In many ways, the concept of nazir serves as Chazal’s paradigm for the human response to society’s all-too pervasive depravities. Becoming a nazir, according to the Talmud, was as the almost-instinctive emotional response to seeing a “Sotah in her disgrace.” Faced with the breakdown of society’s moral and ethical norms, Chazal anticipated the innate human desire to flee from the world.
Famously, the nazir must, upon completion of his nezirut, bring a sin offering. As is often recounted, Maimonides and Nachmanides debate this surprising feature of the nazir; after all, the nazir appears to embrace holiness not sinfulness. Maimonides sees the nazir’s sin in that he chose to isolate himself and abandon the world; Nachmanides, by contrast, sees the nazir’s sin in his choice to end his solitude and return to society. And while normally these interpretations are viewed as in conflict, when woven together, they provide a powerful assessment of the human response to darkness and pain: a simultaneous instinct to save ourselves by abandoning a world beyond repair and to also thrust ourselves, even recklessly, into a world that may yet be redeemed.
Ultimately, when integrated together, these two approaches remind us that there is simultaneously sin and holiness in whichever of these paths we choose.
