"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

Wrong Man, Wrong Mission

Manoach and his wife were visited by  an angel of God. The angel informed them that Manoach’s wife would bear a son, who would be a life-long nazir. The haftarah for Nasso closes before we personally encounter Samson, the doomed hero. Upon examining the details of the nazirite vow in parashat Nasso (Numbers 6:1-21), we find that the story of Samson’s pre-destined calling goes against the grain of the biblical laws.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If anyone, man or woman, explicitly utters a nazir's vow, to set himself apart for the Lord, he shall abstain from wine and any other intoxicant; he shall not drink vinegar of wine or of any other intoxicant, neither shall he drink anything in which grapes have been steeped, nor eat grapes fresh or dried. Throughout his term as nazir, he may not eat anything that is obtained from the grapevine, even seeds or skin. No razor shall touch his head; it shall remain consecrated until the completion of his term as nazir of God, the hair of his head being left to grow untrimmed. He shall not go in where there is a dead person. Even if his father or mother, or his brother or sister should die, he must not defile himself for them, since hair set apart for his God is upon his head: throughout his term as nazir he is consecrated to the Lord. If a person dies suddenly near him, defiling his consecrated hair, he shall shave his head on the day he becomes clean; he shall shave it on the seventh day. On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the kohen, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.  The kohen shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, and make expiation on his behalf for the guilt that he incurred through the corpse. That same day he shall reconsecrate his head and rededicate to God his term as nazir; and he shall bring a lamb in its first year as a penalty offering. The previous period shall be void, since his consecrated hair was defiled. This is the ritual for the nazir: On the day that his term as nazir is completed, he shall be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. As his offering to God he shall present: one male lamb in its first year, without blemish, for a burnt offering; one ewe lamb in its first year, without blemish, for a sin offering; one ram without blemish for an offering of well-being; a basket of unleavened cakes of choice flour with oil mixed in, and unleavened wafers spread with oil; and the proper meal offerings and libations. The kohen shall present them before God and offer the sin offering and the burnt offering. He shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of well-being to God, together with the basket of unleavened cakes; the kohen shall also offer the meal offerings and the libations. The nazir shall then shave his consecrated hair, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and take the locks of his consecrated hair and put them on the fire that is under the sacrifice of well-being. The kohen shall take the shoulder of the ram when it has been boiled, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and place them on the hands of the nazir after he has shaved his consecrated hair. The kohen shall elevate them as an elevation offering before God; and this shall be a sacred donation for the kohen, in addition to the breast of the elevation offering and the thigh of gift offering. After that the nazir may drink wine. Such is the obligation of a nazir; except that he who vows an offering to God of what he can afford, beyond his nazirite requirements, must do exactly according to the vow that he has made beyond his obligation as a nazir.

The biblical nazir was a person whose passion for purity drove him to “go the extra measure” by abstaining from intoxicants, by letting his hair grow wild, and by refraining from any contact with the dead - even his own family.

Samson was born into a life-long calling in which he had no voice. Was this a good thing? I ask the question because the Torah requires that the nazir bring a sin offering at the conclusion of his vow. Perhaps there is something less-than-desirable about a holier-than-thou sort of mission. Throughout history and across the cultural spectrum there are people who are driven by the need to experience an ascetic set of experiences. Their zealous devotion is understood as a form of loving God and as a dedication to the sacred. But they are probably very difficult to be around. As for Samson, the hint of tragedy is already in the haftarah - Samson’s life becomes the repayment of a vow made by his mother. When parents - for whatever reason - offer their children upon the altar of their passion, they are composing the lines of what will become a tragic story.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Aaron