This week the Parsha is Naso.
There’s a very interesting Mitzva, the Nazir. The Nazir is a person who receives on himself a vow not to drink wine, cut his hair or be in contact with a dead body. It’s for a minimum of 30 days.
In the Tora this Mitzva comes after the Sota who is a woman that is suspected of doing things behind her husband. The commentaries say that the reason the Perashot are together is to teach that if a person sees a woman like this he should abstain from wine, since wine is one of the main things that drives the person to be immoral.
Nevertheless, the Sages call this person a sinner, the Talmud explains the reason is because he’s abstaining himself from the wine, he’s refraining from enjoying HaShem’s blessings.
So, on the one hand he did well by becoming a Nazir to protect himself from falling but on the other hand he’s a sinner! Here we learn an important principle of Judaism: The material world is a blessing but also a test. If we use the world properly, we elevate and elevate the world with us, but if we go after our lusts, we go under and take the world down with us.
My favorite example I the cell phone: An incredible tool to have free time to spend with family. You leave your office early, make your phone calls in traffic, and come home free to do homework with your kids or take a walk with your wife. It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?
Who’s in control: You or Nokia?
SHABAT SHALOM!!!!!
Soly Firman
George Deek is an Arab-Israeli diplomat. In 2018, Deek was appointed Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. He is the first Israeli Arab Christian to become an ambassador. Deek grew up in an Eastern Orthodox Christian family in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, in a building where the other tenants included Muslims, Catholics, Jews and a Catholic priest of Jewish ancestry.[2][3] His father, who worked as a tax advisor,[3] was one of the leaders of the Christian community in Jaffa who served as chairman of the Orthodox Association, and was considered a well-known and popular figure in the city until in 2015 a square was inaugurated in his memory in Jaffa in the presence of Mayor Ron Huldai.[4] According to Deek, his grandparents fled to Lebanon for safety when the 1947–1949 Palestine war, having been told that the Jews would slaughter them if they remained in their homes, but expecting to return home once Arab armies defeated the Jews.[3] According to Deek, when the war ended, his grandparents felt that they had been “deceived”, and decided to return illegally to their home in Jaffa rather than remaining in Lebanon as refugees. Since reentering the country was illegal, Deek’s grandfather, an electrician, was arrested and jailed.
