Naso: Hair

Hair is a central character in this week’s parsha. When I was a teenager, the play,”Hair”, appeared.  It was about free love ( Sota) and hippies ( Nazir), the core stories of this week’s parsha. What is hair all about?

 The exposure of the hair of the suspected wayward wife (the Sota) is the ( stated) basis for  the Orthodox custom of covering a married woman’s hair.

וּפָרַע֙ אֶת־רֹ֣אשׁ הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה

the priest shall bare (pora)  the woman’s head.

Rashi

ופרע. סוֹתֵר אֶת קְלִיעַת שְׂעָרָהּ, כְּדֵי לְבַזּוֹתָהּ, מִכָּאן לִבְנוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁגִּלּוּי הָרֹאשׁ גְּנַאי לָהֶן (כתובות ע"ב):

ופרע AND HE SHALL PUT IN DISORDER [THE WOMAN’S HAIR] — i.e. he pulls away her hair-plaits in order to make her look despicable. — We may learn from this that as regards married Jewish women an uncovered head is a disgrace to them (Sifrei Bamidbar 11).

Sifrei Bamidbar 11:

R. Yishmael said: From here (i.e., from the fact that he is to uncover her hair) we derive an exhortation for the daughters of Israel to cover their hair. And though there is no proof for this, there is an intimation of it…

 

(Note: the Hebrew and English renditions of Rashi differ in the proof text quoted by Sefaria)

 

This word ( pora)פָרַע֙ is also used to describe the hair of the other major character in this weeks’ parsha, the Nazir. The Nazir, the formalized nonconformist, must let his hair grow wild, a condition designated by the same word:

גַּדֵּ֥ל פֶּ֖רַע שְׂעַ֥ר רֹאשֽׁוֹ׃

The hair of their head being left to grow untrimmed.

 

The traditional explanation for the relationship between these adjacent sections is given in Rashi, who  quotes the Talmud

Why is the section dealing with the Nazarite placed in juxtaposition to the section dealing with the סוטה? To tell you that he who has once seen a סוטה in her disgrace should abstain from wine, because it may lead to adultery (Sotah 2a).

But clearly they are also related in other ways, by wild hair.

 

What does hair mean? Humans have traded fur, covering most of the body, for hair in a few locations. Some of that hair is always covered by clothing in public  in Eurasian traditions. The hair atop the head is a crowning decoration, a way that people try to make themselves attractive. It is an invitation to intimacy.

The head hair conveys information about health ( nutritional deficiencies thin the hair and cause it to fall out) and age ( it loses its color and gets thinner).  The color and curl of the hair reveals aspects of tribal affiliation. The arrangement of the hair reports on personal care and grooming. Hair can be an important point in mate selection. Hair is an identifying characteristic; it does much to distinguish the individual.

When the hair of the suspected wife (sota) is exposed in a pora, messed up, way, the concept of monandry (a unique husband) is challenged. The individualized arrangement is cancelled, and the universality of the lust instinct emphasized. This woman is accused of abandoning the self-denial that the male-dominated society demands. The identification of paternity has been brought into question. The particularity of love is cast in doubt. The play “Hair” supports the  Sota of the 1960’s .

 

The nazir’s hair is a denouncement of the worldly, the dating and mating game. It is another way of cancelling the behaviors that bring one, regardless of gender ( a Nazir can be male or female), to the conflict between passion and norm.

In the context of the haftarah, the message is mixed. The haftarah describes the annunciation of the birth of Samson, a process that hints at the Sota (The annunciating angel generally confronts the wife of Manoah when she is alone). Samson was famous for the long haired, Nazerite state that afforded him super-human strength and his passion for duplicitous Delilah. Things get mixed up. Many hippies found love because of/despite their long, wild hair.

The pora, wild hair of the Nazir also distinguished him from the Kohen ( priest) who was forbidden to have such hair.

 

The leper, shunned because of the possibility of contagion also has this pora hair

וְהַצָּר֜וּעַ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֣וֹ הַנֶּ֗גַע בְּגָדָ֞יו יִהְי֤וּ פְרֻמִים֙ וְרֹאשׁוֹ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה פָר֔וּעַ

And the diseased man in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and the hair of his head shall grow long,

Presumably, the leper’s hair made her repulsive, making it easier for the uninfected to avoid this diseased person.

 

Shaving the hair is a purification process. The Levites have all their hair shaved as a part of their initiation into the sacred. The leper shaves all her hair as part of the re-entry into society.  The Nazir shaves all his hair at the termination of his vowed time.

The Nazis shaved the hair of those interred in concentration camp. That haircut reduced the lice infestation, and it also reduced the sense of dignity and self of the victims.

I never saw the play “Hair”. I could not afford a ticket… not just the money, it was also the conflict.