Hairy Matters (Naso)

What is it about hair that makes it such an important feature of the human body? While there are certain obvious benefits to having hair, such as keeping one’s head warm, it’s not anything so significant that people are discouraged from, let’s say, shaving their heads. And yet, hair often has a reputation for being something more than just a physical element. Really, one could almost write a sociological thesis on the significance of hair - why some cultures cover it and others display it; on the way people use their hair to express their identities, etc.

You might now be wondering about the significance of hair in a dvar Torah. The most obvious link is the fact that this week’s parsha contains the description of the Nazir, the person who takes a personal vow to restrict himself or herself and to refrain from grape products, to not go near a dead body, and to not cut their hair. It’s a strange combination of restrictions. One can certainly understand why a person who is trying to realign their righteousness, to reconnect with their spiritual side, might stay away from wine (and by extension, grape juice). Touching a dead body, which, at least in this day and age, seems a fairly uncommon activity, can be understood if one understands that halacha sees death as the ultimate state of impurity, and seeing death - the lack of the Divine spirit - can shake a person’s emunah.

So what’s the deal with cutting one’s hair, which seems to be just a basic act of physical maintenance. There is an interesting commentary by Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on the verse “Kol yemei neder nizri, ta’ar lo ya’avar al rosh...” (All the days of his vow of Nazartism no razor shall come upon his head - Numbers 6:5): “The prohibition of cutting the hair is not to be understood as such a limitation. It is not itself a concrete nazir but it expresses the neder nazir, it characterizes the person who undertakes a vow of Nazaritism. [The word] - ta’ar, [is]  from erah to be uncovered, [he cannot use] an instrument that uncovers the skin, makes it naked....The prohibition here does not lie in the ta’ar but in effect, in removing the hair of the head.”

Ta’ar is a derivative of the root erah, which is also the root of the word ervah. Ervah is the term for the word that defines the parts of the body that, according to Jewish law, are meant to be covered. One of the most interesting aspects of ervah is that, according to Jewish law, a woman’s hair must be covered after she is married - and this too is significant to this week’s parsha because Parshat Bamidbar is the source of the halacha of kisui rosh, a woman’s head covering. In discussing the actions to be taken with a woman accused of being unfaithful, it is written: And the priest shall present the woman again before God and uncover the head of the woman...” (5:18).  About this verse Rabbi Hirsch notes: “By removing her head-covering, the priest expresses the whole reproach which rests on her. One has to remember that although [at the time of the accusation and presentation before the priests] it is still questionable if she had actually committed adultery...by her behavior given cause for kanoy (jealousy)...so that in any case she had deserved the reproach of at least immodest frivolity.”

There is a frequently repeated commentary that the reason the section on the nazir follows the section of the sotah (accused woman) is "To teach you that anyone who sees the sotah (suspected adulteress) in her disgrace will vow to abstain from wine [as does the nazir] (Talmud Sotah 2a)." But perhaps there is something significant in the hair as well. The restriction of cutting hair for the nazir is concluded with the verse “he shall be holy, the hair of his head shall he allow to grow wild” (6:5).

One might think that the nazir is to be praised, but his need to take the nazarite vow is not considered praiseworthy. In the case of both the sotah and the nazir, the exposure of their hair is an announcement of their spiritual status. While both of their hair is, in a way, set free, it is for very different reasons. The sotah’s is an admonition, the nazir’s is reminder to himself that (according to Rav Hirsch) “without retiring from actual contact with the social life around him, [one must strive] to work on himself, spiritually and mentally for the time of Nazaritism to be more by himself with God, His sanctuary, and his teachings. It is to this vow that the insulating growth of his hair (its wildness) admonishes him.”

Perhaps the lesson that we could learn is that we are a society that does not really want one to “let our hair down,” as the phrase goes. We are a society in which following the standards of the community is important, in which the laws are meant to be obeyed truly, and the way we think of hair and maintain our hair is a subtle reminder of finding that balance.