month\u2019s Steinsaltz Daf Yomi is sponsored by Dr. and Mrs. Alan Harris, The Lewy Family Foundation, and Marilyn and Edward Kaplan<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Sotah 13a-b<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Continuing the discussion of examples of middah ke-neged middah\u00ad<\/em> (measure for\u00a0 measure) in a positive sense, the Mishnah<\/a> (9b<\/a>) points to Yosef<\/a> who personally took responsibility to bury his father (see Bereshit<\/a> 50:7<\/a>) and in turn had his own burial needs tended to by Moshe<\/a> (see Shmot<\/a> 13:19<\/a>), who, in turn was buried by God, Himself (see Devarim<\/a> 34:6<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Our Gemara<\/a> discusses how in the midst of preparation for the Exodus, while the rest of the Jewish people were busy taking property from the Egyptians, Moshe chose to involve himself with the mitzvah<\/a><\/em> of tending to Yosef’s bones, preparing to take them to Israel. It was, apparently, a difficult task to find Yosef’s remains, and the Gemara offers two explanations as to where they were. According to the first, he had been place by the Egyptians in a metal box and placed in the Nile so that its waters would be blessed by his presence. The second possible place is suggested by Rabbi Natan<\/a> who says that he had been buried in the kabarnit shel melachim<\/em> – apparently the burial cavern of the kings. In either case, the Gemara describes how Moshe called out to Yosef asking him to reveal himself in order to be taken for burial in Israel.<\/p>\n

The Maharsha<\/a> points out that according to the Midrashim<\/a><\/em>, it was not only Yosef’s remains that were taken out of Egypt during the Exodus; all of the tribes took their forefathers’ remains with them. Nevertheless, only in Yosef’s case had the Egyptians taken an interest in burying him according to their traditions. Therefore, in all the other cases the place where the father of the tribe was buried was well known.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Midrash<\/em> offers an alternative reason to why Yosef had been placed in the Nile – that since the Egyptians knew that Yosef had made his brothers swear to take his remains with them to Israel (see Bereshit 50:25<\/a>), they hid him in the hope that it would keep them from leaving.<\/p>\n

\n

Sotah 14a-b<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rabbi Hama bar Chanina<\/a> taught that the passage commanding us to walk in tandem with God (Devarim<\/a> 13:5<\/a>) cannot be understood literally because God is an all-consuming fire (see Devarim 4:24<\/a>). Rather we must understand this to mean that we should follow in the way of God, emulating His deeds.<\/p>\n

For example –<\/p>\n