“One who sees the Sotah in her shame, shall become a Nazir.” My Rebbi, HaRav Yochanan Zweig, asks how thirty days of being a Nazir is more powerful than watching the Sotah explode?

He compares this to people who drive by an accident without stopping and becoming directly involved. We have the capacity to deny that something is relevant to us.

The person who watches the Sotah explode will deny the relevance to him. The process of becoming a Nazir is a way of overcoming our propensity to deny. The Nazir accepts that what he witnessed applied to him, and that he must accept what he saw as relevant. The Nazir accepts that what he saw must becoming a permanent part of his memory.

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In honor of Akiva S.: “One stormy night when my nephew Roger was about twenty months old I wrapped him in a blanket and carried him down to the beach in the rainy darkness. Out there, just at the edge of where -we-couldn’t-see, big waves were thundering in, dimly seen white shapes that boomed and shouted and threw great handfuls of froth at us. Together we laughed with pure joy, he a baby meeting for the first time the wild tumult of the oceans, I with the salt of half a lifetime of sea love in me. But I think we felt the same spine-tingling response to the vast roaring ocean and the wild night all around us.” (Rachel Carson – The Sense of Wonder)

I study bible once a week with a twelve-year-old, spectacular young man. Together, he, who has not studied much bible, and I, who has spent all my life studying, exult in the magic of the text. There is no age difference, no gap in knowledge, as we listen in to the joyous thundering of the words, showered with a fresh spray of insights and questions.

It is at such moments that I experience my greatest joy in Torah. I revel in its ability to speak to all, the young and old, the student and the rabbi, with the same power and intensity.

Perhaps that sharing was the role of the Levites in the Mishkan. The Cohanim stood above us, directing us in our offerings and service. The Levites connected us and allowed us to share the experience of standing in God’s Home.

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Five of us would gather in one of the Yeshiva classrooms and have our own “Minyan.” We were all between six and seven-years-old and could not wait for another lifetime before becoming bar-mitzvah and being the Chazzan in the Yeshiva davening, or prayer service. (We all assumed that once we were 13, we would be asked to lead the davening in the Yeshiva! It didn’t happen.) We would each take turns being Chazzan, Torah reader, and speaker in our mini-synagogue. We had “grown up” listening to Rav Dovid Kronglas zt”l, and Rav Avraham Blumenkrantz zt’l, leading the prayers, so we considered ourselves expert Chazzanim. I had a toy Torah from which we read the Torah portion. Our “Shul” was complete, except when the Cohanim would begin their preparations for Birchat Cohanim. We stroked our imaginary beards and determined that since none of us were Cohanim, we should join the “other” davening to be blessed by the Cohanim. We all would run out to the Yeshiva Beis Medrash to stand with our fathers. I admit that my decision had nothing to do with the absence of a Cohen in our shul. In fact, I didn’t even think about the Cohanim: There was no way that I would miss an opportunity to be wrapped up with my father under his Tallit. My grandfather zt”l would often invite me to stand with him under his Tallit. I tried it once and found myself shaking from head to toe and refused to ever again join him for the Cohanim to bless us.

My cousin from Israel was visiting for the holiday. He stood alone for Birchat Cohanim! “Do you hate your father?” we asked. “No! Why would I stand with my father?” Our hearts broke for my cousin. He obviously didn’t know anything about Duchaning! We suspected that either there was something really wrong in his family, or, that he was not really very religious.

I mentioned the horror story to my father, who explained that since my cousin lived in Israel, he received a blessing from the Cohanim every day. He had learned how to stand with his eyes averted without needing to hide under his father’s Tallit.

I was so confused! “What’s the point of Birchat Cohanim if not to stand with your father under his Tallit? I asked. “To receive a blessing from Hashem through the Cohanim,” my father explained.

“Uh oh!” I thought, “I had been missing the point all along my entire six and half years of life.”

It seems that my father knew what was going through my head. “Why do you like standing with me?”

“I feel safe, loved, and special.”

“One day you will realize that that feeling of ‘safe, loved, and being special,’ is exactly the blessing the Cohanim are giving you. They are asking Hashem to help you feel that way all the time.”

He, as usual, was right. I was soon ready to stand on my own to be blessed by the Cohanim.

I spent his final Simchat Torah with him. I was 40. I went to stand next to him for Birchat Cohanim and he invited my children and me to stand with him under his Tallit. I didn’t hesitate.

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Holofernes puns, “And why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odiferous flowers of fancy.” (Shakespeare: Love’s Labours Lost, IV,ii) It seems that “Naso,” the name of this week’s portion, means, “Nose.” In fact, Ovid, the Roman poet, author of Metamorphoses, was named, “Publius Ovidius Naso!”

Obviously, I had to find a hint of “Nose” in Naso!

I found it! Can you?

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I envy her final few seconds: She was not an especially religious woman. She did not believe in God or His Torah. She was warned by her husband to stay away from a certain man. She knew that she was being watched, but she did not care. She slipped into a home with the man and stepped out a few hours later.

Her husband brought her to the Beit Hamikdash. A Cohen spoke to her and explained the process of Sotah. She would be publicly shamed. She did not care. God’s Name would be erased. She laughed. She was warned that she would die a horrible death if she was guilty. She didn’t believe it. She confidently drank the water and everyone waited to see what would happen.

All of a sudden, she experienced the strangest sensations inside her body. Something was happening. The Sotah Waters were real. God was real. In the final seconds before she exploded, she realized that she had been wrong about God, about His Torah and about life. In her final seconds she physically experienced Truth. In her final seconds of life, she was granted a gift: absolute clarity that God exists and is directly involved. She exploded and she died in that state of clarity.

No one who watched her die could deny the Hand of God. Even the holy Cohanim were moved, shaken, and inspired. They witnessed a tragedy and a miracle. Her final actions and her death served to sanctify God’s Name.

The woman who rejected God ended her life proving His existence to all who witnessed her story.

I envy her final seconds of absolute clarity. I envy her “accomplishment,” her influence on so many people, proving God’s existence.

The Children of Israel were defeated in their battle with the city of Ai. (Joshua, Chapter 7) A man, Achan had sinned against God and brought tragedy to the entire nation. Joshua pinpointed the culprit through a lottery. He confronted Achan and pleaded with him to acknowledge his guilt. If Achan denied his guilt and laughed at the lottery’s accuracy, Joshua would never be able to use the lottery to divide the Land of Israel between the Tribes and their families. The future of Israel was in the hands of this terrible, blatant sinner. If he denied his guilt, he would damage the future, but he would live. If he acknowledged his guilt, he would sanctify God’s Name and the lottery, but he would die.

Achan, the sinner, chose to save Israel’s future and sanctify God’s Name, knowing that he would die. In the final moments of his life, Achan the sinner, became a person who sanctified God’s Name. We honor his choice with the second paragraph of Aleinu: Al Kein Nikaveh,” – Therefore we hope – the first letters of the three words spell out Achan.

His example of being able to repair a lifetime in the final moments of life is the reason that all of us, whether an Achan, a Sotah, or a person distant from God, always hope that we will be able to achieve the gift of Achan and the Sotah. We don’t have to wait until the final moments. We do not have to drink the Bitter Waters. We do not have to be willing, as was Achan, to die. In fact, we only have to be willing to live.

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Having confessed his crime (writing love

poems to the Prince’s mistress), the straight

young knight from Venice stood all alone, above

the royal palace court, to hear his fate:

“You have a choice. So listen and decide.

Either: retire to the desert, and take

a vow to forfeit women, wine, and pride,

until you die, as penance for your mistake.

Or second, never write a poem again.”

The court was stunned. A duke unsheathed his sword.

But the youth stayed calm. he waited, and then

addressed the court. “God bless your mercy, my lord.

The choice is easy,” explained the grateful knight.

“I’ll keep my pen, and ride to the desert tonight.”

Judgment – William Baer 2002

A man signed up for a tour of Jerusalem. The climax was to be a visit to the Beit Hamikdash – The Holy Temple. The tour guide pointed out all the important sights; the King’s palace, the homes of the Cohanim, the Mount of Olives, Avshalom’s monument, the ramps of purity that were used only for the offering of the Red Heifer. He and all his fellow tourists were busily taking pictures and videos of the Holy City. They were hoping for a glance of the King’s motorcade, or even the King himself.

The tour organizers insisted that everyone maintain the highest levels of personal spiritual purity in order to enter the Temple grounds. People were excited and nervous.

When the group arrived on the Temple Mount, even the experienced tour guide was speechless. They had arrived during a rare ceremony: A Sotah, a woman accused of adultery after a complex process of warnings and suspicious activities, was being paraded around the Temple grounds as part of the process of breaking down her defenses before God’s Name would be erased in the Bitter Waters. She haughtilly refused to admit her guilt. A scroll on which God’s Name was written was placed in the water until all the ink dissolved in the water. She smiled and confidently lifted the cup and drank the water.

All of a sudden, her faced changed. She was shocked, terrified and in pain. She exploded in front of the crowd that had gathered to observe the ceremony. There was a loud scream of agony, and everyone turned around to see a man, who was hiding in middle of the crowd, explode as well. Her lover!

The tourists were shaken. They had seen the Hand of God. They witnessed His justice. They saw a portion of the Torah come to life. The tour bus was silent as they returned to their hotel.

The man could not sleep. He was not kept awake by images of the two deaths. He was thinking about the woman, and what he saw. He did not think about her shame or her sin. He thought only of her body. He realized that something was terribly wrong within him. How could he focus on the woman and not the miracle and justice?

He did not join the tour in the morning. He walked to the Temple grounds and asked to speak with a senior Cohen. “You will have to wait,” said the appointments Cohen. “There seems to be an unusually number of men today asking to speak with a Cohen.”

All the men who were waiting in line were silent. Everyone was uncomfortable. The man suspected that his issue was not unique.

The Cohen Gadol, before the Sotah ceremony, had ordered all senior Cohanim to come to Jerusalem post haste. He had expected the crowds of men. It was not a long wait. The man entered a small office and was warmly greeted by a Cohen. He soon felt so comfortable that he was able to explain the reason for his visit without too much shame.

The Cohen smiled, glanced through the window of his office, and said, “It seems that you are not the only one with this issue.”

“The Torah teaches us to expect people to come to us today with this problem. That is why the laws of the Nazirite immediately follow the laws of the Sotah.” The Cohen told him the story of the young knight and his choice of punishments in the poem above. “Which would you choose? The desert with poetry, or life without?”

The man chose, and the Cohen directed him through the process of becoming a Nazir.

Which did he choose? The desert with poetry, or life without?

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Traffic was terrible. We were on our way to Washington, DC for Shabbat and we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. We would pick up speed for a few minutes, and then everything would stop again. We were all becoming agitated and grouchy.

We noticed that the man in the car to our right was constantly staring at us, so I responded as the mature man I am, and stared back. He began to laugh and gesture, “What?”

Noticing the Italian flag on the back of his car, when I lowered the window to speak with him, Debbie, who was driving, began speaking to him in Italian. We soon learned that he, as I, was born in Baltimore, and his grandparents came from Italy, as did Debbie’s. We were almost “Mishpacha,” family. Here we were making friends with someone else as we were driving. The conversation continued even when we picked up speed.

It was only when he moved too far away to continue our conversation that we realized that we enjoyed the conversation so much that we forgot to be annoyed by the traffic. Our running conversation distracted us from the exasperating traffic. At that moment I understood why the same cloud that was the manifestation of God’s Presence in the Mishkan, was used as the indicator that the camp had to move. The Cloud was our reminder that our conversation with God is not only when we are settled in our homes, and everything is stable and fine. Our conversation with God is a running conversation. It continues even “U’vilechticha baderech,” “When you are traveling in the way,” even when we are in annoying situations, even when everything seems unstable, even when we are aggravated.

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