We look at the portion Naso once again this week to comport with Reform Judaism’s observance of only one day of Shavuot (see last week’s 2 Minutes of Torah).
The Nazirite is one who takes a vow of abstinence as a way of declaring a desire to achieve a higher level of holiness, both for themselves and as perceived by others. On its face, this seems a laudatory example. However, with Judaism’s aversion to bodily self-denial as a model for spiritual purity, and the rabbis’ concern that such extreme discipline is both unnecessary and can tend toward arrogance and self-aggrandizement, they interpret the sin-offering that is brought at the end of the Nazirite vow-period as reflective of this ambivalence. More broadly, unlike some elements of Christian piety, the “things of the body” and the material world are not impediments to spiritual attainment. Rather, if used in healthy and life-affirming ways, they become the means to achieving holiness.