Naso: Nazir Sota

Why should Gd and the Temple system get involved in these matters? The Nazir is choosing  a set of restrictions that alienate her from normal life. He does not look normal because he cannot comb his hair.  She does cannot drink wine, or even grape juice.  No kiddush. They cannot attend a funeral and remember the life and deeds of their beloved and kin.  The associated sacrificial rituals are either the culmination of the experience or part of the penalty for deviation. 

The nazir  seems more of an isolation than a spiritual  ascension.  I imagine that  climbing to metaphysical heights might be aided but such solitude, but the two are not necessarily connected.  The ritual is an aid for a process and the goal of that action is not stated.  The motivation for this available practice is private and, in the opinion of Shimon  HaTzadik ( Shimon the righteous), usually misguided ( see Nazir 4B for the famous story). But the ritual system supported this process. 

The Sota, the woman suspected of adultery, to our modern American eyes, would seem to be a private matter between the husband and wife.  The Torah offers a ritual for exoneration of the suspected wife. ( I doubt that the slurry of ink and dirt  that the indicted woman drank was toxic enough to hurt her, except through Divine intervention.) The asymmetry of the situation, the victimization of the woman with no obligation on the husband, is not modern, but the net effect probably spared many women from beatings and murder. 

The Christians were critical of the practice (depicted by  Rembrandt).  The Mishna  (Sota 9:9) quoted in the  Gemarrah credits Yochanan ben Zakai  ( d.90 CE)  with the elimination of the ritual, because adultery had become too common and an innocent husband was a prerequisite for the waters to be effective.  Husbands and wives were left to work it out on their own. 

The Mishkan and the Temple(s) avoided the ecological fallacy ( the formal fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data that occurs when inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inferences about the group to which those individuals belong.) 

The chiefs of the 12 tribes all brought the same  gifts, the ritual was always performed in the same way,  but the motivations and purposes were highly individual.