Question:
The Torah’s Sotah ceremony to check if a woman was unfaithful to her husband required the Beis Hamikdash, a Kohen, sacred water, earth from the Mishkan, and the written passage of Sotah. As we know, it is no longer formally done today. I would however like to know if any alternative form of this ceremony was performed after its discontinuation and the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash to check if a woman was unfaithful to her husband?
Answer:
The authentic Torah ceremony of Sotah was discontinued by Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai toward the end of the Second Temple period. Consequently, it cannot be performed today.
Nevertheless, several later accounts describe extraordinary substitute procedures that were modeled upon elements of the original ceremony. These were not the Torah-mandated Sotah procedure and should not be understood as normative halachah.
The Cairo Genizah Procedure
A mystical text from the Cairo Genizah entitled Inyan Sotah describes a substitute procedure for a time in which there was no Kohen, sacred water, or Mishkan. It instructs a suitably righteous practitioner to use spring water in an earthenware vessel, earth collected from the four corners of the synagogue’s Torah sanctuary, and sacred names that would be written and erased into the water. The text claimed that this could reveal whether the suspected woman was guilty. This was a mystical practice rather than the Biblical Sotah ceremony.
Rabbi Aharon HaBavli
The ninth-century Megillas Achimaatz relates that Rabbi Aharon HaBavli, who traveled from Babylonia to southern Italy, conducted a Sotah-type examination. In place of earth from the Mishkan, he reportedly prepared earth from the foundation of the Aron Kodesh.
The close association of the Sotah test with this substitute earth indicates that the examination resembled the procedure described in Inyan Sotah.
The Chida’s Extraordinary Story
A later account relates an incident involving Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, the Chida, while serving in Livorno, Italy. A Kohen complained that his wife had secluded herself with another man. The Chida ruled that the husband must divorce her, but the other judges challenged him because there were no witnesses proving misconduct.
The Chida summoned the woman, removed a Sefer Torah, and read the passage of Sotah aloud in her presence. As she turned to leave and stepped onto the first stair, her face reportedly changed color, her eyes protruded, and the physical consequences described in the Sotah passage occurred. The account states that the townspeople later covered the upper stairs leading to the Chida’s room with gold as a memorial to the event.
Unlike the earlier procedures, the Chida reportedly used neither water, earth nor sacred names. He only read the Torah’s Sotah passage before the woman. This story appears in Shivchei HaChida and was also cited in Orchos Yosher of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky stated that up until World War 2, these gold steps were visible.
Si’ach Sarfei Kodesh records another incident involving a woman against whom rumors had circulated. She was brought before the Maggid of Tirhovitz, who took out a Sefer Torah and read the Sotah passage before her. After completing the reading, he declared that if the suspicion was false, she should merit worthy children. The account states that she subsequently gave birth to two distinguished sons, Rabbi Yekusiel and Rabbi Yitzchak Ber. Here, the reading did not punish the woman but reportedly demonstrated her innocence and was followed by a blessing.
Conclusion:
The Biblical Sotah ceremony was not continued after its discontinuation and cannot be performed without its required Temple conditions. Nevertheless, historical and mystical literature records several attempts to employ Sotah-inspired examinations after the Temple period—sometimes through water, earth and sacred names, and sometimes merely through reading the Sotah passage. These accounts should therefore be described as extraordinary substitutes or miraculous episodes, not as continuation of the formal halachic Sotah ceremony.
Sources:
Mishnah Sotah 9:9; Sotah 2b; Rama E.H. 178:7; Orchos Yosher of Rav Kanievsky Hashgacha p. 26; Sefer Shem Hagedolim Hachadash 8:29; Inyan Sotah, a magical text from the Cairo Genizah; Megillas Achimaatz, ed. B. Klar, p. 17; Shivchei HaChida, printed in Ma’agal Tov, p. 28a–b; Si’ach Sarfei Kodesh, Vol. 3, p. 150, §379; Yaakov Yisrael Stahl, “Substitutes for the Sotah Test in Later Times,”