Who is Our Redeemer? Parshat Naso

“Who is Our Redeemer?”  Parshat Naso – The worldview of Judaism is at odds with that held by many in America today, and we see that reflected in a passage in our portion this week.  In it, we find (Numbers, chapter 5) the rules for restitution following an injury and we encounter there the verse, “But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest” (Num. 5.8). 

The Rabbis have a hard time imagining the Jew who lacks a “close relative” or a go’el, a “redeemer” to use the Hebrew.  Surely, they wonder, everyone must have someone else in the community to whom they are attached.  Fresh off the story of Shavuot, we see how the system typically worked, with Naomi and Ruth coming to rely on the aide of their distant relative Boaz, who ultimately marries Ruth, because, at least in part, he has an obligation to help them.  The case at hand regarding the redeemer, so the Rabbis decide, must be that of a new convert who has no children and hasn't had time yet to make familial connections, and thus doesn’t have anyone to stand in for him. 

While this is interesting on its own, it is the larger message it speaks to that sparks my concern this week.  The Rabbis, as well as the Torah portion itself, imagines that usually, the community is very much an extended family, and more than just that, the community is forged with links connecting and obligating people to help and support and stand up for each other. 

And even more, it is a community in which the individual is not meant to stand alone.  The measure of the individual is not the final measure.  The measure of the individual as connected to the community, as a part to it, as bound to it, that is what counts.

Our modern era has lost this notion, and finds it challenging if not repelling – the idea that we might be limited in our choices or our actions by “community.”  That not everything I could conceive to do might be right to do because it might impact others negatively even if it doesn’t bother me. 

We would do well to keep in mind that that notion is in fact the spurious departure, for such an emphasis on the individual alone is a relatively recent development in the human conception of how humanity works. 

Let us, as Jews, give thanks, that we are still part of a community where we can reliably hope on the help of earthly redeemers to support us when we need it, while we pray all come to know in God the true and ultimate Go’el Adam, Redeemer of Humanity.