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.