Parsha Naso: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly |
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the cult Western that catapulted Clint Eastwood to superstardom. The title of the film could just as easily have been taken from our parasha, which features a motley variety of characters, including the leper, the thief, the adulteress, the nazir, and the priest
The most fascinating figure in the parasha is without doubt the nazir, whose vows are an opportunity for equality. All members of the Jewish people – man or woman; priest, Levite or layperson – are eligible to distance themselves from normative practice in order to seek holiness and intimacy with God. The basic requirements from the nazir are abstention from wine, growing long hair, and refraining from becoming impure through contact with the dead.
In order to better understand the nazir, let us compare him to the priest. Both the nazir and the priest partake of a special kind of holiness that precludes them from exposure to death. The difference between them can be found in the thing that has come to be associated with the nazir more than anything else: head hair. While the priest is forbidden from growing out his hair (Lev. 21:10), the nazir is prevented from cutting it. The nazir’s holiness is expressed through his hair, which the Torah says is “his consecration unto God.”
The Hebrew word often translated as “consecration” is “nezer,” which in this context connoted a crown. The prohibition against contact with the dead is also derived from this holiness, which is why any such contact requires the nazir to cut off his hair. When a nazir’s vow lapses, he shaves his head and burns the hair on the altar along with his offering (6:18). Like a burnt offering, the hair belongs to God. The story of Samson also drives home the idea that the main expression of Naziriteship is hair. When Delilah asks, “Wherein thy great strength lieth?” (Judges 16:15), Samson replies, “There hath not come a razor upon my head; for I have been a nazir unto God from my mother’s womb; if I be shaven, then my........