The Nazarite laws state three simple things:
- they cannot drink wine or any form of grapes
- they cannot cut their hair
- and they cannot touch the dead.
Not too demanding right?
Nazarites are the only people who are as holy like the priests but without any of the responsibilities. Any one can be a nazarite too, you don’t have to be only from the tribe of Levi like the Kohainim or the priests do.
Interestingly enough the people who historically chose to be Nazarites where often adolescents who were trying to escape the negative temptations of the world. It makes sense to me that teens would choose this, since even in today’s world we face so many temptations: physical, mental, sexual, experimental, temptations on who we want to be, look, act, dress, speak, think, play.
People would become a Nazarite in order to detach themselves from society, but still be a part of the practices and worship. They rejected any form of grape product in order to not derive any of the pleasures of life, which is what wine symbolizes. By not touching or coming in contact with the dead they detached themselves from the unpleasant parts of life as well. The nazarite in today’s terms embodied the ideals of abstinence, the idea of resisting and waiting for the right and socially accepted time to give in to these temptations.
The priest cut off all of they’re hair (except for their payot) and nazarites didn’t cut their hair at all. The two extremes showed holiness. The idea of trimmed well kept hair speaks to the idea of balance and being able to restrain oneself from to much of a good thing and still maintain some holiness as well. Today we are able to understand how to limit ourselves and rejoice and enjoy life’s pleasures but still know when enough is enough. The nazarite showed sometimes you had to go to the edge in order to know where the middle is.
The idea of allowing anyone, man or women, or elderly, be as holy as the priests is in itself a very interesting and unique idea. It implies that being holy isn’t something to be reserved for only those of a certain tribe, age, gender, or social strata - that holiness is available to all. In a way, it permits the fulfillment of Hashem's commandment that we be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".
No one is 100% certain why anyone would want to be a Nazarite. The Torah doesn't say. But I understand on a personal level that compelling need to be holy, to live your life differently than the path normally taken. You see, the path I’m on isn’t leading straight to college or the other normal things. I’m looking more at the path of making aliyah and going into the Israeli Army.
That is, the road less traveled.
The land of Israel draws me to it like the letters to the torah. During the past four and a half months I grew in ways I didn’t know I would, or even could. Spiritually I grew, waking up every morning to see the sunrise and pray morning shachrit because to miss one sunrise would have been a shame. Hearing that sweet and beautiful ancient Hebrew language spoken all around me lulled me to sleep every night and followed me everywhere. While on yam l’yam - literally "sea to sea" - I hiked across Israel from the Galilee to the Mediterranean, on the last night of our camping and smelling very much like the Israelites who wandered through the desert for forty years probably did, we slept out under the stars. I didn’t sleep that night, I couldn’t, and everything was too beautiful to close my eyes. The breeze was to sweet smelling to let my sub-conscious mind take over and for my senses to not take it all in.
Why would I want to live a life so extremely different from the one I was born into? The same can be asked to that of the Nazarites - why would they want to do what they did? Maybe we’re the same people, Israel for me is that lover I long to be with, and without him I’m lost. Like the Nazarite, I’ve made my own vows: to come back to the home which, although far from my family, is where my my heart truly lies.
In Israel, I sit around and didn’t get a tan like the other girls, (I don’t ever tan, I reflect!). I didn’t try to meet any boys - Israeli or otherwise. Instead, I met up with my future. I saw myself driving through Jerusalem on my way to my home in Hertzelia, or where ever it may be; meeting up with my friends and making Shabbat dinner; singing daily prayers and psalms. At one point I wrote home saying “I've begun to feel myself being wrapped in eretz yisrael, as I become one with it. In more than just one way I found my family here.”
My Dad says "writing well means never having to say 'I guess you had to be there' ", and that in my words I've been able to bring people along on, to help them experience a connection without having to be there.
Maybe that's the secret to the Nazarite - they wanted what I want: to choose to live differently not out of selfishness, but in order to share, to serve as a link between the daily life which is important and necessary and the extraordinary and holy.
Shabbat shalom!
