Page 1 - AnnouncementsJune 15

Parshat Naso June 15, 2019 12 Sivan, 5779
Rabbi Sacks on Parshat Naso
TORAH Parshat Naso contains the voluntarily undertaken a higher in these patterns of behavior
ARTSCROLL 748 law of the Nazirite – the level of holiness. The prophet at least some influence from
HERTZ 586 individual who undertook Amos (2:11) said, “I raised up the non-Jewish environment.
to observe special rules of some of your sons for prophets, The Chasidei Ashkenaz who

HAFTORAH holiness and abstinence: and your young men for flourished during the time of
not to drink wine or other
the Crusades lived among
Nazirites,” suggesting that the
ARTSCROLL 1181 intoxicants (including Nazirite, like the prophet, is a self-mortifying Christians.
HERTZ 602 anything made from person especially close to God. Their southern counterparts
grapes), not to have his The reason he had to bring a sin may have been familiar with
hair cut, and not to defile offering was that he was now Sufism, the mystical
Times himself by contact with returning to ordinary life. His sin movement in Islam. The
the dead (Num. 6:1–21). lay in ceasing to be a Nazirite. ambivalence of Jews towards
Such a state was usually Eliezer HaKappar and Shmuel the life of self-denial may
Mincha 7:00 pm
undertaken for a limited held the opposite opinion. For therefore lie in the suspicion
Candle Lighting 8:09 pm period; the standard them the sin lay in becoming a that it entered Judaism from
length was thirty days. Nazirite in the first place and the outside. There were
Hashkama 8:00 am There were exceptions, thereby denying himself some of ascetic movements in the
most famously Samson the pleasures of the world God first centuries of the
and Samuel who, because created and declared good. R. Common Era in both the
Youth Minyan 8:30 am
of the miraculous nature Eliezer added: “From this we West (Greece) and the East
of their birth, were may infer that if one who denies (Iran) that saw the physical
Parsha Shiur 8:30 am
consecrated before their himself the enjoyment of wine is world as a place of
birth as Nazirites for life. called a sinner, all the more so corruption and strife. They
Main 9:00 am
What the Torah does not one who denies himself the were, in fact, dualists,
make clear, though, is enjoyment of other pleasures of holding that the true God
Beit Midrash 9:15 am firstly why a person might life.” was not the creator of the
wish to undertake this universe. The physical world
Gemara Shiur 7:05 pm form of abstinence, and Clearly the argument is not was the work of a lesser, and
secondly whether it merely textual. It is substantive. evil, deity. Therefore God –
Mincha 8:05 pm considers this choice to be It is about asceticism, the life of the true God – is not to be
commendable, or merely self-denial. Almost every found in the physical world
Shabbat Ends 9:18 pm permissible. On the one religion knows the phenomenon and its enjoyments but
hand the Torah calls the of people who, in pursuit of rather in disengagement
Sun. June 16 7:30/8:30 am Nazirite “holy to spiritual purity, withdraw from from them.
God” (Num. 6:8). On the the pleasures and temptations
Mon. & Thurs. 6:35/7:45 am other, it requires him, at of the world. They live in caves, The two best-known
Tues., Wed. & Fri. 6:45/7:45 am the end of the period of retreats, hermitages, movements to hold this view
monasteries. The Qumran sect
were Gnosticism in the West
Mincha 8:15 pm his vow, to bring a sin known to us through the Dead and Manichaeism in the East.
offering (Num. 6:13–14).
Sea Scrolls may have been such So at least some of the
Latest Times for This led to an ongoing a movement. In the Middle Ages negative evaluation of the
Shema/Shemoneh Esrei disagreement between the there were Jews who adopted Nazirite may have been
Rabbis in Mishnaic, similar kinds of self-denial – driven by a desire to
June 15 9:09/10:24 am Talmudic, and medieval among them the Chasidei discourage Jews from
times. According to R. Ashkenaz, the Pietists of imitating non-Jewish
June 22 9:10/10:25 am Elazar, and later to Northern Europe, as well as practices. Judaism strongly
Nahmanides, the Nazirite many Jews in Islamic lands. In believes that God is to be
is praiseworthy. He has
Next Shabbat retrospect it is hard not to see found in the midst of the
Beha’alotcha
Kiddush
Mincha 7:00 pm is provided by

Candle Lighting 8:11 pm Great Neck Synagogue