“If someone in his presence dies unexpectedly or suddenly, and causes the nazirite head to become defiled, he shall shave off [the hair of] his head on the day of his purification; on the seventh day, he shall shave it off. And on the eighth day, he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the kohen, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.The kohen shall prepare one for a sin offering and one for a burnt offering and atone on his behalf for sinning by coming into contact with the dead, and he shall sanctify his head on that day. He shall consecrate to the Lord the period of his abstinence and bring a lamb in its first year as a guilt offering; the previous days shall be canceled because his naziriteship has been defiled.” (Bamidbar 6:9-12)
In this week’s Parsha we are introduced to the Nazir. This individual vowed to abstain from wine, cutting his hair or coming in contact with the dead. But why? Aren’t there enough biblically (and rabbinically) mandated prohibitions? The Beis Yisroel (Rabbi Yisroel Alter of Gur, 1895-1977) explains that the Torah is conveying to us a deeper message. The Nazir represents a person looking for more out of life. He realizes that he is not living the life he should be living; he is not becoming the person he is capable of being. So, he decides to make dramatic life change. He withdraws to a degree from the world around him in order to create a new world of personalistic holiness. Sometimes, you have to bring life to a grinding halt in an effort to recalibrate and plot a new course for the future. The Nazir found the strength and adopted a new approach (for a limited amount of time). But then he fails. He finds himself in proximity to a corpse and everything ends; he must start all over again. His vow ends in failure. He is tamei (impure) and back to square one. It is in this very moment that God teaches us how to deal with failure. “V’kidash es rosho ba’yom ha’hu, (and he shall sanctify his head on that day)” on the day he finishes his purification process, he gets back up and starts all over again. There is no time for lamenting, there is only time to get up, dust off and begin anew. As King Solomon wrote in Proverbs, “For a righteous man can fall seven times and rise, but the wicked shall stumble upon evi.”l (24:16) Everyone stumbles and falls, the righteous get back up, the wicked stay down.
But there is one more piece. The above-mentioned section ends, “… the previous days shall fall away (be cancelled).” In order to have a meaningful second chance and new beginning, one must let go of the feelings of pain and failure of the past. In the aftermath of failure, we tend to think, “I wasted so much time and resources on this initiative, idea, mission which never materialized.” A person could feel demoralized in the aftermath of failure and that prolonged feeling could prevent a person from trying again and believing that things can be different in the future. Sometimes, you just have to let go in order to move on.
