• Home
  • Parashah
  • Ask the Rabbi
  • Festivals
  • Freemasonry
  • Articles
  • About
  • Books
  • Media
  •  

    Marital loyalty – Naso

    The Torah portion we read this Shabbat sets out what has to be done if a spouse is suspected of “going astray”.

    The analogy is the situation of the Almighty and the Jew. Just as a wife should remain faithful to her husband, so a Jew must remain faithful to God.

    The Lubavitcher Rebbe, in one of his books of divrei Torah, illustrates this with a Talmudic example (Sanh. 105a) which says that if a Jew goes astray, the Almighty “divorces” them, so to speak, and the errant person has no further claim on the Divine generosity.

    Committing a sin against God is an indication that the sinner feels able to manage without the Almighty. However, we find in the Yom Kippur liturgy a promise that God awaits our return to Him even up to the day we die – ad yom moto yechakkeh lo lit’shuvah.

    Comments are closed.