Pensamento Judaico sobre Levítico 5:15

Problems in the text of our Parshah. 1) Why was the subject of me-ilah, trespass against temple treasury property, divided between this Parshah and Leviticus 5, 15-16? 2) The language employed by the Torah about the doubts concerning the wife's infidelity, is strange. After all, she is to drink the waters that contain either the seeds of her destruction, or prove beneficial when her status is in doubt, not when her status does not seem to be in doubt? Rashi's explanation certainly does not follow the plain meaning of the text, nor does it deal with apparently superfluous statements. 3) When discussing the Nazir, the statement in verse four "from anything....he must not eat," covers all details. Why then list the details? Why is the sentence "all the days of his vow" repeated three times?

3)(Ibid. 19:20) "if he lies … with a maid-servant betrothed to a man, and she has not been redeemed (with money), or freedom has not been given to her" (by writ). This master uses his maid-servant as such and also for cohabitation. This is not the Blessed One's will. It is, rather, that he free her and take her to wife as a free woman. And if he does not free her, she is "bikoreth" (Ibid.), i.e., hefker (not "bound" to another, [see Ramban]), both vis-à-vis the master and vis-à-vis another. So that if one lies with her, he is not considered an adulterer since she has not been freed, only a free woman being considered married (as we find with respect to a yefath toar [a woman taken captive in war, Devarim 21:14: "You may not sell her since you have taken her to wife.") Now this woman, in one respect, is her master's, he having bought her and obligated himself to feed her, so that it is not fitting that she make herself hefker to others or that others treat her as hefker. Therefore, one who lies with her is a sinner. But, in another respect she is hefker, for the Torah punishes the master, that she not be to him as a married woman so long as he has not freed her. Therefore, if one sins with her, he does have some extenuation and (in this respect) an offering atones. The guilt-offerings of abuse (of sacred objects), of the Nazirite, of the leper, and the suspended guilt-offering are not relevant in this connection, for they are all brought for unwittingness or for a sin unknown to the sinner. For in respect to abuse it is written explicitly (Vayikra 5:15) "If a man commit a trespass and sin unwittingly in the holy things of the L-rd, etc." The Nazirite brings his offering to atone for a previous sin, unknown to him, wherefore he is, as it were, anathematized by G-d, who, not accepting his Naziritism, causes someone to suddenly die upon him and render him tamei (viz. Bamidbar 6:9). The leper, too, is anathematized by G-d (viz. #45), not knowing why. And, in respect to the suspended guilt-offering, it is written explicitly (Ibid. 18) "And the Cohein shall atone for him for his unwitting sin wherein he erred."