Parsha Nasso: Signed, Sealed, Delivered, It’s Ours
This week’s Torah portion is Parsha Nasso. Being the longest Torah portion, it is quite
repetitive, and has a lot to say about a lot of seemingly disconnected issues, which provided the
perfect opportunity to do Motown Shabbat. I had every intention of letting the music speak for me,
and realized that some ideas from this parsha could even double as Motown lyrics, or vice versa. “I
Heard It Through the Grapevine” is almost an impassioned plea of a jealous husband of a sotah (a
woman suspected of adultery); “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” could read as a Nazarite vow, promising
to be only holy unto God for a time. There is a lot to work with, but in honor of this being our first
Shabbat outside of one of our homes, in our new Tent of Meeting, it made the most sense to focus on
the idea of community building.
Despite a kind of unwieldiness of repetition, Nasso is a rudimentary community building
document. First, a census is taken, with the phrasing of שׁאֹת־ר֛ אֶ אֹשׂ֗ ָנ, meaning “lift the head”, rather
any word directly meaning “count”, the implication being that looking at the humanity of your people
rather than assigning them a number has some value. Then, rules are established about what makes
you eligible or ineligible to be in the community, procedures are drawn up for how you can return from
being outside, and finally commitments are made from every group. Everybody contributes,
everybody commits. Even though the leaders of each of the 12 tribes each brought the same exact
offering, each was acknowledged independently, as though what each brought to the community was
more than a provision of goods, but a unique human experience.
Similarly, what we are doing here tonight builds on that template. What we each brought into
this space could be the same thing functionally, but we each also bring with us an essence that only
we can provide, making the community unified and strong in a way that can only be accomplished by
seeing each other as part and whole of the community. Yes, there are rules that preclude some ideas
from entering for the sake of the safety of the group as a whole, but there are paths for redemption
and restoration. There is rarely a door labeled “exit only”. There are no permanent Nazarites, whose
creed rises above their deeds. There is no gift more sacred than the next.
The effort at taking on membership in a community, by showing up, in whatever way, and
bringing what only you can offer, is a cool way of saying “ain’t no mountain high enough.” In whatever
ways we are able, individually and communally, we all bring something unavailable by any other
means.
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