Into The Weekly Parsha

ADAPTED FROM THE SHIURIM OF HAR AV YOCHANAN ZWEIG BY RABBI MORDECHAI SHIFMAN

PARSHAS NASSO OUT OF CONTROL “Any man whose wife goes astray” (5:12) From the juxtaposition of the section discussing the Priestly gifts to the laws of the Sotah, a woman suspected of infidelity, the Talmud derives the following: The of the week consequence of a person refusing to give the Kohain his tithes is that his wife will be suspected of infidelity. He will, thereby, be forced to turn to the Kohain to perform the Many of the Mitzvos procedure of the “bitter waters”, which will clarify whether he may resume relations with have an introductory his wife.1 blessing attached to The Maharal asks: If the message is that one who does not appreciate the Kohain (by them, which was not giving him his tithes) will eventually need his services, why does this have to manifest instituted by our Sages. itself through the law of Sotah? The same message could be conveyed by any number of This usually contains the services requiring a Kohain.2 Another question which can be asked is: Why do his actions nature of the result in his wife being suspected of indiscretion? commandment and our We are not discussing an individual who does not keep the tithing laws. The Talmud obligation to fulfill says he holds back from giving the tithes to the Kohain, not that he does not separate the it.Why is Birkas tithes. What could be the motivation of one who separates the tithes, but holds back from Kohanim the only Mitzva giving them to the Kohain? If one does tithe, but refuses to give it to the Kohain, what he to which Chazal inserted is doing is exerting his control over the Kohain. into the blessing the The Torah is teaching us that one who feels the necessity to exert his control over requirement to fulfill the others probably relates to his spouse in the same manner. It is this domination over her that Mitzvah vcvtc-with love? either causes her to rebel or results in his uncontrollable jealousy, which makes it Do not all the Mitzvos necessary for her to drink the “bitter waters”. His own wife, over whom he exerted control, require fulfilling them becomes prohibited and the only one who can permit him to resume relations with her is with love!? the Kohain. He now faces the realization that he has no control over either party.

1. Berochos 63a 2. Gur Aryeh 5:12 OUR BODY SERVES US

“This should be the law of the Nazirite on the day his abstinence is completed, he shall bring himself to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.”(6:13) Chazal interpret “u,ut thch” which literally means “he brings him” as “he brings himself”. The Torah refers to the Nazirite as both the subject and object of the verse. This teaches us that the Nazirite must come on his own volition; he may not be coerced. 1 There are other laws in the Torah for which we are taught coercion should not be employed. However, in those instances, we do not find the person relating to himself as a separate entity, as does the Nazirite by “bringing himself”.Why is this so? Furthermore, what is unique about this sacrifice when, regarding other sacrifices, we do coerce a person into fulfilling his obligation? Generally, we tend to view our body and its needs as part of the essence of who we are. However, in reality this is not so; our body is only a vehicle for what we need to accomplish. The Nazirite process should bring a person to this realization. The Torah is teaching us that a successful completion of the Nazirite process is attained when the Nazirite can “bring himself”, i.e. he views his body as a separate entity and controls it (Nazir means separate). Therefore, this has to be done on his own volition; forcing him to bring the sacrifice would indicate that the Nazirite message is lost.

1. Sifri Parshas Nasso NOT BY CHANCE ’. . .from new wine and old wine he shall abstain” (6:3 ) Since the Torah teaches the laws of the Nazirite immediately after those of the Sotah, Chazal derive that one who sees the devastating effect that the “bitter waters” have on the Sotah, should abstain from wine.1 Wine is generally associated with licentious behavior, for it allows a person to overcome his inhibitions.What needs an explanation is the following: If we are dealing with an individual who has no propensity for either drunkenness or immoral behavior, why is he being asked to internalize this experience? Quick Halacha Clearly, Chazal must understand that if someone is faced with such an experience, it is a message to him that he does have the Is a non-Kohain permitted to invoke the Priestly blessing? propensity for behavior that could lead to the same result. If so, The Rama prohibits a non-Kohain how does becoming a Nazirite, which generally requires only a from “duchening” (blessing Bnei thirty-day period of abstinence from wine, suffice to create in a Yisroel during the Tefillah with person a heightened awareness of a condition to which he may be the Priestly blessing). The Biur prone? Halacha raises the question When one sees something tragic happening to someone else, whether a non-Kohain can bless instinctively he becomes afraid that this could possibly happen to someone with the Priestly blessing him. However, in order that we not go through life in fear, we have outside of the Tefillah. He cites the a self-defense mechanism: we rationalize why this cannot happen to Bach who prohibits the blessing to us. A prime example of this is “rubbernecking”, when a terrible be used only if one raises his accident occurs, traffic backs up as a result of drivers slowing down hands in the manner designated for Kohanim. The Torah to see what happened. Everyone is horrified by the sight and many Temimah relates that the Vilna often reach for their seatbelts. However, five minutes later, they are Gaon would put only one hand on all speeding on their way. Everyone has rationalized why what they a person’s head when he would saw cannot happen to them. bless him, and attributes this to When one is faced with the horrific sight of the Sotah’s body the Gaon’s not wanting to imitate exploding, his first reaction is one of fear that something equally the Kohanim who use two hands. awful could happen to him. The purpose of becoming a Nazir is to The Yaavetz in his Siddur prefers capitalize upon this feeling and not let the body’s self-defense that one blesses children with two hands on Friday night. R’ Ovadia mechanism1. 19:2 2. 6:3set in. A person does not need to be a Nazir for life to internalize this experience; all that is necessary is for him to gain Yosef concludes that whichever the awareness that it could happen to him. This will deter the opinion one follows (using one hand or two) is reliable. body’s self-defense mechanism. The Torah is teaching us that all we experience in life has to have a message for us; our being in a specific place, at a specific time is not coincidental. If one sees the demise of the Sotah, he must realize that he has the same propensity. Therefore, he must act immediately, in order to prevent from disassociating himself from the experience.

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