Naso
The families of Gershon and Merari are assigned to carry parts of the Mishkan. A range of laws are then described, including when someone is sent outside the camp, the laws of one accused of adultery, and the laws of the Nazir, one who voluntary accepts upon themselves a range of restrictions. The parsha concludes by describing the sacrifices brought by each tribe at the altar’s inauguration.
Parashat Naso – Shira Solomons
A US-educated economist with family roots in South Africa, Shira now lives with her family in Reading, England, where she works as Rebbetzin and cheder director at Reading Hebrew Congregation. She is passionate about practical spirituality and the possibility of Jewish education that enables children, women and men to expand both their intellectual and spiritual horizons.
Reish Lakish states that anyone who says "Amen" with all his strength opens the gates of Heaven (Shabbat 119b).
Somewhat hidden in this week’s very busy Torah portion, is the first mention of one of the most important words in our liturgy: Amen. It is a word that we often say as a matter of routine, but how often do we really appreciate the power of its meaning?
Literally, Amen means "I believe" and it comes from the same root as the word "Emunah", meaning faith. It appears in only one other section of the Torah, and its meaning there is very serious and even ominous. As the children of Israel are standing on the threshold of the Promised Land, they affirm a series of curses against those who would undermine the covenant, a ceremony that was clearly designed to put the fear of God into the people and help them steer clear of sin. After each curse, the people say "Amen".
In its first ever appearance in this week's Parsha, the word is no less awesome in its meaning. We read this week of the Sotah, a woman who comes to the Temple because her jealous husband is convinced that she has been unfaithful, although he cannot prove it. To clear her name and achieve reconciliation with her husband, she must drink the waters of bitterness, water in which the name of God itself has been dissolved. (If she refuses, then she can be divorced without compensation.)
As she is about to drink, the Priest declares that if she is guilty, the waters will cause her belly to swell and her thigh to fall away, and she says: "Amen, Amen". If she is innocent, then she becomes pregnant, and the pregnancy proves her to be guiltless. The genius of this result is, of course, that once she has survived the Sotah ordeal, her baby cannot be rejected by her jealous husband as not being his. In fact, if one looks at the ritual from a practical vantage-point, it is clearly designed not to punish adultery, but to force a jealous man to "get over it".
The Torah also says that "the man shall be free from iniquity" (5:31), from which the Rabbis derive that if he has been unfaithful to her then the waters cannot harm the woman. If she does not have faith in him, then her ‘Amen’ becomes meaningless.
However foreign or even shocking the Sotah ritual may be to modern eyes, the problem it addresses is timeless: How do we heal a relationship when one party simply refuses to have faith in the other? The answer the Torah gives is that the party who still has faith must take the first move, and declare that however faithless he is, she still has faith in herself and in him. Thus it is hard not to be inspired by the courage of the innocent Sotah, who by saying "Amen, Amen", forces her husband to rediscover his faith (Emunah) in her.
Another Voice - Eva Burke
Eva Burke grew up in Austria and Switzerland, she studied at Brandeis University and the LSE and she works for Youth Aliyah Child Rescue as Project Associate. Both she and her husband have resisted many years the pleas of their elder daughter to come to Limmud – until four years ago when they yielded and attended. They have never looked back.
Without going into the actual text of the Parasha and the many, many different ways of understanding Naso, one is struck, yet again, by the minute details of the text: the descriptions of the Mishkan, the measurements, the adornments, the different ornaments and the material from which they are made, etc. where they are affixed and how. Similarly, the text, of course, is also very specific about numbers, age groups and repeating these over and over again. And then, we are told about sin, unfaithfulness and atonement. Trying to link, admittedly somewhat superficially, these three strands: I feel that one of the lessons this Parasha teaches us is the importance of detail, of how precisely we perform our tasks, what exact measures we take, how much thought we need to give to each and every step we take in life so that each makes for a positive whole. Every detail in our environment, our home, our houses of prayer makes a difference and has an impact on ourselves and others. By giving thought and deliberation we give meaning to our actions and our surroundings. So too, every one of us makes a difference in our family and in our community. That is why we are counted and why we are accountable.