Enjoying what is permitted

Years ago, a rabbinic colleague told me about a congregant who felt driven to be extra pious. She decided that she would apply the extensive food restrictions of Passover, not just for eight days, but year-round. She got rid of her regular dishes and pots, and set up a Passover-only kitchen, banning even the tiniest amount of hametz (wheat, barley, spelt, oats, or rye) and purchasing only foods that were certified kosher for Passover throughout the year. My friend struggled to explain to this woman that taking unnecessary prohibitions upon oneself is not the right path toward piety.

Among the 613 mitzvot, the majority — 365 — are negative commandments, things we are not permitted to do. What about taking on extra proscriptions, beyond what Jewish law requires? Is that meritorious, unnecessary, or ill advised?

Parshat Matot opens with laws regarding vows and oaths. Among these vows are a particular kind called Nidrei Issur in which one forbids to oneself what is otherwise permissible. One can vow that one will not enjoy certain foods, wine, new clothing, financial profit, or any other permissible source of enjoyment, for a specific period of time. The Torah seems concerned that one might be unable to fulfill the vow, and articulates ways in which the vow can be nullified.

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Our parashah gives no indication that vows are problematic. In the Rabbinic period, however, vows were viewed more negatively. An entire tractate of the Talmud, Nedarim, is devoted to the subject. The rabbis express much ambivalence about this vehicle for self-denial. Numerous avenues for nullification of vows are proffered. The Talmudic sages go even further, viewing the practice with disdain: “Anyone who takes a vow, even if they then fulfill it, is called a sinner,” says the sage Rav Dimi. Rabbi Yochanan has this to say: “Anyone who hears another speak the words of a vow should pierce him with a sword.” The Talmud, and the medieval codes of law centuries later, advise avoiding taking vows altogether.

In my eyes, there is an important value underlying the rabbis’ contempt for vows of self-denial. We are meant to derive pleasure from that which is permitted to us. When a man vows to refrain from having sex with his wife, he is called a sinner (Talmud Ketubot). Denying oneself what is otherwise allowed is not a religious ideal. “R’ Hizkiya says in the name of Rav, ‘In the future, a person will have to give an account for everything his eye saw yet he did not eat.’” (Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin) Opportunities for enjoyment are meant to be savored, not restricted. As Shmuel says in Tractate Taanit, it is sinful to deny oneself pleasure.

To be sure, there is a strain in rabbinic tradition that values asceticism. Stories are told of sages who practiced self-denial and were even esteemed for the suffering they took upon themselves. The martyrology section of Yom Kippur liturgy, for example, suggests that rabbis’ painful, gruesome deaths at the hands of the Romans were indicative of those sages’ righteousness.

But asceticism did not endure as a Jewish value. When there is no room for both a wedding and a funeral procession on the same road, Jewish law dictates that the funeral steps away from the road, yielding to the wedding. Similarly, when a joyous festival occurs in the midst of the week of mourning, shiva is put to a halt. Built into halacha is a corrective to the tendency of some people to privilege sorrow over joy, strictness over leniency. Jewish piety is not self-abnegation. Our tradition challenges us to embrace what is to be enjoyed in life and not feel guilty about it.

May we find meaning in the restrictions that Jewish life places upon us, and may we allow ourselves to savor that which is permitted to us. PJC

Rabbi Amy Bardack is the spiritual leader of Congregation Dor Hadash. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.