Naso

Parshat Naso has always been a little complicated for me. In my feminist past the thought of “sotah” was fairly sickening. For those that don’t know sotah was a practice in which wives accused of adultery would have to drink a mixture. If she was innocent she would become pregnant and if guilty she would die. From the outset it looks a lot like jealous husbands intimidating women. Understandably this idea used to upset me quite a bit. You may be wondering why it doesn’t upset me now. Well…I was getting to that. Patience, my friends.

The sotah concept is placed directly before the Nazarite description. A Nazarite was a man that took a vow (usually of 30 days) in which they did not drink wine, have sexual relations, cut their hair, or come into contact with a dead body even to attend the funeral of their own parents. Afterwards they would have to offer up a sin offering to the priest. Why do they need to offer a in offering? They couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong during that period?

Wow, reader. You cease to amaze me with your insightful questions. The juxtaposition of the Nazarite and the Sotah is fascinating. On the one hand, you have the (supposedly) adulterous woman that gives into her physical desires and overindulges herself. Then you have the Nazarite that completely deprives himself of all physical enjoyments. It has been explained to me that the Nazarite gives a sin offering because of the mitzvoth that he cannot possibly do. He can’t make Kiddush, for instance. Hashem didn’t give us the physical world so we could take ourselves out of it. We are meant to enjoy alcohol and to have sexual relations…but we must also limit ourselves to the proper contexts. Also to enjoy with limits is what makes us human and not animal. Enjoying with limits also extends our enjoyment as our passion will be renewed and heightened when we have boundaries. Neither overindulging nor depriving is optimal according to Parshat Naso. There must be boundaries on either end.

I know that my life doesn’t interest you so I won’t bore with details, but I can personally attest to this worldview. I have lived a life of complete deprivation (although I did the reverse chronology; deprivation followed by over indulgence). I allowed myself zero physical enjoyment in life and I was, quite simply, miserable. So, I thought to solve my problems, then lead a life of attempting to obtain ALL physical enjoyment. Thanks to that fantastic experience, I lost friends, I lost my short term memory, and I devalued myself in the eyes of others and, more importantly, in my own eyes.

So yes, we can be upset over the unfairness of the sotah. Or, we can understand it within a bigger framework. The story had a bigger point to make over the way we should live our lives then and for forever.