Naso and Ruth : A Season for Reflection |
Almost four years ago, in June 2022, I began writing a blog for the TOI. At the time, I did not imagine it would become a weekly practice—one in which I try to weave together the weekly parsha with the world around us, and with my own life. Yet here I am, four years later still intersecting with these three.
This week’s Parshat Naso, one of the longest in the Torah, seems an appropriate marker. It is sprawling, repetitive at times, yet filled with powerful and unsettling material: the priestly blessing, the laws of the Nazirite, vows, and most disturbingly, the ritual of the Sotah—the suspected adulterous wife.
The Sotah passage has always troubled me. A woman, guilty or not, is subjected to a humiliating ordeal because of a husband’s jealousy. There is no symmetry here—only suspicion, control, and the public exposure of a woman’s body and dignity. Even if we read the ritual as a way of preventing greater violence, it remains an institutionalized form of degradation.
That theme of jealousy and suspicion does not end in the Torah portion. It echoes in the haftarah, in the story of Manoach’s wife, who encounters an angel announcing the birth of Samson. Her husband’s reaction—his insecurity, even jealousy—mirrors the emotional undercurrent of the Sotah. Once again, a woman’s experience is filtered through male anxiety. And yet, when we turn from Parshat Naso toward Shavuot, we encounter a very different text: the Book of Ruth.
Shavuot and Personal Space
Shavuot has always marked a turning point for me—not only liturgically, but personally. The weeks that follow, leading up to Tisha B’Av, form the longest stretch in the Jewish calendar without a major holiday. It is, on the surface, a quiet time. But for me, it is filled with memory and associations: I was married just after Shavuot—and so was my eldest daughter. Had my husband lived, we would have celebrated 63 years of marriage this June. My grandson read Parshat Naso for his bar mitzvah eighteen years ago.........