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Parsha Ponderings – Naso – Taking Up the Quill, and Prescribing the Pill

‘דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם איש או אשה כי יפלא לנדור נדר נזיר להזיר לד

 

 

 

Speak to the Israelites and you shall say to them: A man or woman who shall do something fascinating and take a Nazarite vow of abstinence for the sake of Hashem

 

 

 

In presenting the laws of Nazir, the Torah makes a rare departure from its storyline to make the observation that what the Nazir is doing by taking additional prohibitions upon himself, is something fascinating and out of the ordinary (see Ibn Ezra).

While it certainly is quite remarkable, it seems difficult to accept that the Torah would go out of its way simply to commend the Nazir on his unique accomplishment. What, we must wonder, was the Torah trying to impart by telling us how great and awesome what the Nazir is doing is?

Rav Tzadok of Lublin, in his classic work Pri Tzadik, offers a fascinating explanation for the Torah’s fascination with the Nazir. Our Sages, quotes Rav Tzadok, state that what drives the Nazir to take on his vow of abstention, is the fact that he was witness to an adulteress woman being subjected to the Sotah process. Fearing that he may be influenced by the immorality he observed, he feels it necessary to distance himself from wine which brings to lewdness, lest he share a similar fate.

Thus, explains Rav Tzadok, the will of the Nazir to take on a vow derives from a deeply-held feeling that this is what is necessary for him to maintain his spirituality. And indeed, the moment he does take on the vow, he becomes obliged to adhere to it just as if it were one of the 613 commandments of the Torah.

That, says Rav Tzadok, is what is so fascinating about what the Nazir is doing. He is not merely taking on a vow; he has in essence been empowered by God to write his own personal Torah, with rules and regulations all of its own, and is now executing that most awesome of powers.

As a nation, we were given 613 Mitzvos. As individuals, however, we were invested with the awesome power of recognizing our own faults, creating our own “commandments” [a.k.a. vows] to address those faults, and having those commandments ratified by none other than God Himself, as sacrosanct. Can there be anything more fascinating than executing that power? Can there be anything more obligating than identifying our own faults, devising our own plan to overcome them, and then taking up the quill of God and writing that plan into law?

The safeguards we know we need to keep ourselves in line, are no less inviolable for us, than the Mitzvos are for all of our nation. What is fine for our friend, may very well be a cardinal sin for ourselves. Each and every one of us has an absolute obligation, to undertake the fascinating task of writing our own personal rule book. We must dig deep within our hearts, identify what we must take on so that we can be virtuous, and observe with fascination as our resolutions take on the gravity of Torah itself, demanding to be observed and promising to exhilarate.

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