Dvar Torah- Naso

This week’s Torah portion includes laws relating to Nazirites. One such law is like priests, they may not “come near a dead person” (Numbers 6:6).

Baal Haturim explains the purpose of this law as follows: “It tells you that if the Divine Presence rests upon because of his Nazirite vow, people should not say that he is guilty of necromancy.” Baal Haturim is assuming that if someone takes on the Nazirite practices of not cutting hair or drinking wine, the Nazirite either will have or will be suspected of having some sort of prophetic power. (I’m not sure why this should be, but let’s roll with the assumption…) So if a Nazirte is acting like a prophet and looking weird and near the dead, people will think that he is trying to conjure up the spirit of the dead.

Maybe this is persuasive, maybe not. But I think Baal Haturim is trying to make a moral point: that someone should avoid the appearance of impropriety. If a long-haired guy is acting weird in a cemetery, that looks like communing with the dead, so it should be avoided.

Having said that, sometimes avoiding the appearance of impropriety can be pretty hard- especially in public life, where people are accusing each other of having questionable motives all the time.