Jun 10/06 - Nasso - “Lonelier Than You Can Ever Imagine”

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence M. Pinsker

 

Because our congregation follows the triennial division of Torah reading – reading only one third of a given week’s Torah portion each year,  it’s easy to overlook an important feature of this week’s portion. If you look at the complete portion and its traditional curious division into seven aliyot (Torah honours), you will see that the first three and the last three aliyot for Naso are extremely short. The fourth aliyah, however, is unusually long and contains three important texts, one dealing with the Sotah, a woman accused of being unfaithful to her husband, the Nazir, a person who undertakes a special regimen of religious self-discipline, and Birkat Kohanim, the special benediction that the kohanim – the priesthood – are charged with delivering to the Israelites.

 

Usually the division into the seven Aliyot is more or less quantitative. Seven people are called up, so we divide the weekly portion into seven sections that are roughly equal in length so that a short aliyah will not be perceived as a lesser honour. The divisions also were made with awareness of the content of each aliah in order to ensure that no aliyah ends on a depressing or negative note.

Sometimes, however, sometimes the divisions are qualitative and were designed to emphaszie theological and philosophical matters. An easily-understood example is found in parashat Ki Tissa, which includes the story of the Golden Calf, the second aliyah — by long-standing practice given to a descendant of the tribe of Levi — is unusually long —and covers the entire story of the Golden Calf. Why? — because the Levites are the heroes of the story, refusing to join the other tribes in worship of the Calf. This particular aliyah is the way in which we honour their integrity.

A second example is the Tochacha (“the Warning” which we read only a few weeks ago and in several months again in the book of Deuteronomy). The text is not divided and is custemarily not even given to synagogue regulars because of its negative content. Instead, the aliyah is bestowed upon the ba’al koreh – the person doing the Torah reading – or, if he is Jewish, the synagogue ritual director or shammes.

I would like to suggest that the purpose of this special division of aliyot in this week’s portion is an acknowledgement of the unique status of the three special classes of Israelites: the sotah, the nazir, and the koheyn.  

 

1) The Sotah, a woman accused of adultery by her husband, must undergo a unique rite – the only instance in Torah in which a person is required to undergo a test – an ordeal – in order to prove innocence. The ritual of the sotah requires that the woman must drink a “cup of bitter waters,” a potion that will harm her only if she is guilty. As Judith Antonelli (In The Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah) has pointed out, this ritual which seems so disgusting to us was

 

“in the context of the ancient pagan world, … literally a godsend. In both Egypt and Babylonia, a woman accused of adultery could be — and usually was — killed by her husband. Court trials for women accused in this way were not instituted in the pagan world until 18 BCE under Roman law. Thus sotah functioned as a means of protection for innocent women, preventing them from being murdered by abusive, irrationally jealous husbands.

 

2) The Nazir. A text within the Babylonian Talmud tells about a young man in ancient Jerusalem who watches the ritual of the sotah through the gates of the Temple and inquires about what happened that would cause this woman to end up in such an embarrassing position. He is informed that the sotah had too much wine to drink and behaved improperly in the company of other men. According to the text, the young man says to himself: if this is what wine causes, I will not drink wine.

 

The Talmudic tale says that the young man then took an oath to live as a Nazir – this is the second unusual status found in the fourth aliyah in this week’s portion. The institution of the Nazirite was a method for permitting the ordinary Israelite – male or female – to devote him- or herself to God, even if he or she were not a priest or Levite. It should be noted, however, that unlike in some other religions, the Nazirite was not separated from the community and did not become celibate.

 

The Nazir vows to abstain for a specific period of time from alcohol, from fruit that can be fermented and from cutting one’s hair and (in the case of men) trimming one’s beard. Is a nazir  more pious, more meticulous in observance of other mitzvot (commandments) and careful about behaviour toward others?  Shall a nazir (or nezirah – in modern Hebrew the word is now used to designate Catholic nuns) be commended for greater self-control? Possibly – but the Talmud also reminds us that when the nazir ends this special time of abstention,  he must bring a korban chatat, a sin offering at the end of his period as a Nazir.

 

What was his sin? It has been suggested that those who took such vows wanted to be pious beyond what can and should be expected of people living their ordinary lives, that a nazir violates the warning of Kohelet: ahl tehi tzadik harbei. “Do not be too righteous.” To live in God’s presence and in the company of our fellow human beings doesn’t require us to be excessively pious – only that we make the effort to be responsible to both God and other people.

 

3) The Koheyn. Which brings us to birkat kohanim the priestly benediction, the third of the three major elements in the fourth aliyah.  The kohanim are responsible for administering the ordeal of the sotah and supervising the commitment of a man or woman to the vows of nazirut. The priesthood are also charged with reciting this blessing over the assembled Israelites – a positive commandment and an extraordinary responsibility for the kohanim.

 

What links these three priestly tasks? In the first two, the priest must respond as others express a need in a specific situation, but the koheyn is not the central figure. This command is directed to the priests: “Speak to Aaron and his sons saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the people of Israel; say to them….” The Talmudic Sages teach that blessing the people is the duty of the priests, a positive commandment for them and them alone, to be performed daily first in the Tabernacle,  later in the Temple, and whenever people came to worship.

 

I would like to suggest that in linking the ordeal of the sotah, the nazir, and the koheyn priest blessing the Israelites, our ancestors wanted not only to note the role of the priest in addressing the distress and loneliness of those who committed wrongs against those who love them or could not cope with the ordinary course of life, those who are seized by jealousy over alleged spousal infidelity and those who are jealous over the real and imagined power of religious leaders.

 

If a sotah was isolated, if a nazir or nezirah lived in a bubble of his/her own fashioning, so, too, the ancient priest was alone in his duty to the entire community. Charged with the task of being the conduit for (NOT the source of) God’s blessing, the koheyn bears the unique burden of knowing human beings at their most fearful, vulnerable, difficult, uncontrolled, unclear, and most dangerous moments. The koheyn must cope with their flaws, their fears, their flights from their place in a community that needs them and wants them to return to their rightful place as partners in responding to life’s challenges. For all that the kohanim stood at the middle of the ebb and flow of ancient Jewish life, they were never permitted the full shamanic regalia of other ancient priesthoods. They were, in all matters, limited in how they could intercede and had no magical or supernatural powers. They were charged with addressing the loneliness of imperfect, conflicted, frightened human beings — and thus were burdened with knowing humanity more intimately and more starkly than anyone else. They knew how we suffered – and because they were lonelier than we can ever imagine, their compassion was a radiance from the heart that knew no bounds. Their burden and their glory is to remind us all of God's eternal pledge never to give up hoping in the ultimate maturation of humankind.