For the source text click/tap here: Sotah 26
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“And she shall be cleared, and shall conceive seed” (Numbers 5:28), indicates that if she was barren, she will be remembered and conceive a child; this is the statement of Rabbi Akiva.
Rabbi Yishmael said to him: If so, all the barren women will seclude themselves with other men, and they will be remembered and conceive after drinking the bitter water and being found innocent; but that virtuous barren woman, who does not transgress the prohibition of seclusion, since she does not seclude herself with other men, she loses the opportunity to receive this blessing.
We explore the threat of becoming a South to induce the promise of pregnancy.