Sponsored by Sharona and Josh Halickman in Honor of
Michael Schwartz’s Bar Mitzvah
In Parshat Naso, Bamidbar 6:2-6 we read: “Speak to B’nai
Yisrael and say to them: if a man or a woman sets apart a vow, a nazarite vow,
to set himself/herself apart for God. From new or old wine, he/she must
abstain. Vinegar made from new wine and vinegar made from old wine he/she may
not drink; anything steeped in grapes he/she shall not drink; moist grapes or
raisins he/she shall not eat. As long as he/she is a Nazir, from anything made of
the grape-vine, from seeds to skin, he/she shall not eat. As long as he/she is
under nazirite oath a razor shall not pass over (to touch) his/her head. Until
he/she completes their days as a Nazir to God, they shall be sacred, he/she
shall let the hair of their head grow long. All of the days that he/she is a
Nazir to God, he/she shall have no contact with the dead…”
Usually when we think of a Nazir, we think of a man
(Shimshon from this week’s Haftara is the most famous Nazir). However, there
was a famous Nezira (female Nazir), Queen Helene, the queen of Adiabene, near
to Judaism together with her family.
We learn about Queen Helene’s time as a Nezira from the
Mishna, Nazir 3:6: “One who made a vow
for a prolonged period and completed their nazirite spell and afterwards came
to the Land of Israel, Beit Shammai say: they must continue as a Nazir for
thirty days. Beit Hillel say: they must be a Nazir all over again. Queen Helene
whose son went to war, said, ‘If my son returns safely from the war, I will be
a Nezira for seven years!’- her son came back from the war, and she became a Nezira
for seven years; at the conclusion of the seven years she came up to the Land
of Israel, Beit Hillel instructed her that she had to be a Nezira again for
seven more years; but at the end of the seven years she became unclean and she
found herself a Nezira for twenty-one years. Rabbi Yehuda said she should not
have been a Nezira for more than fourteen years.”
Queen Helene was a well respected woman and the Mishna has
no problem using her as an example of what happens when someone becomes a Nazir
outside of the
The Mishna teaches that since Chutz La’aretz was considered
ritually unclean, one could not observe nezirut outside of the Land of Israel
and therefore had to go up to the Land of Israel in order to fulfill their vow
of nezirut.
There was no distinction between women and men. Once a
nazirite vow was made by a woman or a man, it had to be fulfilled in the
