Nasso

This weeks Torah portion of Nasso talks of the Nazirites and the vows they have to take in order to claim their status as a Nazir, someone who has dedicated their life in service to Hashem. This naturally led me to the story of Samson which we read in this weeks haftorah.

Samson was the son of Manoah and the wife of Manoah. Interestingly, even though she isn’t actually named in the Torah, the Rabbis refer to her using the name Zlelponi.

Zlelponi was one of five women in the Torah who suffered with infertility and prayed to God to bless them with a child. Nowadays, infertility still remains a source of sadness and loss with around 10% of women (which in the United States in 6.1 million) unable either to conceive, or maintain, a pregnancy.

Judaism is a family-centric religion. From the original blessings given to Avraham onward, we are told that God will bless us that we will be as many as the stars. Jews are taught that we will multiply as the sand by sea shore. We have traditions that are inherently family based and were told

פורו ורבו”

Go forth and multiply”

But what about all of those men and women who have not yet been blessed with a child?

The Friday night blessing over your children, the first paragraph of the shema, saying ושיננתם לבנך (you shall bless your children), even having someone to sing (Ma Nishtana) מה נשתנה on Seder Night, for many people these are just wishes and prayers. Along with Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Hannah, the grief of infertility is one that too many people are still struggling with.

Yet in the Torah, our mothers were actually blessed.

Their five sons, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Yosef, Shmuel and Shimson have initial Hebrew letters that in gematria add up to 630.

Not particularly interesting until we subtracts the initial letters of the mothers (515) leaving us with 115 to consider.

I looked up in tehillim (psalms) and found Psalm 115 a very powerful prayer.

לֹא לָנוּ יְהוָה, לֹא-לָנוּ: כִּי-לְשִׁמְךָ, תֵּן כָּבוֹד--עַל-חַסְדְּךָ, עַל-אֲמִתֶּךָ.

Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake.

When we consider the first verse of the psalm, it honors Hashem and asks God to consider (their request) in mercy not for their sake, but for the sake of God’s truth.

At this point, I want to just refer to the many blessings for fruitfulness we find throughout the Torah.

Additionally if you take the names of the 5 sons, the letters are Yud, yud, yud, shin and shin which can spell out the words

יש ישי

which literally means “there is God’s gift"

The very existence of these men by virtue of God is reflected in their names.

But what of our friends, families and congregants who suffer with an inability to have children? So many of our activities and programs are aimed at families. We cannot say, well if you pray hard enough it will happen because as we all know, despite the Torah being our blueprint for living, our use of historical references amongst our ancestors do not always guarantee the outcomes we are looking for.

We may not have the answers however we can be an “ozen Kashevet” a “listening ear”.

And we are fortunate that there are resources available now to help support and guide these couples on their journey. But we must never forget how easy it is to overlook those with a hidden sorrow.

Shabbat Shalom