Parsha Naso: An Elevated State of Being

Consciousness raising is the theme of this week's Torah portion, Naso: Bamidbar (Numbers) 4:21 - 7:89, as the Hebrew tribes continue their growth and development as a God conscious people in preparation for a long exile through the desert.

The narrative about the sotah warns against foolish liaisons, which lead to suffering and death. Biblical references to unfaithful wives are metaphors for God's people who abandon a relationship with Him in pursuit of foolish desires and false gods. In counterpoint, we're introduced to the nazir, a person who renounces foolish pursuits and idolatry by living an abstemious life focused on God centeredness rather than self centeredness. In this portion, we receive the priestly blessing, a beautiful poetic prayer meant to convey to us God's love for us and His intention to provide us the intangible yet indispensable blessings of grace and peace. These gifts come naturally to those who renounce foolishness and pursue wisdom, as articulated in Proverbs 28:26, "Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered."

The Haftarah: this week, Shoftim (Judges) 13:2-25, describes the miraculous birth of Samson to a childless couple after an angel informs them of their son's imminent birth and his life as a nazir who will save the Jewish people from Philistine persecution.

The case of the sotah in Numbers 5:27 relates a story about a wife accused of adultery by her husband. She must drink specially concocted water to test the accusation. It shall come to pass: if the woman had been defiled . . . her belly will swell and her thigh will rupture.  

Abortion advocates use the sotah to justify Jewish abortion. However, the medical event described is not an abortion. It is an impossible reaction to a benign brew that never happened in order to absolve the wife and maintain family honor.

Feminists see the sotah account as discrimination and violence against women in Judaism. Actually, Torah substituted the sotah ritual for honor killing to save Jewish women in a time when honor killing was common. If a Jewish man suspected his wife of adultery, he had to confront her in public and have corroborating evidence that she was alone with another man before he could charge her. Jewish law prohibited him from killing her.

This Torah portion and its deeper meanings concern three great sins in Judaism: idolatry, sexual immorality and murder. Violating one of those commandments to save one’s life is considered a hillul hashem, or desecration of God’s name. Many times in Jewish history, when especially righteous Jews were threatened with execution unless they agreed to worship false gods, engage in sexual deviant behavior or murder an innocent human being, they felt blessed for their own execution as a demonstration of fulfilling this obligation to serve God according to Judaism's central prayer, The Shema:

Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever. You shall love the L-rd your G‑d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

Rigorously practiced by a righteous few, circumvented by many to save their lives and in the hope of the freedom to worship in future times, and ignored or unknown by most, these three most serious errors of judgement and action cause much suffering and death. Despite willfulness and ignorance, we are assured of God's blessings of grace and peace when we raise our consciousness to Him and love and serve Him with our whole being. This may seem like a bodily execution to some, but it's really a sacrifice of the will for a much better life.

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.