Imagine if on Tuesday, Elon Musk picked up the phone and said, “Hey Donald, we need to talk.” Or, if he thought that would go nowhere, instead of publicly posting his displeasure on social media, he made a few calls to key congressmen and senators and explained to them why he thought the Big, Beautiful Bill was not that beautiful.
Imagine if on Thursday, President Trump would have stuck to the script of a boring meeting with the German Chancellor, and spoke about Germany, or Russia, or anything other than Musk. Or, if he had to say something, instead of saying, “Elon and I had a great relationship, I don’t know if we will anymore,” he instead said, “Elon and I had a great relationship, and I hope we can work this out.”
Imagine if a little later that day, instead of starting a dispute about how crucial Musk was or was not for Trump’s election, they both would have stayed focused on what they were actually arguing about, the bill, and not bring the past into this debate.
Imagine if Musk would not have sent out a poll about the need for a third political party and in doing so inviting others to join him in his anti-Trump crusade.
Imagine if Trump would not have shared more dirty laundry, letting the world know that he had kicked Musk out of the administration.
Imagine if Trump did not call Musk crazy, and Musk did not call for Trump’s impeachment.
Imagine if Trump and Musk would have stopped at any point in this feud and had a conversation.
But none of that happened.
Instead, astronauts in the International Space Station had to panic that they were going to be stranded in space, Tesla’s stocks dropped even further, Trump likely lost 100 million dollars’ worth of campaign contributions, Musk will likely be investigated for drug use while part of the administration, and Trump’s bill is now even less likely to pass.
And lest you say, the only losers are Republicans, that’s not true. The country as a whole is once again a laughingstock to the rest of the world, which undermines our power and security. And, public discourse has hit an all-time low.
We have all come out as losers.
Rashi in Parshas Korach comments that “Beis Din, Jewish courts, only punish adults, but machlokes, disputes, even punish little babies.” Arguments are described by our sages as an all-consuming fire. It starts off small and contained, but before you know it, it is completely out of control.
As extreme and comical as this Musk-Trump feud may sound, it’s a story that we are all too familiar with. A husband and wife start fighting about why someone didn’t load the dishwasher and before they know it, they are in a two-week spat in which no kind words are shared between them. A son feels like his father didn’t respect him and so he stops taking his father’s calls. Two siblings can’t agree on how to take care of their aging parents and years later don’t sit shiva together. A friendship is lost over a careless remark and decades of connection are forgotten about and erased from memory.
Nobody wins. Everybody loses. And it’s not just those who are fighting, but everyone around them. Whose side are you on? How could you talk to my ex? How could you say something nice about my sister after what she did to me?
“Beis Din only punishes adults, but machlokes punishes little babies.”
Most often what gets in the way is our ego. “They’re wrong, I’m right, why should I make the first move?” “They’re wrong, I’m right, why should I be the one to apologize?” “They’re wrong, I’m right, and I am not willing to move on until they acknowledge it.”
Our parsha contains one of the most misunderstood Mitzvos in the Torah, the parsha of the Sotah. It’s often framed as a misogynistic attack on women. The alleged female adulterer is paraded for all to see and is punished in a most violent and public fashion. But our Sages in the Talmud take a very different view.
For starters, they pick up on the nuances of the Torah’s text that begin the story by highlighting the inflexibility of the husband. “Ish, ish” by being overly manly, by being so domineering and not being open to the needs and view of his spouse, the Torah takes him to task for pushing his wife to look for connection outside the marriage.
What follows is an escalation where the wife engages in behavior that leads the husband to suspect his wife. It then escalates further when he includes others by warning his wife in front of two witnesses to not seclude herself with her suspected adulterer. She then goes ahead and secludes herself with said suspected adulterer with two witnesses having seen them go behind closed doors. At this point, most marriages would be over. How could they ever trust one another again? How could they ever reconcile after so much distance and distrust?
Enter the Sotah waters. G-d creates a supernatural test to clarify what happened behind closed doors. If she is innocent nothing happens to her, if she is guilty, she suffers a gruesome death. But the objective of the waters is not to punish the wife. If the suspected wife chooses, she could just say, no, I will not drink the water, this marriage is over. She is not compelled to drink the water and take this test. More than that, the Talmud tells us that when adultery was rampant, the sages abolished this entire ritual. And that’s because it was never about punishment.
So what then is the goal of these waters? Explain our Sages, it is to bring peace between husband and wife. The objective is to prove her innocence, to teach us that there is always hope, that haters can become lovers, that no matter how many years of pain and silent treatments and disgust exist between two parties, shalom, peace, is possible. The hope is that she drinks these waters and nothing happens, and in doing so, this paves the way for the husband and wife to reconcile.
G-d conveys this message in the most powerful way. The third commandment is not to use G-d’s name in vain. Jews are hyper-sensitive to writing G-d’s name on a piece of paper because it might end up in the trash, there are no shortage of laws that reflect the reverence we must give G-d. And G-d says, “Take my name, that really holy name, Yud, hey, and vuv, hey, and erase it in the waters that you will give to the Sotah.”
What Hashem is trying to tell us is that His dignity is worth negating if it means bringing peace between two parties. If His dignity is worth negating, what does that tell us about ours? Parshas Sotah is G-d’s way of telling us to get over ourselves, to stop waiting for the other party, to stop standing on principle, to stop holding back just because you might be right.
The Chofetz Chaim related a story that took place in the late 19th century. Two men in a Jewish community got in a fight. One of the men was wealthy and used his wealth to help Jewish boys avoid the Czarist draft. Back then, being conscripted to the army was a death sentence for Jewish boys. His disputant, we’ll call him Reuven, threatened to go to the authorities and let them know that this leader had used his influence illegally. The only problem was that Reuven’s son was saved from the draft thanks to the efforts of this leader. Reuven’s wife turned to him, “Are you crazy? If they go after this guy, that means that our son will be conscripted to the army?!”
Reuven’s response was, “I don’t care.”
We may be right, we may be owed an apology, we may have every justification in the world. Donald Trump and Elon Musk would tell you how it’s important to double down because that’s how you show how strong you are. But they’re wrong. They are destroying themselves and everyone around them.
Making ourselves vulnerable is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of G-dliness. Apologizing, breaking the silence, taking the first step forward, getting over our dignity, “erasing our name,” these are signs of greatness.
גדול השלום”
Great is peace,
ששם הקדוש ברוך הוא ימחה על המים להטיל שלום בין איש לאשתו
for the Name of the Holy One Blessed be He, is erased to bring peace between husband and wife.”