7 Sivan 5786  ·  23 May 2026

Parashat Naso

A Devar Torah by Ben Eaton

The first Jewish president is elected and at the inauguration, the president's mother is sitting in the front row. As her son gets sworn in, she turns to the fellow beside her.

"You see that man with his hand on the Bible?"
"Yes…"
"His brother's a doctor!"

The comedic premise here is that Jews ascribe great prestige to doctors — even more so than holding one of the most powerful offices in the world. Who can blame us? After all, becoming a doctor requires intellectual aptitude, years of study, and hard work, after which you go on to a career with a healthy salary where you save lives. To become president, all you need is people rich enough to fund your campaign along with a plurality of people willing to vote for you. As comedian George Carlin put it: "In America, anyone can become president. That's the problem."

There are stereotypically high-status "Jewish" professions — finance, law, medicine, academia. Enter into those careers and it does wonders for your parents' nachas. We can make high-minded claims to egalitarian ideals — as William Lyon Phelps put it: "The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him" — but our status in both the Jewish community and wider society affects the way people view us. The Torah, in Parshat Vayikra (chapter 21, verse 10), describes "…the High Priest who is elevated above his brothers…". Halacha makes concessions to status for quite pragmatic reasons. In the 1970s, for example, the London Beth Din ruled that rabbis could attend Christian religious ceremonies only if the rabbi's presence is requested by the monarch. Since that ruling, the Orthodox Chief Rabbi has entered Westminster Abbey to celebrate royal weddings, jubilees, funerals, and coronations — all because of the status of the monarch.

The Longest Parsha in the Torah

This actually has quite a lot to do with this week's Parsha — the longest in the Torah — which covers, among seemingly disparate laws: the census and duties of the Levites, ritual cleanliness in the camp, restitution for sins, dealing with putative infidelity, the laws of the Nazirite, the Priestly Blessing, the offerings of the twelve tribes for the Tabernacle, and how G‑d would speak to Moses in the Tent of Meeting. There is a lot to unpack here. But I want to explain why status and reputation are the common thread running through it all.

Last week's Parsha, Bamidbar, focuses on how each individual in the community is valued — we are all counted. It ends with the laws of porterage for the Kohathite clans. The second verse of the last chapter:

נָשׂ֗א אֶת־רֹאשׁ֙ בְּנֵ֣י קְהָ֔ת מִתּ֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י לֵוִ֑י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָֽם

"Take a census of the Kohathite clan from among the Levites by their families, according to their fathers' houses"

And the second verse of this week's Parsha:

נָשׂ֗א אֶת־רֹ֛אשׁ בְּנֵ֥י גֵֽרְשׁ֖וֹן גַּם־הֵ֑ם לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָ֖ם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָֽם

"Take a census of the clan of Gershon, too, according to their fathers' houses, by their families."

So why has the Parsha been split that way? The origins of the division of Parshot are not entirely clear, but it's likely they were developed during the Babylonian Exile with later modifications by Ezra the Scribe — they're not accidental, and there should be some thematic consistency.

Lifting the Heads

The Kohathites are the clan of Moses and Aaron — and every single priest thereafter. For those Kohathites not in the priestly line, their porterage is the most sacred objects from the Tabernacle: the Ark, the Menorah, the Altar. These objects are so holy that the priests have to cover them before the Kohathites can even come near them. Being a Kohathite is about as high status as it gets.

The Gershonites' and Merarites' responsibility is the parts of the Tabernacle itself — planks, posts, coverings, cords, pegs — which they transport in carts. This could be seen as mere schlepping. They're not the rock stars, or even the instrument techs; these are the guys driving the lorries with bits of the stage. But by commanding these responsibilities in its own Parsha, their status is elevated. Although most translations render the second verse as "Take a census", the commandment נָשׂ֗א אֶת־רֹ֛אשׁ can equally be translated as "Lift the heads." The Gershonite and Merarite clans are not an afterthought — their porterage is a privilege only they can undertake. G‑d is making the point that this work is as important as that of the Kohathites.

Status, Purity, and Redemption

The next section deals with ritual impurity:

מִזָּכָ֤ר עַד־נְקֵבָה֙ תְּשַׁלֵּ֔חוּ אֶל־מִח֥וּץ לַמַּֽחֲנֶ֖ה תְּשַׁלְּח֑וּם וְלֹ֤א יְטַמְּאוּ֙ אֶת־מַ֣חֲנֵיהֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י שֹׁכֵ֥ן בְּתוֹכָֽם

"You must banish both male and female; you must send them outside the camp so they do not defile their camps in which I dwell among them."

Being outside the camp provides the individual a place to recover without becoming an object of curiosity or derision — they are not demeaned in the eyes of the community. It also stops the tribe acquiring a reputation for being unclean.

Following this is the law around restitution for sins. Rashi states that the sin in question is swearing falsely in denial of a claim, and that it would only apply where the sinner confessed themselves. By providing a clear path to redemption, the damage to the sinner's reputation is not a stain that cannot be removed. An honest Teshuva and appropriate monetary compensation blots the sin both before G‑d and the community.

Then we come to the Sotah — the ritual whereby a man who suspects his wife of infidelity can subject her to a priestly test to establish her innocence or guilt. It doesn't sit well with modern sensibilities and I won't dwell on the ethics of it, but the important point is that if she is found innocent, the husband is publicly embarrassed for calling her virtue into question. Nobody comes out of it particularly well.

The Nazirite: Purchasing Status

After this, the Parsha describes the ritual of the Nazirite. Although the word Nazir means "separate", the same letters can also be read as Neizer — "Crown." This implies that becoming a Nazirite is an opportunity to elevate one's status, at least for the duration of the vow. The Rabbis of the Talmud did not always view it positively. As Maimonides states: "Our sages directed man to abstain only from those things which the Torah denies him and not to forbid himself permitted things by vows and oaths." But the Haftarah concerns arguably the most famous Nazirite of all — Samson, whose reputation was legendary.

What's notable about the Nazirite vow is that you need to be a person of means. Most sacrifices have an alternative for people of limited means — if you can't afford a lamb, pigeons or turtledoves might be acceptable, or failing that flour and oil — but no such concession is made for Nazirites. If you complete the whole period of the vow, you must bring two lambs, a ram, unleavened loaves, cakes, grain offerings, and libations. If you become ritually impure during the vow, you must bring two turtledoves, two pigeons, and a lamb each time — it could get quite expensive. This was a fairly middle-class endeavour: purchasing status through social virtue. At least the Nazirite had to actually sacrifice something, unlike the modern identity politics route of laying claim to whichever characteristics are currently fashionable among the chattering classes as being "marginalised" — what feminist author Elizabeth Martinez derided as the "Oppression Olympics." Oddly, those characteristics never seem to include being poor or Jewish.

Twelve Days, Equal Offerings

The final sections concern the offerings each tribe brings for the Tabernacle — one of the main reasons this is the longest Parsha in the Torah. Rather than simply stating that every tribe brought identical gifts on successive days, the text details all twelve days individually. Every tribe has its own day, brings no more and no less, and is accorded the same prestige. This account runs to 89 verses.

Some tribes clearly had more status than others. In Parshat Vayechi, Jacob had harsh words for some of his sons, and Chronicles notes that "Judah prevailed over his brothers." Rashi, discussing Bezalel and Oholiab (the architects of the Tabernacle), notes:

"Oholiab was of the tribe of Dan, of the lowest of the tribes, of the sons of the handmaidens. Yet G‑d compared Oholiab to Bezalel for the work of the Tabernacle, and Bezalel was of the greatest of the tribes [Judah], to fulfil what is said: 'and a prince was not recognised before a poor man.'"

— Rashi

But the obligation and service of each tribe during the twelve days of offerings are equal.

Why Were You Not Zusya?

There is an important lesson here about our relationship with G‑d. We cannot all be Moses, who G‑d speaks to פָּנִ֖ים אֶל־פָּנִֽים — face to face. As Martin Buber records in his Tales of the Hasidim:

"Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, 'In the coming world, they will not ask me: Why were you not Moses? They will ask me: Why were you not Zusya?'"

— Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim

Our offerings are unaffected by our status — but only we can make them. A prince will be judged no differently to a pauper in that regard. Those obligations are non-transferable: it's not as if you can eat a bacon cheeseburger and then say that somebody else is keeping Kosher on your behalf.

This is how we "lift the heads" of our people and value the work we do in the service of G‑d. Start small — say Shema first and last thing in the day, observe Shabbat and the Festivals, study Torah. Then ramp it up — keep Kosher, tithe your income, help with Jewish education, be fruitful and multiply. But every Jew needs to bring their offering. Let us make ourselves worthy of the Priestly Blessing.

Shabbat Shalom