Mattot
Bemidbar 30:2-32:42
Nedarim: Avenues for Self-Improvement vs. Tools for Transendence
Eitan Rubenstein
New Devar Torah, written for the website
Diversity, the simple beauty of variety, is one of the cornerstones of the Jewish tradition's appreciation of the Divine. The Psalmist sings, "How great are your works, God!" -- מַה גָּדְלוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ יְהֹוָה (Psalms 92:6). It is not enough to say a generic blessing on food; we must tailor our words to the particular thing we are eating. Even - and perhaps especially - with respect to human beings, our Rabbis saw variety and uniqueness as symbols of God's greatness (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5):
| A human being produces multiple coins with one mold, and they are all identical to one another, whereas the Ruler of Rulers, the Holy One, produced every human being with the mold of Primordial Adam, yet no one is identical to anyone else. | ...אדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד וכולן דומין זה לזה ומלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו. |
Hazal extend this further in their explanation of the halakhah to praise God as "חכם הרזים" - "Wise one, of all secrets" - upon seeing a mass gathering of Jews (Bemidbar Rabbah 21:2; also, see Talmud Berakhot 58a):
| Just as their faces are not identical, so too, their minds are not the same, rather, each and every one has a unique mind. | כשם שאין פרצופותיהן דומין זה לזה, כך אין דעתן שוין זה לזה, אלא כל אחד ואחד יש לו דעה בפני עצמו |
This celebration of diversity as a sign of the Holy One's splendor carries with it a second, ethical, component: the profusion of "good traits" endorsed by the Rabbis. I've chosen examples from Pirkei Avot, the "Ethics of the Fathers," which is but one small piece of Rabbinic literature. "Followers of our father Abraham" are "generous, quiet, and humble" (possessing "עין טובה ורוח נמוכה ונפש שפלה", Avot 5:19), and the very next mishnah teaches, "Be strong as the jaguar, graceful as the eagle, quick as the dear, and fierce as the lion" - "הוי עז כנמר וקל כנשר ורץ כצבי וגבור כארי". Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai (Avot 2:8) praises his five students as one who forgets nothing ("בור סיד שאינו מאבד טפה"), a blessing to his parents ("אשרי יולדתו"), loving ("חסיד"), righteous ("ירא חטא"), and an undying source of insights ("מעין המתגבר").
Wisdom, we are told, can be acquired in no fewer than forty-eight ways, including study, listening carefully, speaking carefully, humility, joy, patience, accepting one's place in the world, loving and being loved (Avot 6:6). Among the first recorded Rabbinic disagreements is the question of which of study and hospitality is more important (Avot 1:4-5):
| Yosi ben Yo‘ezer said, "Your house should be a meeting-place for scholars..."
| יוסי בן יועזר אומר, "יהי ביתך בית ועד לחכמים..." |
And in the list of traits that one should acquire over the course of study, Rabbi Meir lists the following (Avot 6:1):
| to become a beloved friend, | נקרא ריע אהוב |
| lover of God and of humanity, | אוהב את המקום אוהב את הבריות |
| bringing joy to God and humankind; | משמח את המקום משמח את הבריות |
| to clothe himself in humility and awe; | ומלבשתו ענוה ויראה |
| to be righteous, loving, true, and faithful; | ומכשרתו להיות צדיק וחסיד וישר ונאמן |
| to separate from iniquity | ומרחקתו מן החטא |
| and draw near to goodness | ומקרבתו לידי זכות |
I, as a finite human being, approach this profusion of possibilities with ambivalence. On the one hand, having one, or even a handful, of praiseworthy attributes is, though perhaps not inevitable, within my reach. However, to possess all of them, or to prioritize them when they conflict, or to realize which ones I'm missing, only becomes harder as the possibilities multiply. The easier it is to be a partially good person, the harder it becomes to be a completely good person. Christine Korsgaard, a contemporary philosopher, has said this differently: there is one ideal for humanity (the ideal person who possesses all the traits listed above and a number of others), and there are many, many ways not to fulfill it.
And here is the most important question: what tools do I have to improve myself - to strengthen my positive elements and to shore up, or perhaps repair or even eliminate, my shortcomings? Support groups, New Years' resolutions, journal-writing, prayer, volunteering, and giving tzedakah all come to mind. In this framework I'd like to read the beginning of Parashat Mattot (Numbers ch. 30).
Mattot introduces the concept of the "neder", which approximately means "voluntary prohibition". A person creates a neder for him- or herself by pronouncing a formula to the effect of, "This [food, person, action] is now prohibited to me." Thereafter the object or class in question - say, apples - becomes prohibited to the noder (neder-taker) as if the Torah itself prohibited it. Nedarim constitute the mirror-image of berakhot: by reciting a berakhah, one makes an object or action which was previously forbidden (food, a mitzvah, a smell) permitted, as the Talmud teaches us: (Berakhot 35a)
| Our Rabbis taught: It is forbidden for a person to benefit from this world without a berakhah, and anyone who benefits from this world without a berakhah has defrauded Sancta. | תנו רבנן: אסור לו לאדם שיהנה מן העולם הזה בלא ברכה, וכל הנהנה מן העולם הזה בלא ברכה - מעל. |
Ultimately, nedarim thus provide Jewish individuals with the possibility of extending the Torah to cover their own lives. For all of those who feel that the Torah is at times too monolithic, too inflexible, and too insensitive to the particular needs of individuals (a truth of which Maimonides was already well aware), nedarim provide one of the fundamental tools for personalizing and localizing Jewish law. In light of the diversity of human strengths (and weaknesses) highlighted above, nedarim allow the Torah to take on an analogous variety.
But here we run up against one of the most striking points of ambivalence in the Rabbinic tradition. Rav Yosef Karo, in section 203 of his Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh De'ah), summarizes the laws of nedarim as follows:
| 1. One should make nedarim only sparingly. One who makes a neder, even if he fulfills it, is considered dangerous and a sinner... | א. אל תהי רגיל בנדרים. כל הנודר, אף ע"פ שמקיימו, נקרא רשע ונקרא חוטא. |
| 3. One who makes a neder, it is as if he built a private altar [bypassing the Temple in Jerusalem]. One who fulfills his neder is as if he brought a [prohibited] sacrifice on it. | ג. הנודר, כאילו בונה במה בשעת איסור הבמות; והמקיימו, כאילו הקריב עליה קרבן, |
| 4. One must be careful never to make nedarim - even a neder to give tzedakah is not good. | ד. צריך ליזהר שלא ידור שום דבר, ואפילו צדקה אין טוב לידור; |
| 5. In times of distress it is permissible to make nedarim. | ה. בעת צרה מותר לנדור. |
| 6. One who says "I will learn a chapter [of Mishna or Talmud]," and fears that he will procrastinate, is permitted to make a neder [to study it] to encourage himself. Similarly, if one fears that his instincts will overpower him, causing him to violate one of the negative mitzvot, or be lax, failing to fulfill one of the positive mitzvot - it is a mitzvah for such a person to make a neder to encourage himself. | ו.האומר: אשנה פרק זה, וירא שמא יתרשל בדבר, שרי ליה למנדר לזרוזי נפשיה. וכן אם ירא שיתקפו יצרו ויעבור על איזו מצוה ממצות לא תעשה, או יתרשל מקיום מצות עשה, מצוה לישבע ולנדור כדי לזרז עצמו. |
| 7. One who makes nedarim to strengthen his personality or repair his actions is to be encouraged and praised. For example, a glutton who prohibits himself from eating meat for one or two years, an alcoholic who prohibits himself from drinking wine for a significant period of time, or prohibits himself from getting drunk for the rest of his life,... or someone who took excessive pride in his beauty and swore off cutting his hair - all these are examples of service of God, which our Sages praised. Even though these nedarim serve God, a person should not make too many of them nor make them regularly, but instead avoid what he must without a neder. | ז. מי שנדר נדרים כדי לכונן דעותיו ולתקן מעשיו, הרי זה זריז ומשובח. כיצד, מי שהיה זולל ואסר עליו הבשר שנה או שנתים; או שהיה שוגה ביין ואסר היין על עצמו זמן מרובה; או אסר השכרות לעולם;...וכן מי שהיה מתגאה ביופיו ונדר בנזיר וכיוצא בנדרים, כולם דרך עבודה לשם הם; ובנדרים אלו וכיוצא בהם אמרו חכמים: נדרים סייג לפרישות; ואע"פ שהם עבודה, לא ירבה אדם בנדרי איסור ולא ירגיל עצמו בהם, אלא יפרוש מדברים שראוי לפרוש מהם, בלא נדר. |
This passage is striking because of its ambivalence: after an unmitigated attack on nedarim in the strongest possible language, Rav Karo backtracks and transitions from permitting to praising them in equally forceful terms, saying that in certain situations one is even commanded to make nedarim, finally returning full-circle with words of warning. What fuels this split-personality chapter?
The language and structure of ch. 203 suggest a basic distinction between 'good' and 'bad' nedarim: a neder whose purpose is to establish an independent way of serving God - i.e. I feel unsatisfied with the ritual life offered me by Judaism and I take a neder to pray for five hours daily - is unequivocally condemned. On the other end of the spectrum, a neder designed to help me overcome my own human failings - such as my laziness or impulsiveness - is praiseworthy and even obligatory.
Let me recast this opposition: "religious" nedarim, which are for the purpose of connecting with God (and which no secular person would make) are reprehensible, while "human" nedarim, with the purpose of me repairing myself (which could conceivably made by any person, religious or not) are encouraged.
In summary, the Torah assembled in the past by the Jewish people can never be sufficient to cover all the exigencies of human life and the diversity of human personalities. As a result, nedarim are provided as a stop-gap measure where each of us is charged with assessing our own life, shortcomings, and strengths, and to determine the directions in which we can and must grow. Nedarim are for this and nothing more - once they become a means of transcendence, usurping the personal/communal structures lain out by our Torah, they become destructive to both the individual making them and the fabric that holds the Jewish people together.
Shabbat shalom.