Naso: The forbidden

Naso: The forbidden

 

Consider forbidden: fore: earlier; bidden: requested.  A previous agreement, a contract that can be violated.

Naso starts with the duties of the Levites in the transport of the Mishkan.  A contract.

Then comes the Sotah, the question of whether the marriage contract was broken

Then the Nazir, a new contract about wine, haircuts and the dead.

 

The Sotah and the Nazir echo the garden of Eden. Chava broke the contract. She ate the forbidden fruit. The paradigm of suspicion between husband and wife is set.

The Sotah has her hair exposed: she is returned to a state of nakedness; what is usually covered is exposed.

She drinks the dangerous elixir: eitz hadaath ( Adam yodah eth Chava)  or Eitz Hachaim?

 

The Nazir accepts a new contract to correct the errors that were made with the old contract.

He vows to abstain from the fruit of the tree of knowledge ( the grape, according to some Tanaim) and he, too, returns to the naked state ( growing his hair) that preceded the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Death, the penalty for eating of the eitz hadaath, ruins the contract and, to fulfill the contract, the Nazir must start over.

 

May the priestly blessing work for  us.

 

Behar Bechukothy: sources

Behar Bechukothy: sources

 

The two parshioth stress the importance of the source of information.  Behar starts with identifying the entities ( Gd and Moshe) and the location ( Mt. Sinai) of the upcoming rules ( the Sabbatical year).  The second parsha identifies the laws as Gd's unquestionable edicts (chukothy) and the consequences of (not) following them.

 

 

In our days, I imagine that information is validated by its observed reproducibility, not by its source. In those areas in which I am more expert, I understand that the reporter of the information has a great influence on the "facts" than I would  like. There are no facts, only observations and beliefs.

 

The statement that  אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, בְּהַר סִינַי לֵאמֹר. And the LORD spoke unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, identifying what follows as Sinaitic in origin, makes one wonder about the origin of the statements that preceded this pronouncement. All of Vayikra up to this point  is takes place after Sinai.  Vayikra begins with:  And the LORD called unto Moses, and spoke unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying:  

The place is the ohel moed, not Sinai.

The story that immediately precedes Behar is  certainly not Sinaitic because Moshe must imprison the blasphemer to go ask Gd what to do with him.

This post Sinai consultation with Gd precedes the pronouncement that the laws of the Sabbatical year, the laws of the sale of property (preventing the housing bubble), etc are from Sinai.

 

What does it mean that laws are from Sinai?  This designation: Halacha leMoshe MiSinai is given to many rules that  are not even hinted to in the Tanach.

It might  mean: the laws that unify the Jewish people, or the laws that are unique to Jews, or the laws that are the common knowledge of the Jews - so obvious that they need not be stated explicitly. It might mean that they can be derived by recombining the ten commandments.

 

Knowing is believing.