Tractate Sotah is the Talmud part which deals with straying women, who must swear that they are innocent, if there is no evidence that they went astray, and who will then be presumed not guilty. Mere suspicion on the husband’s part can be overcome by the wife taking an oath.
The most peculiar part of the tractate, however, is the part in which a woman who is presumed to have given reason for suspicion can be forced to drink water mixed with floor-sweepings from the Temple - the sweepings or dust have to be poured upon the water, not the water upon the sweepings or dust. The exact amount of sweepings or dust, or substitutions for same if housekeeping has been by recently, is a matter of discussion.
After describing the meal offering which is to be made, the tractate veers off into legal differences between the genders, defilement, food, languages which can be used ritually, priestly benedictions, the king’s reading on the feast of tabernacles, military clergy, exemption from military service, and the breaking of a heifer’s neck.
Makes for some dynamite reading.
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