daf bit: Nedarim 83

[cellio]

One who vows to become a nazarite must, at the completion of the period (typically at least a month), bring three korbanot (sacrifices): a sin offering, a burnt offering, and a peace offering. What if a woman made this vow and then her husband anulled it? The gemara rules that she must still bring the korbanot for the brief period when she was under the vow; the anulment is not "as if it never was". (83a)

(Oh, and by the way, apparently women can be nazarites. I didn't know that. I still don't understand why anyone (male or female) would do so.)

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Women can definitely be nazarites. I think the famous case is Heleni ha-Malka, the queen who made the vow so that her son would be safe (in war? something like that; a bargaining with Fate, as it were). She's got a street in Jerusalem named after her.

In general, it's not really something I grok. The explanation I heard was that there are people drawn to greater privation of the soul (a la monk/nun/other solitaries), and this is there for them to be able to express that within the system.

[geekosaur]

I recall reading an (MO, I think) interpretation that focused on the "no grapes/grape products" aspect and suggested that it was an early version of a "12 step program". (And, more generally, a way to "get a grip" if you came to realize that you were losing control.)

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

The famous comment on the juxtaposition of Nazir & Sotah (in the Torah, which is used as an explaination for their juxtaposition in the Mishna) is that a person who sees a sotah "in her shame" (Sota is a woman suspected of adultery because she was alone with a man she was warned not to be alone with...she is brought to the Temple and administered a test, such that if she did commit adultery she will die a gruesome death) should become a nazirite, because seeing such things will make it easier in a person's eyes to sin. It never seemed especially connected to me, because the sin one would be drawn towards is only vaguely related to those things from which a nazir abstains.

People today don't become nazirites because one can't bring the sacrifices at the end, and because one probably needs to be ritually pure to start off with, since a nazir must start over if he becomes ritually impure.