36 | JUNE 1 • 2023 

T

he parshah of Naso 
seems, on the face of 
it, to be a heteroge-
neous collection of utterly 
unrelated items. First there 
is the account 
of the Levitical 
families of 
Gershon and 
Merari and their 
tasks in carry-
ing parts of the 
Tabernacle when 
the Israelites 
journeyed. Then, 
after two brief laws about 
removing unclean people 
from the camp and about 
restitution, there comes the 
strange ordeal of the Sotah, 
the woman suspected by her 
husband of adultery.
Next comes the law of the 
Nazirite, the person who 
voluntarily and usually for a 
fixed period took on himself 
special holiness restrictions, 
among them the renunciation 
of wine and grape products, 
of haircuts, and of defilement 
by contact with a dead body.
This is followed, again 
seemingly with no connec-

tion, by one of the oldest 
prayers in the world still in 
continuous use: the priestly 
blessings. Then, with inex-
plicable repetitiousness, 
comes the account of the gifts 
brought by the princes of 
each tribe at the dedication 
of the Tabernacle, a series of 
long paragraphs repeated no 
less than 12 times, since each 
prince brought an identical 
offering.
Why does the Torah spend 
so much time describing an 
event that could have been 
stated far more briefly by 
naming the princes and then 
simply telling us generically 
that each brought a silver 
dish, a silver basin and so 
on? The question that over-
shadows all others, though, 
is: What is the logic of this 
apparently disconnected 
series?
The answer lies in the last 
word of the priestly bless-
ing: shalom, peace. In a long 
analysis, the 15th-century 
Spanish Jewish commentator 
Rabbi Isaac Arama explains 
that shalom does not mean 

merely the absence of war or 
strife. It means completeness, 
perfection, the harmonious 
working of a complex system, 
integrated diversity, a state 
in which everything is in its 
proper place, and all is at one 
with the physical and ethical 
laws governing the universe.
“Peace is the thread of 
grace issuing from Him, 
may He be exalted, stringing 
together all beings, supernal, 
intermediate and lower. It 
underlies and sustains the 
reality and unique existence 
of each.” AkeIdat Yitzhak, ch. 
74

Similarly, Isaac Abarbanel 
writes: “That is why God is 
called peace, because it is He 
who binds the world together 
and orders all things accord-
ing to their particular char-
acter and posture. For when 
things are in their proper 
order, peace will reign.” 
Abarbanel, Commentary to 
Avot 2:12

This is a concept of peace 
heavily dependent on the 
vision of Genesis 1, in which 
God brings order out of tohu 

va-vohu, chaos, creating a 
world in which each object 
and life form has its place. 
Peace exists where each ele-
ment in the system is valued 
as a vital part of the system as 
a whole and where there is no 
discord between them. 

THE IMPORTANCE 
OF PEACE
The various provisions of 
parshat Naso are all about 
bringing peace in this sense.
The most obvious case is 
that of the Sotah, the woman 
suspected by her husband 
of adultery. What struck the 
Sages most forcibly about the 
ritual of the Sotah is the fact 
that it involved obliterating 
the name of God, something 
strictly forbidden under other 
circumstances. The officiating 
priest recited a curse includ-
ing God’s name, wrote it on 
a parchment scroll, and then 
dissolved the writing into 
specially prepared water. The 
Sages inferred from this that 
God was willing to renounce 
His own honor, allowing His 
name to be effaced “in order 
to make peace between hus-
band and wife” by clearing 
an innocent woman from 
suspicion. 
Though the ordeal was 
eventually abolished by Rabbi 
Johanan ben Zakkai after the 
destruction of the Second 
Temple, the law served as a 
reminder as to how import-
ant domestic peace is in the 
Jewish scale of values.
The passage relating to the 
Levitical families of Gershon 
and Merari signals that they 
were given a role of honor 
in transporting items of the 
Tabernacle during the peo-
ple’s journeys through the 
wilderness. Evidently, they 
were satisfied with this honor, 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

The Pursuit of Peace