He shall make her drink the water, and if she is impure and deceived her husband, the lethal waters will enter into her and be bitter. (Bamidbar 5:27)

What would you do? Your business was owed a $100,000 tax refund from the U.S. Government. Somehow, Uncle Sam made a mistake and sent you 2 checks for $100,000. What would you do with the second check? Side note: you checked with your accountant and there is a very small chance – very, very small chance that the Government will realize their mistake.

In this week’s parsha, the Sota process is explained. A married woman was caught sneaking around with another man and no one knows if she did something forbidden or not. When the Beis HaMikdash stood, there was a process where should would drink bitter water which would prove her either guilty or innocent. The Midrash explains, one time there was a woman who tried to beat the system. She knew she was guilty and was on her way to drink the bitter water, when she passed her sister’s house. Her sister happened to be an identical twin and she was not unfaithful to her husband. So, the sisters came up with a plan. The innocent sister would take the place of the guilty sister and drink the bitter water. The plan worked! Or at least it seemed to. The sisters joyously celebrated together with hugs and a kiss. When they kissed each other, some of the bitter water left on the innocent sister’s lips touched the guilty sister’s lips making her die. The lesson of the story is clear: even if you can fool people, you cannot fool Hashem. Hashem sees everything and knows everything. If a person deserves punishment, Hashem knows this and He will make sure the person gets the proper punishment. Hashem watches everything you do.

Recently, this message was made very clear to me. One morning after I had returned from shul, a neighbor called asking for advice. There was a car parked in front of her house on the swail (which is the grass between the sidewalk and the street) and it had been there for close to an hour. The motor was running and the windows were tinted so no one could see inside. I told her to call the police and have them send someone over. A few minutes later, two police cars showed up. After a few minutes, a policeman came to my neighbor’s door to explain what was going on. It turned out the car had a personal investigator inside of it. The investigator was hired to follow someone and had a video camera facing down the street in his car. This made me think: we all have an investigator with a camera faced right at us who is watching us every moment of our lives. He is not in a car though but in Heaven.

The story in the first paragraph above is a true story of something that happened to a Jewish man. So what did he do? He called up the IRS and asked them how he could return the overpayment. They gave him the instructions and he sent back the $100,000! This was only done because this man realized Hashem knows everything and he would not gain by keeping the money. Hashem would work it out to make the person lose that money anyway.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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