Parshat Naso: Enduring Connections
Parshat Naso is the longerst parsha in the Torah, 176 verses that parallel the 176 verses in Psalm 119 and the 176 pages in Bava Batra. Is there a connection between the disparate elements in the parsha, something that enables us to see why a census of the tribes, rules about discharges and corpse contaminations, a trial by ordeal of a wife suspected by her husband of adultery, the vows of the nazirite, the priestly blessing, and the identical offerings given by each of the twelve tribes at the consecration of the mishkan are together?
There are suggestions of particular thematic links. The priestly blessing follows the nazirite laws, suggests the Talmud in Taanit 26b because ”just as it is forbidden for the nazir to drink wine, so too is it for a priest reciting the benediction to drink wine.” Another suggestion of the linkage of the Sotah, the ritual for testing whether a woman has committed adultery if her husband is suspicious, is linked to the Nazir is that “anyone who sees a Sotah in her disgrace should renounce wine.” (Berachot 63a) The same passage also says that the juxtaposition of the tithes to the priests to the Sotah is that if one does not give honestly, will need the services of the priest in regard to performing this ritual. Another suggestion is that the logic of the verb pen-resh- ayin, to undo or unfurl, used about hair in both the Nazir passage(Numbers 6:5) and in the Sotah one(Numbers 5:18), is a linguistic similarity and rationale to position these sections contiguously as suggested by Biblical scholar Umberto Cassuto.
Maybe it is the center of the parsha, the 15 words of the Birkat Cohanim, the priestly blessing given by the priestly class to the people Israel and by parents to children each week. In a lovely explanation of this, David Woolf in his Torah IQ book quotes the Seder Olam which suggests the 15 words are an allusion to the 15 years all three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were alive. If we do the math, Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born and Isaac was 60 when Jacob was born; if Abraham was 175 at his death, it follows that the 15 years between Jacob’s birth and his death are a time when all three generations roamed the earth.
To me, this fact, seems the essence of the blessing and ultimately of the parsha. These 15 words are the oldest surviving texts of the Hebrew Bible, found on amulets buried at Ketef Hinnom and now on display at the Israel Museum which has authenticated them as from the 6th century BCE. This means that these words, used by priests to bless the people and parents to bless children, have been in use for over 2500 years, according to actual physical evidence. One can go to the place where these scrolls were found in Jerusalem and imagine a parent expressing concern and hope for a child, wishing them good things and putting these words to use on their behalf.
My husband Rabbi Jon Perlman suggests that what links the various sections of the parsha is the exploration of intimacy: the intimacy the nazir forms with the divine as a result of the additional observances taken on, the possibility of renewed intimacy if a jealous husband can blamelessly return to his wife, of the intimacy of Israel and God once the gifts are brought for the inauguration of the mishkan. This makes sense to me as the framework for the central section of the parsha as the priestly blessing.
Today we use this blessing to forge intimacy with our children and connect to them, through the oldest surviving words of the Torah. In a discussion about making the blessing on the Torah at the beginning of the day and whether it should be repeated if one interrupts one’s Torah study for other activities, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik[i] explains that only one blessing on Torah study per day need be made because, “the emotional consecration and involvement associated with a state of mind, with love for and devotion to the Word – and this involvement is a permanent, continuous experience which cannot be interrupted or canceled.” He compares this love of Torah to the parent/child relationship: “the father can never forget the child and can never stop loving the child, and this is exactly valid with reference to Torah. The emotional attachment is never broken.”
This emotional attachment, the intimacy between the various individuals mentioned, is the essence of parshat Naso. Though it is lengthy, this parsha and the blessing communicating and conveying care and love at its center, does have a central concern. This is embodied in the 15 words which we might imagine the three generations of patriarchs communicating one to the next, as the parent who created the amulet buried in Ketef Hinnom and those parents who use them today, even when their children are far away and will speak the words through a screen. In this parsha that speaks of the potential for brokenness, the words of the blessing and the emotional attachment they convey when they are spoken and when they are received give us the language and the possibility of communicating love and intimacy through words, over generations.
[i] In Megillat Ruth Mesoret HaRav Koren commentary, 171.