Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Numbers 6, the Nazirite
Jeremy Rosen | Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Numbers 6, the Nazirite | 03.06.24
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- So we are in the Book of Devarim, which is the Book of Bamidbar, rather, in the wilderness, which, as I mentioned last week, is a transition book and it transitions from the Exodus from Egypt, the golden calf episode, and the beginning of the invasion into the land of Canaan, which then is aborted as we’re going to learn in due course. But in preparation for that, we had the census. We’re going to have the statement of who the princes are. We looked at how the nation camped around the central tabernacle and prepared to march forward in marching orders. And then we dealt with a couple of unusual and outstanding laws that seem out of place. And it’s very difficult to understand what their relationship is to this particular moment in the history of the Israelite people. The first one we did last week was the question of suspicion. Suspicion of betrayal, suspicion of the family, undermining things through needless jealousy or simply with cause when somebody has betrayed somebody else. And today we’re going to deal in chapter 6 of Numbers.
We’re going to deal with another unusual law, the law of the Nazarite. Now this is a complex concept and it’s an interesting one because Christianity takes the idea of the Nazarite as being a person who decides to be specially religious more than the norm and make it a kind of a symbol for Christianity. Early Christianities were called Nazarenes. At the same time, Jesus is supposed to have come from Nazareth and Nazareth looks like a Nazarite. But whereas in Hebrew, Nazareth is: In English, it’s Nazareth, and that’s how it was translated into the Greek and the Roman and the Latin. And so there’s confusion within Christianity about what a Nazarene, what a Nazarite is. This law says that somebody may choose to become more religious or to take upon themselves extra religious obligations. So for example, growing one’s hair long, letting it flow in long locks, not drinking wine, and not coming into contact with anything that may convey ritual impurity. Now what’s the connection between this and between what we learned last week about the woman who had betrayed her husband who then is given this drink to drink and if she is guilty and still claims she’s innocent, but if she’s guilty, it will show in her body psychosomatically?
The Talmud says, you know, if anybody actually sees the result of this, they become so shocked that they decide to become more religious. But the truth is that we do things like this all the time. We say things like that, you know? “If only I get what I want, I’m going to pray more often, or I’m going to give more to charity or I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” And so essentially the Nazarite is somebody who chooses, for at least a minimum of a month, you can choose how long you want to go on with your particular position of being a Nazarite, and you let your hair grow. Now the first example we have of that in practise is Samson. Samson was ordained in a message to his mother to become a Nazarite and let his hair grow long, and that gave him strength. But he did that for a long time. I have in my life come into contact with two Nazarites. One of them was a contemporary of Rabbi Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel who lived in Jerusalem, was born in Germany and was influenced by Rabbi Kook to become more religious from an assimilated background.
He was a philosopher and he lived in Jerusalem and his hair grew very long. And he had a son and his son was called She'ar-Yashuv Cohen, who became a very distinguished rabbi in Israel, eventually the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, I think it was. But he was made a Nazarite by his father, and his hair grew long. His father could only commit him until he was 13 because you can’t commit somebody else when they’re an adult if they don’t want to, but he did. And this poor She'ar-Yashuv had long flowing locks of hair until his Bat Mitzvah and he suffered from it. He was made fun of as you can well imagine. And when he became a Bat Mitzvah, he cancelled it and carried on to a normal life. Now the Nazarite goes through this period for however long he or she decides they want to do it of becoming more religious. And it’s very interesting that the Torah, the text that we have here, says that after the period is up of being an Nazarite, you have to bring a sin offering. And the question of course is: Why bring a sin offering if you’ve become more religious than the norm? And the answer is divided. There are two different arguments in the Talmud.
One of them says, “Look, this person gave up something that he had by every right to enjoy, the wine. He gives up a gift of God. And in doing so, in a sense, it’s almost like you’re throwing it back in God’s face and say, ‘Thank you very much, but no thank you.’” And this question then is: Why should you bring a sin offering? The answer? Because don’t be too religious. It’s enough with what God has commanded us without having to take on other extra things. And therefore, in a sense, that is why you must atone. You must atone for being too kosher. Don’t show off. The other version simply says, “It goes the other way. He was on a higher level for a while and now he’s coming back down to an ordinary mundane level and that’s why he has to bring an atonement.” So this is an overview of what the Nazarite story is. We’re going to look at the text in a minute. But then I come back to a question that I raised last week and this was why these two laws, I mean there’s so many laws in the Torah and the laws are going to be repeated later on in the Book of Deuteronomy.
Why are these two laws put in here after all the preparation for going into the land of Canaan? And there are two possibilities. One possibility is that over and above the written law, there is the spirit of the law and there are options. So what we are concerned with is in a new country, in a new state where you’ve established what we hope is a more spiritual community, that in this situation deceit is one of the things that undermines society. So that’s why the law of deceit is mentioned here. You’re coming to create a new society, avoid deceit. The other factor is you’re coming into a religious society but don’t overdo the religion. There’s no need to do more. If you want to, that’s up to you and there are consequences, but you don’t need to make a kind of a fetish out of things and overdo it. So we’re dealing with the civil community of deceit on the one hand, the religious community of religious excess. And we see to this very day that those two features are the features that create tremendous problems, not only in Israel but in virtually every state around the world. So let’s quickly just go over the text of the Nazarite before we move on to other subjects.
[Moderator] Hi, Jeremy.
[Jeremy] Yeah?
[Moderator] Sorry to interrupt you there. Are you going to just correct that? If you could just-
You’re right, I haven’t opened it up.
[Moderator] We’ve got quite a lot of yours.
Yeah, thank you so much.
[Moderator] Yeah, that. Sorry.
Okay. So we start with chapter 6, verse 1. Speak to the children of Israel and say that if a man or a woman voluntarily takes a vow and this vow is to be a Nazir, and it’s translated as somebody who, zar is strange, somebody who is exceptional, somebody who is different. You choose to be different. And this difference is verse 3. You’re not going to drink wine or strong drink, no whiskey, no vodka or anything derived from wine or from alcohol, even reduced grape leftovers from pressing them to make wine whether they’re dry or not. You don’t eat grapes or products of the vine. And so all the days that a person decides to become a Nazarite, you don’t have anything to do with the grapes. Verse 5. And at the same time, don’t cut your hair. It is is a razor. They use razors probably more than scissors, but it includes the two ‘cause scissors is two razors, two edges. Until you complete the period of time when you are a Nazarite and you are in a sense holy, more holy than anybody else.
You let the hair grow wild over your head. And remember when we were talking about the woman, the Sotah, that was her name, and we talked about her standing in front of the Kohan and the Kohan messed around with her hair. And I said that this is the origin of covering one’s hair. I said that the fact the word that they use there of the Sotah is which literally means to loosen the hair of the woman. And here when we’re talking about a Nazarite in verse 5, it repeats this phrase: The hair of the head is loose, it goes loose and wild, not necessarily covered or uncovered. And in addition to that, in verse 6, don’t come into contact with dead people. It’s a big mitzvah to bury dead people. But you avoid this, you put yourself in a kind of a pseudo priestly position. Like the priests have special rules, you’re not a priest, but you can adopt these extra special rules if you want. And it goes on further to say in verse 7, rather like with the priests to his father, his mother, his brother and his sister, you may not become defiled in the, shall we say, the abstract sense of touching the dead to differentiate life from dead during the period of being a Nazarite. During that period in verse 8: You’re holy to God. And but then if somebody does die suddenly in your company and you do come into this person’s company, then you shave the head and you shave it on the seventh day.
Firsthand, this is the problem. On the eighth day, you bring two little turtle doves or two little pigeons to the priest, to the tabernacle. And the priest then is going, in verse 11, to create a sin offering for you. He will atone for the sin. But what sin does he have to atone for? Well, some people say, “You only became a Nazarite if you did commit a sin beforehand and it’s that sin that you’re atoning for.” But others say, “No, it is the sin of becoming a Nazarite.” As I mentioned before, of denying yourself some pleasure in life on the one hand and on the other hand maybe by trying to be too religious. And so you bring this sacrifice and in a penalty offering as well to the tabernacle, this kind of general taxation system to help the tabernacle function. And he brings the offering also with some grain. And this is a whole procedure that he goes through, which I don’t know, we’re not particularly interested in the details of the sacrificial system, but this is the law of the Nazarite. And it ends with something that you will be familiar with. And so I’d like you to look at Numbers 6:24.
And this is the famous priestly blessing, which we have to this day. In verse 23 it says: Speak to Aaron and his sons and say, “This is how I want you to bless the children of Israel. And I want you to say these words.” Now we’ve discussed before the idea of a blessing. What is the idea of a blessing? It’s not magic, it’s not a guarantee of anything. It is a way of saying, “I care. I care for you, I care for us, I care for the community, and this is for the community.” So the priests are being asked to give a blessing. A lot of people say, “Why the heck should a priest give me a blessing? I don’t need a priest to give a blessing.” And particularly if I see somebody standing up in the synagogue who’s a priest and I know that he’s not all that he should be, I’m offended by it. But anyway, the text goes like this. Verse 24: May God bless you and protect you. May God shine or turn His face towards you, metaphorically, and be kind to you. Be kind, may God be kind, may life be kind, may fate be kind. May God look towards you. And give peace. So the blessing is peace and so much we need it now. We’ve always needed it.
But this blessing for peace is the most significant berakah blessing that it’s possible to have. It is to be able to behave, to do what we want to in an ethical good way. And then verse 27, it clarifies, it says: And I want my name, I want me, to be the most important thing for the children of Israel. I want you to know it is I who am giving you the blessing, not the priest. The priest is just the agent, but it is God blessing you. And somebody’s got to stand up there and say it to you. Somebody’s got to say it. You can’t guarantee God’s going to speak to you and therefore it is a vehicle and a device to convey God’s blessings to you. And as I say, this is something word for word that we have. The difference between the Ashkenazi world and the Sephardim world is the Ashkenazi world now tends to say this blessing only on festivals, well, three festivals, and on the other hand, no festivals, I’m sorry. Correct myself. And the Sephardim do it all the time. So maybe that’s why they flourish and flourished as well as they did. So we now come to chapter 7 and chapter 7 repeats this whole idea of going back over, establishing the tabernacle, making sure that it’s working properly, getting the priests, each one of them, to come forward and contribute to the establishment of the tabernacle. And each one comes along and brings their own contribution.
If you look very briefly to verse 11 of chapter 7, it says, God says to Moses: Each president or each head of each tribe. Each tribe will come day by day to offer sacrifice to dedicate the tabernacle. And so each day somebody starts off. Interestingly enough, they don’t start off according to chronology age. They start off, as we mentioned last week, according to the location of the tribe in marching order. So although the firstborn is Reuben, the first tribe in the front is Judah, the fighting vanguard. No, vanguard is the wrong word. That’s the back. So: The person who brings his sacrifice on the first day is Nachshon ben Aminadav. We’ve come across him before, the guy who jumped in straight into the water and we mentioned him before when they’re coming out of Egypt and we go over what it is. And it goes on like this. That he gives a silver bowl which weighs 130 shekels and a silver basin is worth 70 shekels. And in them you’ve got this fine flour and then you have a golden spoon full of incense. And then you have a bull and a ram and a lamb and a part of the bird offering and a goat as a sin offering. And this peace offering combines with more goats and rams and everything else. And that is the offering of Nachshon.
Now we’re going to go back on to the next tribe. The next tribe is Nethanel Ben Zuar. And he’s going to give exactly the same offering and then we’re going to go onto the third one is going to be every one of them doing the same thing. You’ve got Zebulun and he gives the same amount. Everybody gives exactly the same amount. Word for word right through. And the question is why? The rabbis, on the one hand, give their explanation. You know, we didn’t want anybody to show off. One tribe might be richer than another. Some guy in charge might be more than the other and he wanted to, nobody was going to show off. Everybody had to give exactly the same amount. So again, showing off is not considered to be a quality that we appreciate. The other more historically is that when you do present things to the king, whether it was in Egypt or Mesopotamia, they wanted to make a note of exactly who was giving what. And they wanted to make a note to see who was giving what to see who was more trustworthy, who would be given promotion. And therefore there was an ulterior motive in giving a present.
And so by doing this, making them all equal, we’re removing that more pagan element of people are giving presents because they want to have influence and saying, “No, this is an obligation that we’re going to have and we’re all equal on it.” Now then we finish in chapter 10 the final arrangement of the tabernacle, of the dedication of the tabernacle. And there is in chapter 10, one other final element to describe the preparation for the invasion before we’re going to come to the crisis. So I’d like you to look again at chapter 10. Chapter 10, we’ll move on to it here. Let’s go on. Chapter 7, 7, 7, 7. Taking too much time going. There we are. Chapter 10. Let’s get chapter 10 where we head up here. Chapter 10, chapter 10, chapter 10, chapter 10. And God speaks to Moses and He says, “I want you to make two silver trumpets. They should be beaten in the way that the metal is formulated. And their function will be to call the community together. When we’re ready to march.” So here we have the communication system. You’ve got a huge big community of a lot of people. We don’t know how many there are, maybe millions. How are you going to convey information to them?
So here you have the first telegraphic agency of trumpets, in verse 3. And you blow on these trumpets, and all the community is ready for what the news is, what’s going to happen. The entrance to the tabernacle. And you will make the sound, which we know from Rosh Hashanah there are these three sounds. There’s tekiah, the straight blast. There is the teruah, which is the peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep blast. And there is the shevarim, the broken one, two, three blast. And this is the teruah, the peep, peep, peep, peep one. And when you do a sort of make the first sound, when, in verse 4, they blow, it’s the tekiah to begin with. So you’ll notice how it starts off in verse 3, the tekiah sound, the straight sound is calling to attention. And after the calling to attention, everybody gets ready, and then you make a teruah sound. And the teruah sound is we’re moving and we start moving.
The east side is moving first. And then there’s another blast, and then the people to the south march. And the next one of the teruah is on their way. And so whenever you are gathering the community, and this is not necessarily for marching, but to announce that there’s going to be a public meeting, then: You only make the tekiah sound, you don’t make the teruah sound. And 8, the sons of Aaron will use these trumpets and they’ll be there all the time. And in verse 9, when there ever is a war going on and your enemy is attacking, you make the teruah sound, the peep, peep, peep urgently sound. And this will, so to speak, create, remind you of God, create a connection and help you go forward. But not only on when there’s a catastrophe. In verse 10 when you’re celebrating and you’re happy and the Rosh Hodesh as well as on festivals. But it doesn’t mention Shabbat here, which is interesting, unless you include that in one of the occasions. And there’s a debate about this. But you do also blow when you have sacrifices and they did have sacrifices on Shabbat in the temple.
Whether these are sacrifices that are for religious reasons or sacrifices just to have banquets together and bring people together, and these will remind you that God is around and you should thank God for what’s happening around. And their introduction to this system of communication. We then go on in verse 11, that in the second year, in the second month, on the 20th day of that month, the clouds that was always there by the tabernacle lifted. And people started journeying towards and finally after a travel of a certain days, they settled on the way. In the Negev and they were ready to go. And so we just go through all that once again. And the first flag with Judah where they went first, then came a second, then came the third, and then followed all the priests, they all came on behind. And at that particular moment ready to go in, I would like you to look at 10:29. 10:29 says, Moses To this guy called Hobab, the son of Reuel, from Midian, who was a father-in-law of Moses. Now I always thought the father-in-law of Moses was called Jethro, Yitro, because in Exodus it did mention Yitro.
So here we have a question of is this a brother, another member of the tribe, or are these different names for the same guy? The name he has when he’s a priest, the name he has when he has a politician? We put on different clothes in the different roles that we play. I’m going to put a light on a minute because it’s getting rather dark here. So Moses turns around to Hobab, the son of Reuel, the Midianite, and he says, “We are now reaching and entering the place where God said, I’m going to give this place to you.’ Please come with us and we will do good for you. We will help you because we’re going to succeed and we want to pass this on.” Now when we last spoke to Jethro back in Exodus after he came to visit Moses, just before the 10 Commandments, he went back home. So is this Moses saying to him, “Come back again and come with us ‘cause we’re ready to go?”
Or did actually the people of Jethro and his clan of Midianites always ally themselves with the Israelites and stayed with them all the time? We’re going to come back later on to another version of this of whether he stayed or whether he didn’t stay. But here he says in verse 30, “No, thank you, I’m going back home.” But I thought he’d gone back home, so did he come back again? We don’t know. And then Moses turns around and says, “Look, please, I’m asking you. Don’t leave us. You live in the wilderness area, you live in this area, you know it. You can be our help, you can be our spy, so to speak. You can help us go forward.” In verse 32. “If you do come with us. Whatever good things happen, God gives to us, we will share with you.” So he’s not above sharing with people who don’t belong, so to speak, to the Jewish people. This is a very important principle. People complain and criticise us being too exclusive, but we welcome people who want to join. Sometimes we make it too difficult, but that’s a result of history. But there’s no answer. He doesn’t say, “Yes.”
He doesn’t say, “No.” And so they travelled on, they travelled on another three days. The Ark of the Covenant travels with them as they come to the final resting place. And the cloud of God in verse 34 is with them by day and by night. And now you have a little piece, interesting little piece of two sentences, that those of you who do go anywhere near a synagogue will be familiar with. That when we open the Ark of the Torah in a synagogue, we say: When the Ark starts moving. Rise up, God! And scatter your enemies. Those who hate you, may they be driven away. And on the other hand, when the camp settles in one place, and when it settles, it is said: Please, God, come back and return or stay with. 'Cause the term could be any of those things. Stay with, come back if you’re not been there. To the thousands of Israel, come back and be with us or stay with us. And so that has entered our liturgy whenever we take a Torah out of the Ark to read. Now the question is, you will look at this text and say, “Hold on, there’s some funny marks.”
There’s a mark that opens verse 35. It looks like a nun backwards in the Hebrew, but it’s definitely backwards. And then look at the end of verse 36 and you’ll see a little nun, similar one, there! And people don’t know what it is. Now I’ve mentioned before the fact that many of the marks that are in the Torah were put there by the Masoretes, the people who, a thousand years ago, were given the task of bringing all the variations, minor variations in the different texts of the Torah, that were current that time together and including them whether they knew why they were there or not. If that was the tradition to put it in, that’s the tradition to put it in. But others say, “No, this is an exceptional little piece of the Torah in itself.” This is a unique marker that we are having to say, “Look at this sentence for all the noise and everything that’s going on around the place, in the end, as we move from place to place, whether it’s towards the Holy Land, whether it’s away from the Holy Land, whether we’re at war in the Holy Land or we’re at peace in the Holy Land, we want the presence of God to be with us.”
Does this mean God will solve all our problems? Well, it hasn’t necessarily worked quite that way, but it means that having the confidence, knowing that there is the love or the relationship is a way of helping us go forward. And now we come to 11. You would’ve thought now, “Everything is ready to go. We’re in a happy place.” And, lo and behold, there are problems. So we’re now chapter 11, 11:1. And the people are complaining. They’re complaining. “It’s bad,” to God. God hears the complaint. And He got angry. And fire comes out. On the outside, the outside of the camp. Now we do have a problem as to when this happens. Is this happening as soon as they start marching? Look, they complained remember three days after they crossed over the Red Sea.
So they’re busy complaining all the time. And we don’t know if these are complainings of people who are, shall we say, outsiders who’ve joined the camp and are coming out of Egypt just to escape, or whether it’s people within the camp. They are just described as: The complainers. There are always going to be complainers. Wherever you are, no matter what community you’re in, no matter what state you’re in, you’re always going to have people complaining. And then fire comes. Is this some sort of special sign from God or is it just coincidence? Is it accident? Or, as some people say, “Is this mysticism?” Mysticism is symbolised by fire in the Bible. But anyway, the people then call out. In verse 2, they cry to Moses and Moses prays to God. And the fire dies down. You would’ve thought they’d have learned from this that you don’t mess with God. But that’s not what happens. And they call the name of the place Taberah, the burn-up place. 'Cause God burnt up there. But in verse 4, we’ve got another complaint coming. Which automatically is, in English, the riffraff. And it sounds like a suf, riffraff, but literally suf is the edge, the marginal people.
They were in the midst of the children of Israel. So is this bad people within Israel or some other people from the outside? And they suddenly got the taste, the craving, the desire for something. They come and they complain. And also joining the were B'nai Israel, were Israelites! So it was a mixture of both. We want meat. In verse 5, we remember all the fish which we ate when we were in Egypt. And it was free! The cucumbers. The watermelons. The leeks. The onions. The garlic. We are fed up! All this wretched manna that comes down, which is some sort of crust, some sort of a biscuit of some whatever it is. And it’s true, we can imagine different things, but we’re fed up with this. We want the real thing. Of course, you know, from the words there, you can already see there is a problem. Life was so good in Egypt. You got everything for free.
You know, you just went down to the river, you go fishing and you get your fish. And who was cultivating all this agriculture? And weren’t you slaves in Egypt at the time? And if you got supplies, it wasn’t for free, it was in exchange for your work. And so from the wording you can see that the complaint is not a legitimate complaint. And now we’re fed up with this manna. And by the way, the Torah goes on to say that in verse 7, And remind you about the manna. It was: It was a bit like seeds of coriander, which is a kind of a herb. It looks a bit like lead, so it looks a bit colourless. But nevertheless, it was food. Verse 8, the people would go out. And they would gather this material, whatever it was. They would grind it down in their pounding bowls. Or the: Is a millstone, they ground it up in the mortar and pestle. That’s the right expression. And then they’d cook it. In a pot. And turned it into cakes. And it tasted. It tasted a bit like rich cream.
Very strange. And verse 9. And when dew fell on the camp at nighttime, this manna came down with the dew. Verse 10, Moshe heard people. Crying in their tents. Each person at the door to the tent. And God was not very, very happy about this. And Moshe says to God: Moshe says, “Why are you being so cruel to me, your servant? Why are you making life difficult for me? Why are you not helping me cope with these difficult people, difficult Jews? It’s not as if I gave birth to these people. I didn’t conceive them, I didn’t give birth to them. Why are you saying that I’ve got to carry them on my shoulder the way a nurse looks after a baby?” This word for the nurse is from somebody who you can trust. I believe in, I trust. 13, where am I going to get any meat to feed all these people? And they’re saying, “Let’s have meat.” I can’t bear, 14, anymore dealing with this fractious, argumentative people. It’s too much for me. And if you want me to carry on with this, kill me now. If I’ve found favour in your eyes, I can’t take this anymore. And on that sad note, we’re going to end for today and I will start looking at the questions and deal with them.
Q&A and Comments
Q: So up come the questions and we start with, “Is Jacqueline different?” A: Yes, beautiful music from her, I dealt with her.
Q: Shelly says, “Absalom had long hair and that represents vanity and his undoing. So why does long hair represent more religious?” A: Well, that’s actually a very, very good point. But in the case of- Oh sorry, somebody’s trying to phone me. They shouldn’t be. In the case of Absalom, it was pure vanity. The whole point about it is that it was vanity. It wasn’t done for a religious purpose. So the fact is, as with everything, it can be used negatively, it can be used positively.
Susan, “Speaking about vows, I recommend a funny and bittersweet Israeli film on Netflix called 'Maktub.’ And their notes pressed into the stones of the Kotel.” Okay, so look at “Maktub.” And actually I should mention to Mira, who sent me a nice message in Hebrew beforehand, which he addressed to Harav Yirmeyahu Rosen. Thank you, Mira. But actually my Hebrew name is Yerucham, not Yirmeyahu. Jeremy was the English name that my father gave me because he thought at the time if my name is Yerucham, the non-Jewish world would not know how to translate the ka and it would be the ha! Certain they’d say, “You will come,” or some other word like that. So Yerucham in Hebrew and Jeremy in English.
Mina, “Just joined. Hope you found Met yesterday, what you were looking for.” Ah, thank you, Mina. Yes. No, this was interesting. I was at The Met with my daughter yesterday looking for some Hebrew manuscripts and turned to somebody to help ‘cause we were totally lost. And Mina came forward and recognised my voice and helped us and we found the two manuscripts. Thank you very much, Mina. You’re a wonderful guide and a wonderful help.
Q: “It says in verse 5, a special vow of a Nazir to separate themselves to the Lord. It seems that something one does to be close to God, why is it viewed as a negative process?” A: Well, because being close to God can sometimes be, if you like, an expression of religious pride, an expression of religious arrogance. So in principle it’s a good idea. In principle, if you want to be more religious it’s a good idea, but just don’t show off about it. Don’t make too much of a thing about it to other people.
Q: Shelly says, “Assuming that women had long hair at the time and were not allowed to drink much in the way of wine or strong spirits, being under their father’s, husband’s authority, why would a woman be sacrificing to become a Nazarite?” A: Well, nobody’s to say that women didn’t drink. I don’t know, in some cultures maybe not, but women were able to drink as much as anybody else. And in fact, you know, one of the arguments given as to why sometimes people did things they shouldn’t do, both men and women, was because they were drinking too much wine. We’re supposed to be everything in moderation.
Israel, “In Jerusalem and the environments, the priestly blessings are said every day some places outside Jerusalem. And if not every day, at least on Shabbat.” You’re quite right to correct me. That’s right. I’d forgotten about the specific status of Jerusalem. You’re quite right. Thanks. Gene Anderson says, “The priest blessing is also spoken at the end of services in some Christian churches as well.” That’s absolutely true. Thanks for pointing this out. That’s very helpful. Thank you, Carla. Susan, again, “I’m sure that you taught this before, but I forgot the answer. Are the animal sacrifice food for the ? Otherwise in our modern sensibilities, it seems like a waste of animal life.” Well, first of all, most sacrifices were eaten by either the priests and the Levites who were living in the temple and providing them with food, or by the people who brought them to share them either with their family or with friends or anybody else. There were a small number of sacrifices or no, sort of compared to the total number that were burnt offerings. And burnt offerings were supposed to be just for God. But in fact, originally at the time of the temple, most kosher slaughtering of animals for food was done as part of the sacrificial system. So it wasn’t very different to slaughtering animals nowadays, which as done under industrial conditions, that I find absolutely horrific and horrendous. And if people would actually see what happens, I think they’d probably all become vegetarians.
Q: Philip, “In the Nazareth story, the word galach appears. Shaven galach in Hebrew. Shaven in a Jewish priest, and a non-Jewish priest is often called a galach. Why is it called a galach?” A: Because monks used to shave the tonsure at the top of their heads, and they did shave some of them in the Orthodox. They wore beards but others didn’t. But it comes from the difference between rabbis with beards and priests look cleanly shaven. But that is correct.
Norman, “In my Ashkenazi we do one every morning and twice on Shabbat, and I didn’t fully understand what you said.” I was referring to the general rule outside of Israel. Israel, mainly in Jerusalem and other places, have this custom. And it may be that in the Ashkenazi shul there might be some Sephardim who are praying there too and they’ve asked that to be the custom. But it is a matter of custom. Thank you, Mira. I hope to see you again soon. And I’m glad we have similar family connections. I don’t know if that means your Saba went to Mia Yeshiva in Lithuania or one member of the family did.
Q: Shelly, “Where did the mixed multitude were all travelling? Weren’t they instructed how to be Jewish?” A: Well, the assumption is that they didn’t want to convert. They could if they wanted to. But it does say in the Torah that people who wanted to join the children of Israel were welcomed to come with them out of Egypt on the way to Canaan, and so these were not necessarily people who had converted or wanted even to convert, but just tag along for the ride.
Carla, “I always thought manna tasted as people wanted.” Well, yes, that’s a tradition, it’s a midrash. It doesn’t say that here in the Torah, but that is a midrash that it was all in the mind. And very often it is. And that explains why some people have problems eating certain food. I know people who won’t eat certain foods because they were forced to eat them when they were young. Certain foods like that in the old days when there wasn’t much food just after World War II and we had a diet that was not very exciting.
Barry said, “Now many of them wanted to be more religious and died.” Yes, that’s another example. A very good example of when you try to add on something by bringing something that wasn’t commanded. Of course there were other reasons as to why they died. They were drunk or they were trying to bring about a kind of a coup d'etat against Aaron and Moses. But nevertheless, your point is right. Marcia says, “With due respect, Jacqueline du Pre’s claim to fame is definitely not her marriage to Daniel Barenboim, her artistic brilliance, her family situation, tragic physical demise contributed to her uniqueness. And yes, her performances really bring one to tears. No, I didn’t mean to say that she was only famous because of Daniel Barenboim, because she was, before she met him, an outstanding cellist or one of the greatest cellists in the world, even though she was very, very young. But nevertheless, that’s what people know her as the partner of Daniel Barenboim because she died early and he lived a bit longer. Thank you, Rita.
And thank you, everybody, and I will call it a day. Until next week.