Torah Study Blog

Last week we looked at the nazirite vow in the Torah. As a reminder, we learned that when a person takes a nazirite vow they are becoming holy to God, in a similar fashion that a priest is holy to God. However, the restrictions on a nazirite are even more strict than on a priest: Nazirites must abstain from all grape products, they must not cut their hair, and they must not come close to a dead person. Also, at the end of the term of being a nazirite, the person must make a substantial sacrifice to God, which is a very expensive proposition, so only people with access to wealth would be in a position to take the vow.

Regarding vow taking, the Torah says the following:

“If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.” (Numbers 30:3) 

“When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. For He has no pleasure in fools; what you vow, fulfill. It is better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill.” (Ecclesiastes 5:3-4)

The Torah does not indicate why someone would want to take a vow or how long a “term” lasted. This week we looked at writings from the Mishnah and from Christian texts (which are actually a terrific source for what was happening in the Jewish community) from the 1^st- to 2^nd century CE. We  were able to ascertain that 30-days was the standard term of a nazirite vow and that the people who would take a vow would be people who were trying to get something from God in return – the begetting of children was a common reason to take a vow.

Clearly, a vow was not something to be to be taken lightly. And if a person went back on their vow bad things could happen. It also does not speak well of a society if people could take vows they were not expected to keep. Breaking vows could tear at the very fabric of society, so there was a public interest in making sure that vows were kept. Also, unfulfilled vows could invoke the anger of God, which was dangerous to the entire community.

The Rabbis did not encourage the taking of vows because they understood that human beings were fickle. Because taking a vow was serious business, it would be better not to enter into a vow at all.

This is the reason that there are no vows in a Jewish marriage. Rabbi Jaech told us that, for the civil part of the ceremony, she will ask the conventional questions “Do you take…” but this is not part of the Jewish marriage, which is a legal contract, not a vow to God. And this is also why Jews allow divorce. There are marriage vows in a Christian wedding because a wedding is considered a sacrament, which is why divorce has been disapproved of.

The Rabbis might have wanted to discourage actions, such as vow-taking that might be rash, or other actions they did not approve of. But just because the Rabbis might have wanted to discourage something didn’t mean that people stopped the action. Even today, on a Rosh Hashanah afternoon people will make a trip to a nearby body of water to throw bread in, as a way of casting out their sins. In antiquity, when people believed in multiple gods and demons, people would bring bread to the water as a way to feed the demons and keep them appeased. Medieval rabbis tried to do-away with the custom of tashlik, but it was too popular and people continued the tradition. The rabbis, instead, created rules to regulate the practice.

Although not one of the original 12 apostles, Paul the Apostle lived from roughly 5-65 CE and preached to people to follow the teachings of Jesus. There is a story in Acts 21 about Paul traveling toward Jerusalem and collecting coverts to his new movement of Judaism (the first Christians were actually Jews). Paul is told by his cohorts that the people, “have been informed that you teach all the Jews … to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.” The question is how to prove to the people that Paul absolutely lived according to Jewish law but, within those bounds, is also following the teachings of Jesus. Paul’s cohorts say to him, “There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their head shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law.”

Paul will take the vow, as loyal Jews do, then he will pay his own expenses AND the expenses of the other four men to end their vow. And the head-shaving ceremony to conclude the vow was a public experience. This way Paul shows the entire community his obedience to God and to laws of Judaism, and may also earn some believers to his new movement.

If you wanted non-Jews, gentiles who had not been circumcised at birth, to join your movement, circumcision at an adult age might have been a tough hurdle for some people. Christianity did eventually get rid of the requirement of circumcision.

In an effort to quash the practice of taking a nazirite vow, the Rabbis tried to limit it and to make it very difficult to extricate yourself from it. By the time the Torah was canonized, the Rabbis made it that there were no more nazirites.

What can we learn about taking a nazirite vow today? Rabbi Jaech shared an experience one of her colleagues had with a community member who was battling alcoholism. The colleague did a version of the nazirite vow so that the member could elevate abstaining from grape products and other intoxicants to some sort of a sacred level.

misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter