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One source of vanity, for men and even more so for women, is hair. People take great pride in having full, thick, luxurious manes of hair. Losing one’s hair can be traumatic; ask anyone who has ever gone through cancer treatments. This means that removing your hair voluntarily requires great courage.
In our day, many young men and women shave off their hair as a show of solidarity with cancer patients as part of the fundraising effort of St. Baldrick’s. For men, this means going through this process despite the knowledge that the hair is too short to be utilized in artificial hairpieces. For women, the hair is generally long enough for such purposes, but it is considerably more difficult to carry off a bald pate as a woman than a man.
In our Torah portion, one of the requirements of a nazirite, an individual who accepts upon himself/herself a voluntary obligation to observe an elevated level of holiness, involves hair. During the period of naziriteship, the person lets his/her hair remain untrimmed; at the conclusion, it must be shaved off completely. (Numbers 6:9) What was the significance of this shaving? Our sages suggest that it may have served as an antidote to excessive vanity:
- Shimon HaTzaddik said: One man came to me from the South, who had gorgeous eyes, a handsome face and beautiful hair. I said to him: My son, what did you see to become a nazirite, which would force you to destroy this luxurious hair, as a nazirite must cut off all his hair at the conclusion of his term? He said to me: I was a shepherd for my father in my town, and I went to draw water from the spring, and I looked at my reflection in the water. And my evil inclination quickly rose against me and sought to drive me from the world. I said to my evil inclination: Empty one! I swear by the Temple service that I will become a nazirite and shave you for the sake of Heaven. Shimon HaTzaddik relates: When I heard his response, I arose and kissed him on his head, and said to him: May there be more nazirites like you in Israel, whose intentions are noble. With regard to you the verse states: “When either a man or a woman shall clearly utter a vow, the vow of a nazirite, to consecrate himself to the Lord” (Numbers 6:2) (Babylonian Talmud Nazir 4b)
In other words, one way in which we can elevate our sense of holiness is to
put aside vanity. I freely admit that I spend at least some time each day styling my hair. But thankfully the combination of decreased vanity – and, yes, a bit of hair loss – has made it easier to free a few minutes each day for higher purposes.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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