To Have or To Be?
A Message for Parashat Naso 2018
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In their careful reading of the disparate
passages in Parshat Naso, the Hakhamim gave reason to the
juxtaposition of the laws of nazir and sotah: “To tell you that
anyone who sees a sotah in her state of disgrace will take upon himself
to abstain from wine, for wine leads to adultery.”[1]
They explained that by noticing the lowly state of the wayward woman accused of
adultery one will naturally accept the precautionary measures of the life of a nazir.
The status of the nazir’s state of
being, however, is no simple matter. On the one hand, the nazir is
called “holy to God” (Bemidbar 6:8), while on the other he is required to bring
a sin offering when he concludes the period of his vow (6:13-14). Indeed, the
Talmud records conflicting opinions regarding this matter, and R. Elazar
HaKapar maintains that his decision to abstain from wine represents his sin.[2]
Surprisingly, even when the nazir’s vow to ascetism is only temporarily
accepted in order to prevent future sin, it is nonetheless deemed negative.
Why?
I believe that the answer lays hidden in the parashah’s
next segment, birkat kohanim. In three separate sentences, God first
commanded the kohanim to bless the people regarding a relationship with
Him. He then concluded: “They shall place My name upon Bnei Yisrael and
I shall bless them” (6:27). What does it mean to “carry God’s name”?
The great psychoanalyst Erich Fromm distinguished
between two modes of existence: to have and to be. A person who
strives to have is concerned with material possessions, physical
pleasure, power and aggression. Their measures of success are what and how much
they have attained. One who lives to be, in contrast, seeks an inner
satisfaction and general harmony. Their existence is based upon love, the
pleasure of sharing and productive activity.[3]
The sotah wants to have. She
submits to the urges that pull her to the allure of adultery. Realizing her
damned ending, the nazir seeks an alternate route. By prohibiting
himself from shaving his hair, drinking wine, and coming in contact with the
dead, the nazir seeks to not have. Although he shares a
perspective on life with sotah, as they both peer through the
prism of “to have or not to have,” he nonetheless builds a protective wall of
“not having” with restrictions. Lacking an alternative mindset, however, the nazir’s
plan is criticized by the Torah and the Hakhamim.
“Carrying God’s name,” afterwards mentioned
by the Kohanim, means living a life of essence. It is an existence that is
driven by the will to be. Its goal is quality instead of quantity.
This mission contrasts the “lives of having” of the nazir and sotah,
by instead viewing our lives as the experience of being the bearers of
God’s name.
The nazir’s fear of death might in
fact stem from his focus on having. Erich Fromm noted that when we say,
“This person has a future,” we refer to what he or she might attain in
the future even though they haven’t in the present. Seen through this prism,
the “present” is the point where past and future join, but not different in
quality from those two realms that it connects. Living to be, however,
transcends time. Painting and writing, for example, are conceived in a creative
event outside of time. The experiences of loving, joy and grasping truth
similarly transpire in the timeless present, which is enmeshed with both the
past and the future. Living to be, then, dispels the tensions and fears
of our future.[4]
By delicately stitching the passages
regarding the sotah, nazir and birkat kohanim to each other, Parashat
Naso contrasts the mistaken life of having to the ideal one of being.
[1] Bemidbar Rabah10:2-4.
Cited by Rashi to 6:2 s.v. yafli.
[2] Nazir 19a. Cited
by Rashi to 6:11 s.v me-asher.
[3] Erich Fromm, To Have
or To Be? (London, UK, 1997).
[4] See Fromm, pg. 109-11.