Sunday Sermonette: What ' s this all about, anyway?

Numbers 6 is one of the more puzzling chapters in the Torah. It isn ' t clear what the point is of being a Nazirite (spelled Nazarite in the KJV) or why somebody would want to do it. Apparently there was considerable Talmudic debate about this but they never got to a consensus. By declaring oneself a Nazirite, a person assumes exactly three restrictions: don ' t cut the hair, don ' t consume any products of the plant genus Vitis (not just alcoholic wine) and don ' t get near a corpse. Other than that there are no affirmative responsibilities and you can do whatever else you want. This is apparently a state of special " consecration " or holiness, but you don ' t have to preach or set a good example in any way that matters.Maybe you do it because you ' re feeling especially pious, or you want people to admire your holiness. However, the oddity is that at the end of your term (and you get to choose how long it is) you have to make a sin offering. That doesn ' t seem to make sense if the whole idea is that you are super duper pure the whole time, which leads some to conclude that you do it as atonement for a sin of some kind. The length of the term would then depend on how egregiously you sinned. But in any case the prohibition against vinegar, raisins and grapes is just weird, and the serious consequences of having somebody die unexpectedly in your presence also seem bizarrely arbitrary. Maybe this is actually intended as alcohol rehab, since that ' s the only meaningful restri...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs