The Shas could not put Sotah before Nazir because that would mean that Sotah is next to Nedarim but there is no connection between Sotah and Nedarim.

The answer I gave above is the simple answer according to our text in the Gemara, but the Mefarshim have written a lot more about the order of the Tractates. Possibly most of what they wrote refers to different texts of the words of the Gemara, but there are different explanations concerning why Sotah does not come before Nazir.

1) There is a surprising statement written by the Rambam; in his Introduction to the Mishnah; which is printed at the beginning of volume 1 of the standard Mishnayos and at the back of Maseches Berachos, in standard edtions of Shas. He discusses the order of the Masechtos in Seder Nashim. He writes that Nazir comes after Nedarim because because being a Nazir involves taking a Neder and because the husband can annul the Nezirus of his wife, so it is similar to Nedarim, which is connected to Seder Nashim since a lot of the discussion concerns the husband annuling his wife's vows. So far this is reasonably straightforward but then Rambam writes a big Chidush and states that when the Mishnah finished speaking about marriage it started to speak about divorce. He writes that the order of Gitin follows Nezirus. Rambam writes that after Gitin comes Sotah, whose subject matter is divorce, since the unfaithfulness of the wife forces the husband and wife to divorce.

2) It is clearly very surprising that Rambam writes that Maseches Sotah is after Maseches Gitin. Our Gemara mentions nothing about Gitin but rather states that Sotah is after Nazir. Tosfos Yomtov, in his Introduction to Maseches Sotah, writes that Rambam is not consistent with our Gemara, which starts off "The Tana concluded with Nazir. Why did he teach Sotah afterwards?". It seems from this that there is nothing in-between Nazir and Sotah. In additiion, if it is true that Gitin comes after Nazir, as Rambam writes, the Gemara should have said that Gitin comes between Nazir and Sotah because we are now starting to speak about divorce.

3) Meiri (page 6 of Beis HaBechirah DH LeInyan) explains the opinion of Rambam. He writes that the question of the Gemara here "The Tana concluded with Nazir..." is not consistent with the order of the Mishnah possesed by Rabeinu Hakadosh; Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi; who compiled the Mishnah. In the order of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, Sotah came after Gitin.

There are a lot of questions which still have to be answered, but at least; according to Rambam; we now have an answer to the question, why you can't put Sotah before Nazir? This is because Nazir is connected to marriage; and the husband annuling his wife's Nezirus; whilst Sotah is a part of the second half of Seder Nashim, which deals with divorce.

Why is the order in the Torah different than the order in Shas?

I want to return later, bs'd, to look more closely at the opinion of Rambam and Meiri, but before that I think it is worth looking at explanations from the Mefarshim why Sotah become before Nazir in the Torah whilst in the Mishnah it is the other way round?

There is a beautiful explanation given by Rav Tzadok of Lublin in Pri Tzadik Parshat Naso #13. He writes that the Wriitten Torah hints to us how we should be living. We learn from the account of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanania in the palace of the Ceasar (Chagigah 5b) that in front of the Emperor they spoke in hints and gestures. Rav Tzadok writes that in the same way that in the palace of an earthly king, the conversation is in the way of hints, so too in the Palace of the Heavenly King one speaks with hints. The Written Torah is said before the King of kings. It tells us that if one sees a Sotah in her disgrace, this is a hint to the person who saw this , that the time has come to keep away from wine.

The Oral Torah is different. We have to anticipate things before they happen. Maseches Tamid 32a tells us "Who is considered a wise person? One who sees the consequences of his actions". Even before we see the Sotah woman we are able to understand what the consequences of alcohol are, and keep ourselves safe. Torah She-Baal Peh is about being wise in advance, which is why Maseches Nazir comes before Sotah since we know in advance what the dangers of wine are.

We learn in Bava Basra 12a that a wise person is greater than a prophet. A prophet receives Ruach Hachodesh from time to time, whilst a Chacham is wise all the time. The Written Torah contains prophecies and hints. If one happened to see a Sotah this is a hint to abandon alcohol, but learning Mishnah and Gemara has a higher power, since this way we know in advance what the dangers are. This is why Nazir becomes before Sotah in Shas, because we now know in advance how to avoid Sotah; by controlling urges that may lead to the Sotah way.

The explanation of the Meiri:-

In my second answer above; in item 3); I briefly mentioned what Meiri wrote and I think that looking more closely at his words may help us understand not only the position of the Rambam; that Sotah comes after Gitin; but also our order that Sotah comes between Nazir and Gitin.

Meiri writes that in the order of Rabeinu HaKadosh; Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi; the order in Seder Nashim was Yevamos, Kesubos, Nedarim, Nazir, Gitin, Sotah, Kidushin. It is in itself interesting that the order that we have for the Mishnayos is not the same order that R. Yehuda HaNasi had, even though we know that R. Yehuda compiled the Mishnah. It seems that even though he compiled the Mishnah he did not fix the actual order, but that is out of the scope of our present discussion.

Meiri writes that the reason that Sotah comes after Gitin in R. Yehuda HaNasi's order, is because Gitin and Sotah are one Inyan; they discuss the same issue since the reason a marriage ends in divorce is because of the disruption of the relationship described in Maseches Sotah.

Meiri writes âéèéï äåà òé÷ø äôéøåã åñåèä äåà ñéáú äôéøåã ;"Gitin Hoo Ikar HPirud veSotah Hoo Sibas HaPirud"; Gitin is the actual separation of the couple, whilst Sotah deals with the reason for the separation. [It seems that this is why Gitin comes first in R. Yehudah Hanasi's order, because it is the chief, actual, separation].

I wish here to add an observation which I think is fairly obvious. We have learnt that in R. Yehuda HaNasi's order (which is also the Rambam's order) Gitin came before Sotah. In our order Sotah comes before Gitin. I suggest that the common factor of both orders is that what is most important is that Sotah and Gitin should be next to each other. The difference between the 2 orders is which Masechta comes first, but that is a secondary issue.

It follows that if Sotah were to come before Nazir, we would miss the connection between Sotah and Gitin, which is so important. We would not appreciate the reason why divorce happens. By making sure that Sotah and Gitin are next to each other, we now know how to avoid divorce, by ensuring that we do not get near the Sotah situation.

This fits in well, bs'd, with the explanation of the Pri Tzadik that I cited in my 3rd answer. The way of the Mishnah is different from the way of the Torah. The Mishnah teaches us in advance how to avoid divorce.

Source for Rambam; that Sotah is after Gitin; from Talmud Yerushalmi:-

Tosfos Sotah 3a DH Rabbi refers to the Yerushalmi [at the very beginning of Maseches Sotah] which cites Rabbi Yehoshua who says that the husband is allowed [but not obliged] to be jealous for his wife [and warn her against being alone with a suspect man]. Yerushalmi states that R. Yehoshua follows the opinion of Beis Hillel, in Mishnah Gitin 90a, who mainitain that a man is allowed to divorce his wife even if she only burnt his food. Rabbi Eliezer disagrees with R. Yehoshua and maintains that a husband is obliged to be jealous for his wife if he has suspicions, since R. Eliezer follows Beit Shamai who say that a husband may only divorce his wife if he found that she had been unfaithful. Tosfos (end DH Rabbi) writes that the Yerushalmi is amazing. This is because Yerushalmi holds that a man being jealous for his wife is dependent on divorce. We see this from the fact that R. Eliezer says that he is obliged to be jealous because if he is proved justified in his suspicions he must divorce her. Tosfos asks that according to Yerushalmi it should follow that Maseches Sotah should come after Maseches Gitin since the purpose of the warning given to the wife is to force a divorce if she was unfaithful.

We note that Tosfos asks that, according to Yerushalmi, that Gitin should come before Sotah. Mayim Chayim (by the author of Pri Chadash, printed after Mitzpeh Eitan in the older editions of the Gemara) answers that the Yerushalmi indeed is the source for Rambam [ that I cited in my 2nd answer] who writes that Gitin comes before Sotah.

So we now have (a) the order of R. Yehudah HaNasi (b) Talmud Yerushalmi (c) Rambam (d) Meiri who all say that Gitin comes before Sotah.

And I argue, in a similar way that I argued in my previous answer, that even according to our order in the Mishnah that Sotah comes before Gitin, nevertheless we cannot totally separate it from Gitin by putting it before Nazir. Everyone agrees that Gitin and Sotah are closely connected, and the dispute between our order and the Rambam's order only concerns which comes first.

Dovid Bloom

The first Mishnah in Sotah follows on from the last Mishnah in Gitin:-

1) I want to conclude this topic, bs'd, by looking at Chidushei Chasam Sofer at the beginning of Masechet Gitin.

In DH veHineh he cites Tosfos Yomtov that I mentioned in my 2nd reply, item 2), who asks on Rambam (who writes that Sotah comes after Gitin because divorce happens as a result of unfaithful behavior) that this is difficult from Gemara Sotah 2a. Chasam Sofer answers the challenge of Tosfos Yomtov by noting that Masechet Sotah is correctly placed after Gitin since the last Mishnah in Gitin (90a) states that a man should not divorce his wife unless he found that she was unfaithful. This behavior causes Sotah which is why Masechet Sotah is appopriate after the end of Gitin. However there is also a logical reason why Gitin comes after Sotah; as is the order of our Shas. This is because the last Mishnayot in Masechet Sotah tell us how the generations went down and down. Mishnah Sotah 49a tells us that after Ben Azai died there was no one who learned unceasingly. End 49a states that the Sages started to be like teachers of schoolboys. The common people became worse and worse.

The last Mishnah of Sotah connects up with the first Mishnah in Gitin which also reflects how Torah knowledge was declining. Gitin 2a states that if one brings a Get from overseas one has to say "It was written and signed in front of me". Rabah (2a-2b) explained that this is because they are not expert in the Halacha that a Get must be written specially for the woman being divorced. Rashi 2b DH LeFi writes that those who live overseas are not Bnei Torah.

2) So we have seen that Chasam Sofer gives reasons why according to some, Sotah is before Gitin, whilst according to others Gitin is before Sotah. However almost everyone seems to say that Gitin and Sotah are next to each other, and we can explain this according to Meiri (that I cited in my 4th answer) that Gitin and Sotah discuss the same topic. This explains why Sotah is not before Nazir, because that way it would not have been next to Gitin.

3) Whilst I have cited opinions above that Gitin is before Sotah, it should be pointed out that in most of our collections of Shas, in practice Sotah comes before Gitin. However in the Ein Yaakov editions of Shas (on the Agadot) Sotah is printed after Gitin. So the Rambam's order has survived there. Also in a lot of editions of Talmud Yerushalmi Sotah comes right at the end of Seder Nashim. [There are even editions of Talmud Yerushalmi where there is an opposite phenomena; Sotah comes 2nd in the list after Yevamos. See Pnei Moshe at the end of Talmud Yerushalmi Yevamos for an explanation of that].

Dovid Bloom

Why is the order in the Torah different than the order in Shas?

I want to return later, bs'd, to look more closely at the opinion of the Rambam and Me'iri, but before that I think it is worth looking at explanations from the Mefarshim why Sotah comes before Nazir in the Torah, while in the Mishnah it is the other way around.

1) There is a beautiful explanation given by Rav Tzadok of Lublin in Pri Tzadik (Parshas Naso #13). He writes that the Torah sheb'Chtav (the Written Torah) hints to us how we should be living. We learn from the account of Rebbi Yehoshua ben Chananya in the palace of the Caesar (Chagigah 5b) that in front of the Caesar they spoke in hints and gestures. Rav Tzadok writes that in the same way that in the palace of an earthly king the conversation is in the way of hints, so too in the Palace of the Heavenly King one speaks with hints. The Written Torah is said before the King of kings. It tells us that if one sees a Sotah in her disgrace, this is a hint to the person who saw this that the time has come to keep away from wine.

The Torah she'Ba'al Peh (the Oral Torah) is different. We have to anticipate things before they happen. Maseches Tamid (32a) tells us, "Who is considered a wise person? One who sees the consequences of his actions." Even before we see the Sotah woman, we are able to understand what the consequences of alcohol are and keep ourselves safe. The Torah she'Ba'al Peh is about being wise in advance, which is why Maseches Nazir comes before Sotah, since we know in advance what the dangers of wine are.

We learn in Bava Basra (12a) that a wise person is greater than a prophet. A prophet receives Ru'ach ha'Chodesh from time to time, while a Chacham is wise all the time. The Written Torah contains prophecies and hints. If one happened to see a Sotah, this is a hint to abandon alcohol, but learning Mishnah and Gemara has a higher power, since this way we know in advance what the dangers are. This is why Nazir becomes before Sotah in Shas, because we now know in advance how to avoid a situation of Sotah -- by controlling urges that may lead to the Sotah waywardness.

2) In my second answer earlier (in item #3), I briefly mentioned what the Me'iri wrote and I think that looking more closely at his words may help us understand not only the position of the Rambam (that Sotah comes after Gitin) but also our order (that Sotah comes between Nazir and Gitin).

The Me'iri writes that in the order of Rabeinu ha'Kadosh, Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi, the order in Seder Nashim was Yevamos, Kesuvos, Nedarim, Nazir, Gitin, Sotah, Kidushin. It is in itself interesting that the order that we have for the Mishnayos is not the same order that Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi had, even though we know that Rebbi Yehudah compiled the Mishnah. It seems that even though he compiled the Mishnah he did not fix the actual order, but that topic is out of the scope of our present discussion.

The Me'iri writes that the reason why Sotah comes after Gitin in Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi's order is that Gitin and Sotah are one Inyan; they discuss the same issue since the reason a marriage ends in divorce is because of the disruption of the relationship described in Maseches Sotah.

The Me'iri writes, "Gitin Hu Ikar ha'Pirud, v'Sotah Hu Sibas ha'Pirud" -- "Gitin is the actual separation of the couple, while Sotah deals with the reason for the separation." (It seems that this is why Gitin comes first in Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi's order -- because it is the primary, actual separation.)

I wish to add here an observation which I think is fairly obvious. We have learned that in Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi's order (which is also the Rambam's order) Gitin comes before Sotah. In our order Sotah comes before Gitin. I suggest that the common factor of both orders is that what is most important is that Sotah and Gitin should be next to each other. The difference between the two orders is which Masechta comes first, but that is a secondary issue.

It follows that if Sotah were to come before Nazir, we would miss the connection between Sotah and Gitin, which is so important. We would not appreciate the reason why divorce happens. By making sure that Sotah and Gitin are next to each other, we now know how to avoid divorce, by ensuring that we do not get near the Sotah situation.

This fits in well, bs'd, with the explanation of the Pri Tzadik that I cited earlier answer. The way of the Mishnah is different from the way of the Torah. The Mishnah teaches us in advance how to avoid divorce.

3) There is a source for the Rambam, that Sotah comes after Gitin, from the Talmud Yerushalmi:

Tosfos in Sotah (3a, DH Rebbi) refers to the Yerushalmi (at the very beginning of Maseches Sotah) which cites Rebbi Yehoshua who says that the husband is allowed (but not obligated) to be Mekanei his wife (and warn her against being alone with a suspect man). The Yerushalmi states that Rebbi Yehoshua follows the opinion of Beis Hillel, in the Mishnah in Gitin 90a, who maintains that a man is allowed to divorce his wife even if she only burned his food. Rebbi Eliezer disagrees with Rebbi Yehoshua and maintains that a husband is obligated to be Mekanei his wife if he has suspicions, since Rebbi Eliezer follows Beis Shamai who says that a husband may divorce his wife only if he found that she had been unfaithful. Tosfos (end of DH Rebbi) writes that the Yerushalmi is perplexing. This is because the Yerushalmi holds that a man being Mekanei his wife is dependent on divorce. We see this from the fact that Rebbi Eliezer says that he is obligated to be Mekanei because if he is proven justified in his suspicions, he must divorce her. Tosfos asks that according to the Yerushalmi it should follow that Maseches Sotah should come after Maseches Gitin, since the purpose of the warning given to the wife is to force a divorce if she was unfaithful.

We note that Tosfos asks that according to the Yerushalmi, Gitin should come before Sotah. The Mayim Chayim (by the author of the Pri Chadash, printed after the Mitzpeh Eisan in the older editions of the Gemara) answers that the Yerushalmi indeed is the source for the Rambam (cited above) who writes that Gitin comes before Sotah.

So we now have (a) the order of Rebbi Yehudah ha'Nasi, (b) the Talmud Yerushalmi, (c) the Rambam, and (d) the Me'iri who all say that Gitin comes before Sotah.

I assert, in a similar way to what I argued in my earlier answer, that even according to our order in the Mishnah, that Sotah comes before Gitin, nevertheless we cannot totally separate it from Gitin by putting it before Nazir. Everyone agrees that Gitin and Sotah are closely connected, and the dispute between our order and the Rambam's order concerns only which comes first.

4) The first Mishnah in Sotah follows on from the last Mishnah in Gitin:

a) I want to conclude this topic, bs'd, by looking at the Chidushei Chasam Sofer at the beginning of Maseches Gitin.

In DH v'Hineh, he cites the Tosfos Yom Tov (that I mentioned in my earlier reply, item #2) who questions the Rambam (who writes that Sotah comes after Gitin because divorce happens as a result of unfaithful behavior) from the Gemara in Sotah 2a. The Chasam Sofer answers the challenge of the Tosfos Yom Tov by noting that Maseches Sotah is correctly placed after Gitin since the last Mishnah in Gitin (90a) states that a man should not divorce his wife unless he found that she was unfaithful. Such behavior causes divorce, which is why Maseches Sotah is appropriately placed right after the end of Gitin. However, there is also a logical reason why Gitin comes after Sotah, as is the order of our Shas. This is because the last Mishnayos in Maseches Sotah tell us how the generations progressively descended. The Mishnah in Sotah 49a tells us that after Ben Azai died there was no one who learned unceasingly. At the end of 49a we are told that the Sages started to be like teachers of schoolboys. The common people became worse and worse.

The last Mishnah of Sotah connects with the first Mishnah in Gitin which also reflects how Torah knowledge was declining. Gitin 2a states that if one delivers a Get from overseas he must say, "It was written and signed in front of me." Rabah (2a-2b) explains that this is because they are not expert in the Halachah that a Get must be written specially for the woman being divorced. Rashi (2b, DH l'Fi) writes that those who live overseas are not Bnei Torah.

b) So we have seen that the Chasam Sofer gives reasons for why, according to some, Sotah is before Gitin, while according to others Gitin is before Sotah. However, almost everyone seems to say that Gitin and Sotah are next to each other, and we can explain this according to the Me'iri (that I cited earlier) that Gitin and Sotah discuss the same topic. This explains why Sotah is not before Nazir, as that way it would not have been next to Gitin.

c) While I have cited opinions above that Gitin is before Sotah, it should be pointed out that in most of our collections of Shas, in practice Sotah comes before Gitin. However, in the Ein Yakov editions of Shas (on the Agadot), Sotah is printed after Gitin. So the Rambam's order has survived there. Also in a lot of editions of the Talmud Yerushalmi, Sotah comes right at the end of Seder Nashim. (There are even editions of the Yerushalmi in which there is the opposite phenomenon: Sotah comes second in the list after Yevamos. See the Pnei Moshe at the end of Yerushalmi Yevamos for an explanation of that.)

Dovid Bloom