“If thou hast gone aside, being under thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee besides thy husband … the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causeth the curse; and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter.” This is the titular “bitter water,” a Jewish trial by ordeal discontinued around 70 AD. Among Rabbinical scholars, the fate of the women cursed is a subject of debate: perhaps it caused a false pregnancy, or maybe an abortion, or even death. In her debut novel, Bitter Water Opera, Nicolette Polek, an acclaimed short story writer and recent graduate of Yale Divinity School, suggests that, for an artist, the bitter water might bloat into artistic ambition.
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