From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 3:32
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Naso,
5766
The Jewish
Observer
By Rabbi Joshua (observantly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
This
week's parsha includes within it the laws of the nazir, a person who makes a vow
which forbids him from indulging in wine as well as grapes and grape products,
from cutting his hair, and from defiling himself through contact with a human
corpse. These laws follow immediately after the laws concerning the sotah, the
wife who is suspected of having forbidden relations with another man. Why are
these two sections juxtaposed ? Rashi cites the Talmud in Sotah (2a), which says
that this juxtaposition teaches us that someone who sees the sotah in her time
of disgrace should take upon himself to abstain from wine, because indulgence in
wine often leads to adultery. An obvious question one can ask on this Talmudic
teaching is why does the observer of the disgrace of the sotah need to undertake
all of the restrictions of the nazir, when it is only wine that is singled out
by the Talmud as leading to the kind of immoral acts of which the sotah is
accused?
Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, in his commentary Oznayim
LeTorah, does ask this question, and answers it by explaining that we first need
to understand what it is that is being observed. The disgrace of the sotah
referred to by the Talmud, as Rashi in his commentary to Maseches Sotah
explains, is not the immoral act itself, but the procedure in the Beis HaMikdash
in which her clothing is ripped and she drinks from the 'sotah waters' as a test
of her fidelity to her husband. Although some of her body is exposed through the
rending of her clothes, it is presumed that the evil inclination will not
thereby arouse the observers, since the woman is being degraded. However, says
Rabbi Sorotzkin, the evil inclination works in subtle ways, and may arouse the
person's desires even at such a moment. Therefore, he needs to distance himself
from indulgence in items which may further arouse him. By becoming a nazir, he
will of necessity abjure from wine, which can lead to acts of immorality, and
also refrain from concentrating too much on the appearance of his hair as a
prelude to illicit encounters. Although Rabbi Sorotzkin does not mention this,
the medieval halachic authority, Rabbi Ya’akov ben Asher, author of the Turim,
preceded Rabbi Sorotzkin in this explanation of the need for the observer
of the sotah to refrain from cutting his hair. Rabbi Shimon Schwab zt"l,
in his Ma’ayan Beis HaShoeivah to parshas Naso, cites this explanation of the
Tur and elaborates on it. The interested reader is referred to that work.
We still need to understand why the observer of the sotah in her
state of degradation needs to avoid contact with a human corpse. Actually, this
restriction seems to be counter-intuitive, since we find that the Talmud
(Berachos, 5a) advises a person who feels that his evil inclination is getting
the better of him to remember the day of death as a precautionary measure !
Rabbi Sorotzkin explains that the impure nature of the corpse - its tumah - has
a kind of mystical effect on the person who is defiled by it, which prevents him
from attaining holiness, and thus leaves him open, again, to the enticements of
the evil inclination. I would like to suggest a different, non-mystical
explanation for the observer's need to avoid corpse-defilement, which connects
this restriction of the nazir with the other two he must undertake.
We have mentioned many times in the past the explanation
given by Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt"l of the procedure of the parah adumah,
or red heifer, which a person who is defiled through contact with a human corpse
must undergo. This procedure has been characterized as a mystery that even King
Shlomo, the wisest of all men, could not fathom. Rav Soloveitchik explained that
the mystery involved is the mystery of death itself. Man is unable, on his own,
to cope with the fact that he will eventually die, and needs an outside force,
represented by the sprinkling of the mixture of parah adumah ashes and spring
water, as described in the Torah, to help him deal with it. Ultimately, says Rav
Soloveitchik, it is only the eternal God Who enables man to cope with the
inevitability of death, linking him to eternity through his soul. Contact with
death, then, can lead one to believe that life is futile, and this, in turn, can
lead one to remove all moral restraints from himself, in the spirit of 'eat,
drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die.' For this reason, the observer of
the sotah needs to avoid corpse-defilement, in addition to abstaining from wine
and not attending to his hair, in order to avoid a possible descent into
immorality as a result of the scene that he witnessed.
Please
address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following
address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
To subscribe to Netvort, send a
message with subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To
unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the
same address.