Then the Lord spoke to Moshe, “Speak to the Israelites. Say, “When a man or a woman takes a special
vow, the vow of the Nazarite, to separate him or herself to the Lord, he must
separate himself from wine and strong drink. He must drink neither vinegar made from wine
or vinegar made from any other strong drink, nor may he drink any juice made
with grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins.
All the days of his separation he must not eat anything that comes from
the grapevine, from seed to skin.
All the days of his separation vow, no razor shall
touch his head. Until the completion
of the time for which he separated himself to the Lord, he shall be holy and
must let the locks of his hair grow long.
All the days of his separation, he must not come near a dead body”
(which includes those of his close relatives). All the days of his separation he is holy to
the Lord.”” (Numbers 6.1-8)
Parashat
Naso describes the laws of the Nazir or Nazirite as he is termed in
English.
If a man
or woman felt the need to attain a higher level of holiness and consecrate
themselves to Gd, they could do this by taking upon themselves three vows.
1.
To refrain from partaking of any grape based product. This symbolised a desire to reject the
pleasures and excesses of ordinary life of which wine and grapes are key
constituents.
2.
To demonstrate their commitment to their new
lifestyle by significantly altering their appearance through not cutting their
hair or shaving their beard.
3. To avoid any contact whatsoever with a dead body, even to the extent that they wouldn’t be able to attend the funerals of their nearest and dearest relatives. This ensured that they were able to remain in a state of absolute spiritual purity throughout their nezirut (the period of time that they were permitted to be a Nazirite).
I should
point out that although these laws referred to all Nazirites, in this Drasha, I
will be focussing on those individuals who chose to take the Nazarite vow as
opposed to those like the Prophet Samuel or Samson (the subject of this week’s
Haftarah) who were born into this status and spent their entire lives as
Nazarites.
Although
the idea of a Nazirite and the restrictions they choose to put themselves under
seem strange to modern day audiences, they aren’t as unusual as we might
consider them to be.
Do you
know someone who has participated in the annual Dry January campaign initiated
by Alcohol Change UK? Doesn’t that tick
a similar box to the Nazirite’s first challenge?
What
about Movember, the awareness campaign for men’s health (focusing on
areas such as prostate cancer or suicide prevention) where gentlemen refrain
from shaving their moustaches throughout the month of November (hence the
name)?
The idea
of giving up ‘something’ for a greater cause is not that unusual. Beyond our own religion, it is common for
many Christians to abstain from some of their favourite food products over the
period of Lent.
Back to
our Nazirite.
Most adhered
to their vows for a month before going through the process of reintegrating
into society by bringing a young sheep as an elevation offering, a ewe as a sin
offering, a ram as a peace offering, a basket of unleavened bread and other
items. They would shave their head and
burn their newly cut hair in the fire beneath the sacrifices (see Verses 13-20
for a full description).
On the
surface, the lifestyle espoused by the Nazirite is very commendable. Who wouldn’t want to take on an existence
that was more aesthetic in nature? That
is for one small wrinkle in the process the Nazirite goes through as part of their
reemergence into society. Have you asked
yourself why the Nazirite was required to bring a sin offering?
Surely,
taking on such a holy existence could not warrant the need to atone for
anything, could it?
Rabbi Sacks ztl quotes a disagreement between the Sages spanning the Mishnaic, Talmudic and Medieval Ages and I will be referencing his masterful Dvar Torah, ‘Naso: Two Versions of the Moral Life’ in his ‘Essays on Ethics’ (pp 221-225, Maggid, 2016).
Rabbi
Elazar and the Rambam viewed the Nazirite as being praiseworthy precisely
because he had chosen to take on a higher level of holiness but in leaving this
behind was now guilty of the sins inherent in returning to his pre-Nazarite
state.
Rabbi
Eliezer HaKappar and Shmuel took a different approach. Where our protagonist had sinned, lay not in changing
status from being a Nazirite to a non-Nazirite but in taking on the vow in the
first place. In doing so, Rabbi Eliezer
states, “From this we may infer that if one denies himself the enjoyment of
wine is called a sinner, all the more so, one who denies himself the enjoyment
of other pleasures of life” (Tannit 11a; Nedarim 10a).
Their
viewpoint was that this world and its pleasures which have been created by Gd
must be appreciated and not denied by anyone.
It is an affront to the gifts we receive on a daily basis from the
Almighty.
Some non-Jewish
nations espouse a monastic life but this is not the Jewish way of living.
Hence,
the requirement for the Nazirite to bring a sin offering. Either for taking on the said restrictions in
the first place (as per Rabbi Eliezer HaKappar and Shmuel) or for leaving them
behind (quoting Rabbi Elazar and the Rambam).
If these
were the only two approaches, the following viewpoint would not be so
intriguing.
The
Rambam, whilst appearing to agree with Rabbi Elazar’s viewpoint, also veers
towards Rabbi Eliezer and Shmuel’s ideas as expressed in his Mishneh Torah. So, he holds sway with both the positive and
negative arguments!
In
Hilchot Deot (The Laws of Personal Development 3.1), he writes:
A person may say, “Desire,
honour and the like are bad paths to follow and remove a person from the world. Therefore, I will completely separate myself
from them and go to the other extreme.” As a result, he does not eat meat or
drink wine or take a wife or live in a decent house or wear decent clothing...this
too is bad and it is forbidden to choose this way.
However,
in Hilchot Nezirut (the Laws of the Nazirite 10.14), he rules in accordance
with Rabbi Elazar’s evaluation:
Whoever vows to Gd (to become
a Nazirite) by way of holiness, does well and is praiseworthy…Indeed Scripture
considers him to be equal of a prophet.
How can the Rambam take both sides of the argument...all the more so in the same book?
Rabbi
Sacks explains that the Rambam understands two ways that a person can live a
moral life, both as a saint (which he called a Chasid) and a sage (Chacham).
The
latter, the sage, follows the ‘golden mean’ or ‘the middle way’. Life is a journey between balancing too much
and too little. Sometimes, we are courageous
but this finds us placing ourselves between cowardice and recklessness. The degree of our generosity lies between
‘over’ and ‘under’ or as Rabbi Sacks terms it ‘profligacy and miserliness’. That is the sage, the Chacham.
The
saint, or the Chasid does not follow this middle way. They tend towards extremes. Fasting when they should be eating moderately
or embracing poverty rather than acquiring modest wealth. They may become a saint because of a
life-changing experience such as surviving a serious illness or heaven forbid,
the loss of loved ones. They respond to
this by trying to improve themselves through radical means, either spiritually
or via increased physical exertion. This
is the Chasid.
For the
Rambam, both approaches are recognised by the Torah. If our lives were linear in nature, the way
we responded to them would also be linear.
But that’s not the case. Each of
us will probably face challenges that demand of us to be a saint or a sage. A Chasid or a Chacham.
If we
decide to go down the saintly route (as per Rabbi Sacks), will we give more
money to Tzedaka than to our families? Will
we forgive those who carry out actions that are unforgivable? Society cannot be formed out of saints if you
wish to enforce a just and fair rule of law.
It is
noteworthy for a person to try to be a saint because we need good people to
populate our troubled societies but we also need sages to ensure that balance
exists. Extremism must be kept to a
minimum and goodness, engendered by the saintlier members of society, is shared
with those who are not of the same disposition.
A look at
the Rambam’s life demonstrates that he would have liked to live as a saint and
he longed for the seclusion granted to a Nazarite, in his role as a saint. But he also realised that he had to be a
sage, for the sake of his family and the global community that approached him
for advice.
His
adoption of the middle way meant that, whereas he appreciated the positive
outcome gained through being a Nazarite, he believed that one cannot
permanently remove oneself from the society in which one lives. Not if you want to play a crucial role in the
community’s development and growth.
‘Dry
January’ and ‘Movember’ are effective campaigns because they allow us to take
on personal restrictions that focus our minds on the target at hand over a
dedicated period of time. These
constraints make our lives different precisely because we know that as of the
start of February and December respectively, we return to who we were before
and reclaim the lifestyle we previously led.
The only difference is that, with hindsight, we can appreciate how much
we achieved in the preceding month.
Similarly,
the Nazirite decided to take stringencies upon themselves in the knowledge that
these would eventually be relaxed. It
was the journey they went through during the period of their abstinence that
made the greatest impact on them. As a
result, they returned to society and, hopefully, played a more active and
constructive part than they had before they undertook their vow.
If we all
adhered to walking ‘the middle way’, this world would be a much more pleasant
environment in which to live. We can be
both saints and sages as long as we ensure that moderation is that heart of our
decision-making process.
