Some years
back, I taught at a private college in Colorado. I enjoyed classroom teaching; I even
considered for a time starting a PhD program in order to go into full-time,
tenure-track teaching. I didn’t, but I
took away from the experience a healthy respect for students and a knowledge of
how to talk to them.
One must be careful what one says to
students as a teacher! One day, we were
talking about the lack of a monastic, celibate tradition in Judaism. The couple of instances of celibate sects
ultimately passed into history. I guess
they didn’t make enough babies to replace themselves…
So we were talking about how Judaism
has always prized the ‘normal’ life of marriage and family in addition to
career; even if that career is in service to God. We’ve never had the equivalent of a celibate priesthood,
or a monastic order. I told my students
that Mother Theresa is far from the Jewish ideal.
Well, you could have heard a pin drop
as my students stared at me for what could be construed as a criticism of
Mother Theresa! Lesson learned. But the truth is that the monastic life
simply does not compute in Judaism.
This morning’s Torah reading gives the laws of the nazir, or nazirite. A nazir is an Israelite who has
decided to take on a temporary vow of holiness, to dedicate him or herself
completely to God. A nazir is not
to cut their hair, drink wine or consume any part of the grape, or come into
contact with the dead. It is understood
that this status is only temporary; the law specifies the procedure one must
follow for transition back to ‘normal’ life after fulfilling one’s nazirite vow.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the retired Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue
of the Commonwealth, addresses the nazir in his drash this week. Rabbi Sacks asserts that the entire nazirite
business was essentially a condescension to non-Levites who were jealous of
that tribe’s role of full-time sacred service.
It offered a member of one of the other tribes an avenue to devote
themselves completely to God, but only as a temporary status. At the end of a predetermined term, they
would complete their vow and return to ‘real’ life. Rabbi Sacks suggests that the status of nazir
was God’s solution for those Israelites who might be envious of the
Levites.
But the interesting fact of the laws of the nazir, is that they
do not include celibacy. Remember
Samson, of Samson and Delilah fame?
Samson was one of the last judges in Israel, as mentioned in the Book of
Judges, chapters 13 through 16. He was a
nazir, and this status did not preclude him from consorting with
Canaanite women…although in retrospect, it would have been better if it had.
No, there’s no tradition of celibacy and monasticism in Jewish thought
or practice. The Rambam, in his seminal
work The Eight Chapters, offers the opinion that, assuming that we’re
observing all the Torah’s laws of modesty and restraint, any additional
self-imposed disciplines in the area of sexuality are probably not healthy. Contrast this to what Saint Paul taught
concerning marriage in his first letter to the Corinthians: it is better to be single, but if that means
one will burn with desire, they may marry as a condescension to his carnal
nature. This is, of course, why Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity have celibate priesthoods and many
monastic orders for men and women.
When I was preparing to begin my studies to be a rabbi, I was as they
say ‘between marriages.’ A good friend
who was an Evangelical Christian and who certainly meant well challenged me. In his community, being divorced would be a
strong impediment in a minister’s career. He would most likely have a hard time finding
and keeping a pulpit job. Wouldn’t this
be true in Jewish circles as well?
I had to think a moment before answering my friend. When I did, I told him that being divorced
would not likely be an impediment to employment as a rabbi. But not being married probably would. In other words, we see divorce as a fairly
normal status, even when regrettable. But
being single as an adult – except as a transitionary status – is undesirable. How can a rabbi – whom many will come for
counsel for their various problems, presumably among them marital and family issues
– relate to his congregation if he is single as a permanent choice?
We have no monastic ideal in Judaism.
In the Written Torah we do have the laws of the nazir, but they
are not the same thing. And they are
temporary. And, according to a number of
our greatest spiritual leaders, they are a condescension. Our ideal is, no matter what our calling,
sacred or secular, to engage in family life with all its joys and pitfalls. Shabbat shalom.
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