A nazir (ascetic) is an enigma.
By adopting additional stringencies, he exhibits extraordinary dedication to an intensely religious lifestyle. Concerned about overindulgence in material pleasure, he bans wine consumption.
Commenting upon the Torah’s juxtaposition of the nazir section with the story of a woman who betrays her husband, the Talmud suggests that the nazir’s decision to adopt religious strictness is taken in response to witnessing an instance of adultery. His moral recoil to marital infidelity inspires him to renounce wine and to prevent possible addiction.
Even when not responding to the disgrace of adultery, a nazir hopes to check against the dangers of excessive physical pleasure. He displays remarkable moral spirit and emotional discipline. However, the Torah also alludes to a nazir as sinful or at least veering toward sin. Maimonides explained that by disavowing wine, a nazir tampers with the delicate balance which God established regarding our physical experiences.
Judaism doesn’t endorse extreme physical deprivation or wholesale asceticism.
Our souls and our bodies were created by God, and each participates in a unified and holistic religious experience. By adding extra prohibitions, the nazir tilts the system toward excessive abstinence, threatening to upset our divinely ordained religious equilibrium. A nazir is both holy and sinful.
While our tradition has generally frowned upon the concept of nazir, several legendary biblical personalities such as Joseph, Samson, and Samuel adopted this lifestyle, but generally our tradition discouraged the institution. It was never seen as an ideal for the mainstream.
However, despite this ambivalence and our general discouragement of the practice, the Torah provides financial leniency for a nazir whose “term” was disrupted by coming into contact with a dead person. After his term is interrupted, a nazir must offer two sacrifices; and afterward, he starts his term again from the beginning.
Though, typically, cattle sacrifices are offered, a nazir need only tender two cheaper birds. The Midrash attributes this discount to a nazir having already suffered the indignity of becoming ritually impure and to his frustration and disappointment at having to start his pledge anew.
Ideologically, his decision to be a nazir is problematic. However, on a human level, he has already endured a setback and emotional distress. Compassion for human suffering is much more important than ideological evaluation of his decision.
A terrible dilemma
OUR COUNTRY currently faces an unimaginable dilemma. We were brutally attacked by vicious barbarians who are still determined to destroy us.
Though they have brazenly pledged to continue their violence, the world turns a deaf ear and encourages us to sign a peace treaty with genocidal psychopaths. If we don’t finish this just and moral war, these maniacs will regroup, re-entrench themselves, and recover their capacity to attack us. We have invested far too much effort and suffered far too much loss of life to leave this incredibly important job unfinished. Our survival depends upon it.
There are currently 120 hostages imprisoned in Gaza, who have suffered through over 250 days of unspeakable cruelty and torture. They are citizens of our state, and we have a national and moral responsibility to bring them home. It appears as if the only way they can be released is through a ceasefire agreement with the Hamas murderers. The only path to their release is a treaty with monsters whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of Israelis.
We cannot reconcile these two vital goals. Our enemies demoniacally set this trap, knowing they could manipulate Israeli public opinion and sow further discord. The general population remains sorely divided between those who support a ceasefire and a hostage release, and those who want to press this war to its conclusion. Videos of hostages pull at our heartstrings.
The video of the female soldiers who manned lookout stations attacked by Hamas terrorists is horrific and demoralizing. The discovery of the bodies of hostages creates even greater urgency to work toward their release.
There is no easy solution to this quagmire. More than ever, it seems that we cannot achieve a decisive victory over Hamas while also freeing the hostages while still alive. God should help us achieve both, but without divine intervention it is unlikely that we can succeed in these noble goals. We remain divided over which policy to pursue.
MORE IMPORTANT than whatever policy we support is the sympathy we feel and express for the various groups of victims who are suffering through this trauma.
The anguish of the families of hostages is horrendous. Not knowing the fate of their loved ones, while imagining the worst, these families are enduring a never-ending nightmare. The clock is ticking, and each day that passes subjects the hostages to extra suffering and decreasing their chance of survival. Ignoring their suffering is callous and insensitive.
Families of fallen soldiers are also suffering an indescribable and heartbreaking loss.
Many of these families have expressed the desire that this battle be fought to its victorious conclusion. These families have paid the ultimate price in defense of our country, and without a conclusive victory many feel that their sacrifice will be in vain. They are also undergoing severe torment and anguish.
Essentially, whatever policy we adopt will aggravate the suffering of a group of people who have already undergone a horrifying trauma. Given this, we all must learn to speak about the situation with heightened sensitivity and with the sober acknowledgment that any policy or political decision will cause pain and sorrow.
Human compassion must always take precedence over ideology or political positions.
Too often, people assert a policy about this dilemma with indelicacy and without even mentioning the pain of the victims. We must speak more gently and with much more nuance, realizing the huge emotional cost of whatever policy we believe to be correct.
There is enormous suffering on both sides of the equation, and any decision will only be a partial one, though it may be the best option available.
Sensitivity is more important than political sloganeering.
The same emotional sensitivity is necessary when we speak about “the war” in general. Our discussions hinge on the “day after,” the political dynamics, or military analysis. Many are pondering the larger questions surrounding the war: How is this war a struggle over the image of God in our world? And how is radical Islam perverting religious values?
How is this struggle reshaping Jewish identity and Jewish peoplehood? How does this war play into the larger and enduing battle against antisemitism? Why is our culture so broken? How are some modern cultural narratives being weaponized against our people?
We are involved in many larger conversations about the war. These discussions must always be prefaced by acknowledging the extreme agony that the direct victims are living through.
Families of hostages, families of fallen soldiers, displaced families, people traumatized by being caught in the Oct. 7 attack – these groups are the primary victims of our national trauma.
Don’t turn too quickly to the world of ideas, to political analysis, or to prognostications while ignoring the human and emotional toll. Make sure to first sympathize with human suffering. Compassion and sympathy must always precede ideology.
The writer is a rabbi at the hesder Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, with ordination from Yeshiva University and a master’s in English literature from CUNY. He is the author of Dark Clouds Above, Faith Below (Kodesh Press), providing religious responses to Oct. 7.