Then the priest is to
take holy water in a clay bowl, and take some of the dust from the tabernacle
floor and put it in the water. Numbers 5:17
The
first century Aramaic translation of Yonatan ben Uziel offers a symbolic
explanation for the requirement to add dust to the “curse bearing water,” which
is used to test the Sota (a wife
suspected of committing adultery): “since the end of all flesh is dust.”
Based
upon Yonatan’s suggestion, it seems that there is no special significance to
taking the dust from the tabernacle floor, since all dust conveys the same
symbolism. Apparently, the reason to take dust of the tabernacle floor is
simply practical, since that is the dust which is immediately accessible to the
Kohen.
Unlike
Targum Yonatan, Tzror haMor explains that there is great symbolic
meaning to the command to take the dust of the tabernacle floor (and
subsequently of the Temple, as the Mishna [Sota 2:2] describes).
Our Sages’ tradition is that the dust of which Adam was created was taken by
the Creator from the Holy Land, as Scripture states:
Then the Lord God formed
a person from the dust of the ground (Hebrew: adama, which can also be
translated “land”) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that
he became a living being. Genesis 2:7
This
dust was taken from the Land of Israel, as the verse says “from the land” – the
well known Land. (This comment of Tzror haMor is based upon a statement
of Zohar: [Leviticus 46:2] “’Dust of the land’ – this is the dust of the
Holy Land, since it is from there that Adam was created.”
The
dust of the Land is holy, therefore the Torah commands taking dust from the
tabernacle floor “to test if this woman’s body has the holy dust of man’s
creation, or if she has profane dust, rather than that of the Land.”
That
is, the body of a woman who has not sinned is indeed made of the dust of the
Land, while the sinner’s body, as it were, is made of the profane dust of the
lands outside the Holy Land.
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