By Rebbetzin Lauren Levin
Parshat Bamidbar sets out the Israelite camp with dignity and splendor. It is like an architectural map of a town before the inhabitants are living in it. This week’s parsha, Naso, considers the human aspect – what life will be like when it is a real live community. As human beings, there will inevitably be those who become discontented – with their job, their marriage, or their living space. Parshat Naso tries to pre-empt these issues by presenting mechanisms to preserve the harmony of the nation come what may.
The delineation of the Levite jobs acknowledges how each branch of the Levites play a critical role in the spiritual service of the Jewish people. The individual mention of each princes offering towards the end of the parsha validates the unique contribution of each tribe, thus boosting national harmony. The sota offers an infrastructure to deal with marital disharmony. And then there is the law of the nazarite at the beginning of chapter six. It too offers a mechanism for finding harmony – for an individual within themselves.
Who was the nazarite? The nazarite refers to someone who takes a vow to abstain from wine and any grape products, and from cutting their hair. At the end of their nazarite period they shave their head and bring an offering to the temple, when they can return to normative life.
What kind of person is the nazarite geared towards? Who is it helping to restore harmony? It remains unclear if the enigmatic passage of the nazarite is for an individual who could achieve more spiritually but feels a lacking in opportunities or for an individual who is struggling and needs a structure to stay afloat.
If it is the former, the nazarite presents a gold standard. For those individuals that can, it is ideal. Just like the kohanim were instructed to abstain from wine when working in the temple so they could retain maximum focus, such abstention allows one to focus solely on their religious life. Arguably the reason why a sin offering was brought when the nazarite period came to an end was out of regret that the person could not uphold such a pious lifestyle indefinitely. R’David Hacohen (1922-1972) was known as ‘the nazir’. Living in Jerusalem, he was known as a saintly character, and it felt apt that as such he was the first nazarite since biblical times.
Maimonides however, did not look upon the role of the nazarite as an ideal but rather as a coping mechanism. Intended for someone who had not found his/her equilibrium, they were encouraged to take a period of time going to an extreme – abstaining from wine that could easily lead to their downfall, whilst they rehabilitated themselves and were then able to return to the golden middle path.
The sages’ choice of haftara offers insight into how they perceived the nazarite. The famous war hero Samson was nazarite from in-utero, as per the angel’s directives to his mother. This would seem to suggest that to be a great leader, one needs to be a Nazarite! Or alternatively, looking at Samson’s tragic end, do we conclude that the nazarite life was too extreme and was destined to fail?
The exact words used by the angel are telling: “For you are going to conceive and bear a son; let no razor touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite to God from the womb on. He shall be the first to deliver Israel from the Philistines.” Samson is destined to achieve greatness; in fact he will be the first to truly deliver Israel from the Philistines. But he can only achieve it with certain accommodations. We all have our weaknesses. The story of Samson encourages us that recognizing our weaknesses does not inhibit our achievements, but actually enables us to give ourselves the requisite support that can help us still achieve our dreams. In presenting the laws of the nazarite, Parshat Naso offers a mechanism for achieving harmony within oneself not through avoiding our flaws but through addressing them.