This was the D’var Torah I gave for Parashat Naso, May 22, 2021. The references here are to the Covid-19 pandemic at that time, as well as the attacks by Hamas of that year and the fighting between Jews and Arabs within Israel proper that flared up in some places. I am leaving as they were at that time; it sounds both different but quite parallel in some ways too.
I try not to assume that my own emotional state is like yours, and that the way the Torah speaks to mine necessarily will speak to yours. I have been for the past couple of weeks spiritually stretched, exerted, not in a bad way. Exhausted might be another word, though I feel a bit self-indulgent to say this knowing that any exhaustion here is a small fraction of what our family members and friends in Israel have been facing, including the physical exhaustion of nights of sirens and bombs but not limited to that. Still with digesting the CDC on mask wearing and Israel’s war with Hamas, and all the emotional energy flowing between people because of those, it has been kind of exhausting and I hope maybe we can permit each other to express that in the right spirit.
On Shavuot I felt that the chag itself was saying this year: Yes, you’re spiritually stretched right now and still it’s a perfect time to ask you to open up to all the Torah, all of it, because you can handle it. The Divine trusts you in this moment to receive it and not be overwhelmed, and indeed Torah is considered by the Sages to be like an intravenous infusion of life-giving. And I did help myself to feel that way on Shavuot, with the help of the Divine; I had moments of really standing upright and being able to take more Torah than I thought I could. But I hoped that Torah the rest of the week, the week of Parashat Naso, could let me rest from that. The ceasefire we pray will hold, again our Israelis need it literally in terms of life and death and safety, but a lot of people in the shul have communicated just how exhausting it’s been to be in touch with people who have attacked Israel online so angrily, and who have attacked people here for mentioning our people in harm’s way or just pointing something out. Even resting from that doesn’t come easy. That’s why we have to take on Shabbat beginning every Friday evening, why that first part of the service is called Kabbalat Shabbat, “receiving Shabbat.”
So today we are taught about the nazirite, the Nazir. This is a person who takes on certain extra obligations for a period of time, such as not drinking wine and not cutting hair and avoiding contact with a dead body, even if a parent dies. One thing that is interesting about the Nazir is what our commentaries do with this figure. They latch on to one particular detail about the ritual for transitioning back from N’zirut to regular life, and that is a specific sacrifice — the chattat or so-called sin offering. Why does a Nazir who has freely taken on some extra restrictions on top of the 613 mitzvot already there have to bring a chattat?
There are at least three kinds of explanations given and I want to suggest that they correspond to three responses to what’s been exhausting this week as a Jew or an ohev Yisrael, one who loves the people of Israel.
Rabbi Elazar Hakappar, followed later by the illustrious Maimonides, says: It’s a criticism of trying to be a Nazir in the first place. You don’t have enough obligations already that you want more? The Sages of the Talmud as a majority say the sin offering is because the Nazir didn’t do a good enough job being a nazir, and specifically did not succeed in staying away from dead bodies. The sin offering is because once you entered into this other state, it’s not okay to choose to come out of it.
Interpretation #1 — Rabbi Elazar Hakappar and Maimonides say the sin-offering is for being holier than thou, when thou is already held to a pretty high standard. The Torah says that being a Jew means imitiating God, who the Torah also tells us is both ohev amo Yisrael and ohev ger — that the Divine love extends to the people of Israel and to other people who live among us, whose destiny is with ours. And we are commanded therefore specifically to love our neighbor as ourselves and to love the ger, to love the one who is not like us but lives among us as ourselves. That’s how the Torah articulates the relationship between Jew and Arab, at least when the Arab is not shooting at the Jew. That’s not extra; that’s in the baseline Torah. Isn’t that enough Torah to try to live up to?
This version of the Nazir stands in judgment and says that’s not enough, that there is a higher plane even than this. Maybe this Nazir says not only do you have to find a love for the enemy, you can’t even say “enemy” or criticize the one you are in conflict with, even say “enemy” to part of them or temporarily. I think Rabbi Elazar Hakapar would say it only looks like a higher humanistic morality, but it’s not a moral language if you can’t differentiate between attacks that are different. It’s not a higher plane when you demand that someone justify why their love for a fellow Jew, and special consideration for their actions, is not ipso facto racist.
To Rabbi Elazar Hakapar, this Nazir thinks we can avoid wine, we can always be level-headed, and we can avoid cutting our hair, paying attention to how we appear in the eyes of others; we can avoid death, meaning avoid being related to any harm that comes to others; and we can correct ourselves by specifically distancing from the death of those closest to us. But in fact the Torah is for a world where we’re not level-headed all the time, we have ups and downs; and we do have to deal with how our actions appear and at its best we use that as a mirror to elevate ourselves; and we can’t individually take ourselves away from the real world where even self-defense includes hurting others sometimes. And caring for our own dead does not prevent us from caring about others, but should be a starting point for that larger caring.
The sin offering, for Rabbi Elazar Hakappar and Rambam, means: this kind of Nazir first has to master what it’s like down on this plane with us and do their best to love and understand Jews and Muslims, to love and understand Christians and Druze in the Holy Land, to care about the wellbeing of Israelis and Palestinians as the Divine does and as the Divine calls us to. Rabbi Elazar Hakapar says it’s deflating when someone tells you that the Torah is not demanding enough, and denigrates your love of Israel in that process.
Interpretation #2 of the Nazir — The rest of the Sages say that the sin offering is for not being good enough at avoiding dead bodies. I think this isn’t a contradiction of the first view but actually complements it. The Sages say it’s just not possible to separate yourself from death completely. There’s no way of life that doesn’t have a moral cost, a cost in suffering and a cost in lives. There is no ideology so pure. It’s worse to separate yourself and pretend that’s the solution, the way to no more death. It’s worse to disconnect yourself and simply point the finger at others who are responsible for death. Because in the process of distinguishing your purity from a whole group, making that the most important distinction, this kind of Nazir could well end up justifying Hamas, justifying death. And this Nazir-type critic has no more answer about the fate of Jews in a binational state than do the true racists among Israelis they lump all Israelis in with.
Interpretation #3 from Nachmanides — the sin of the Nazir is coming out of the state of N’zirut. It’s picking and choosing when it’s convenient to separate yourself ethically and claim a higher plane. If you’re going to take a position, says Nachmanides, you have to really take it. Be accountable not just by who you separate from, and who you group up with, that’s just step one — but really be accountable, everywhere. I actually don’t mind the idea of holding Israel to a “higher standard”, which I hold it and us to as well. What bothers me is when people claim to be committed to that higher standard, but in reality it’s only for the weeks when Israel is in the news, and afterward they don’t continue to follow through.
Don’t get drunk on any self-righteousness, and as for cutting your hair, if you’re going to leave the world of what you take as conventional appearances don’t ask for praise or recognition in the process. If you want to be far from death, hold yourself to protecting the lives of everyone involved.
The law of the Nazir and the sin offering teaches that Torah is enough as it is; it’s an ethic for the real world. The Torah of love your neighbor and love the ger never lets us off the hook, and that’s plenty demanding enough. I think the Torah, if we really understand it, is already more demanding than what has been thrown at us from other corners the past few weeks. It’s not a cop-out to say let us live by our Torah, and in the process we will love and care about our fellow Jews. And you others can love them too, and love us, and care about us, because you’re our friends. We can ask other people to allow us the pain that comes with being Jewish this month. Be with us, even, in that pain, not exclusively us but us too, just as you do on our days of remembrance for the Shoah, because hurting is hurting, and we hurt, and even when we seem so powerful you understand that the traumas of our past are still with us and compound the danger of the present. Everyone knows what that’s like at some time. Give us that. Don’t be such a Nazir that you separate from us, or look down on our Torah. It’s through our Torah and our love of Am Yisrael that we will become, in time, co-authors of peace for Jews and Arabs.
Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol Yisrael v’al kol yoshvei tayvayl — May the One Who figures out peace up in the heights far away, where it looks a bit easier, make peace for us right here, for all the Jewish people, and for all people everywhere. To that we shoud all be able to say Amen.
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