Understanding "The Bruriah Incident"

Question

Masecheth 'Avodah Zarah (18b) cryptically mentions "מעשה דברוריה" - "The Beruriah Incident" - as a reason R' Meir fled to Bavel. Rashi (ad loc) explains that R' Meir was teasing his wife (the noted scholar Beruriah) that she would one day admit that the rabbis were correct when they said "נשים דעתן קלות הן" - "Women's intellects are light" (my own translation, but its actual meaning is subject to dispute). To that end, he asked one of his students to "test her to a matter of sin" (presumably this means to seduce her sexually). After resisting for "many days", she succumbed, and when "she realized", she hanged herself and R' Meir fled out of shame.

According to the above-linked Wikipedia entry on Beruriah, Rashi is alone in his explanation of the incident, and there is a tradition among Orthodox rabbis to name their daughters after her to defy that story and reclaim her name as a righteous and scholarly woman of Israel.

My question:

a. If Rashi's explanation is correct, what was R' Meir thinking?? Even if it was to goad his wife to some non-sexual sin, what about Lifnei 'Iver? What happened to loving and honoring one's wife?

b. If Rashi's explanation is incorrect, where on earth did it come from, and what was he thinking??

Answer 1

R. Eitam Henkin (R. Y.H. Henkin's son) wrote an essay on the curious Rashi.

He claims there that the text attributed to Rashi was a later interpolation by an errant student, since it is not referred to by any of the subsequent commentaries for centuries. His argument is not the usual "must have been an errant student" type, but rather is quite convincingly laid out from textual evidence.

He concludes (based on another rishon) that the simple understanding of the maaseh referred to on 18b is actually the maaseh mentioned on 18a about Beruriah and her embarrassment:

ברוריא דביתהו דר' מאיר ברתיה דר' חנינא בן תרדיון הואי אמרה לו זילא בי מלתא דיתבא אחתאי בקובה של זונות שקל תרקבא דדינרי ואזל

Beruria, the wife of R. Meir, was a daughter of R. Hanina b. Teradion. She said to R. Meir 'I am ashamed to have my sister placed in a brothel.' So he took a tarkab-full of denarii and set out.

Answer 2

The reason he chose such an extreme way is, the statement is referring to a women's particular ability to judge in an extreme sexual challenge. (Rashi kidushin 80 b) And not at all to a women's knowledge in general, as we know B'rurya was extremely wise and knowledgeable.

In the original saying "women's knowledge is light on them" "דעת" is translated as knowledge, in Genesis when referring to the tree of knowledge a more accurate translation to biblical "Daat" should be- ability to judge or understand good and evil. (Ibn Ezra Genesis 2:17 )

Answer 3

If the story was found in the margin written by an 'errant' student, what might the student's motive to do this, commenting on this highly respected torah scholar a thousand years after she lived?

If there is any truth to the story, the yeshiva student sent to 'seduce' Beruriah was violating halacha by being in the home of Rabbi Meir without his presence. Surely, a tzadeket of the stature of the wife of Rabbi Meir would not allow this. Perhaps she was raped and a false story was fabricated to cover the criminal's crime? Not unheard of. Hanging herself after this humiliation would not be the first or last time a woman did this after being raped and unable to prove it.

Too many questions to believe this story at all as factual.