Welcome to Nazir!

As we enter the fascinating world of Nazirite vows, we will see that it seems to have been rather prevalent in the time of the Second Temple and perhaps for a short time afterwards. But then becoming a Nazir fell out of fashion and we have no record of any medieval or modern Nezirim until we arrive in the twentieth century. Here we encounter an extraordinary individual: Rabbi David Cohen, known as the Nazir.

The Nazir (1887-1972) was born to a distinguished rabbinical family in Eastern Europe and traveled all over, studying with the Hafetz Haim, at Slobodka and at Volozhin, among other places. He also began to study philosophy and other Western disciplines. During World War I he ended up in Basel, Switzerland, where he encountered the man who changed his life: Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook. After a philosophical discussion, Rabbi Cohen stayed the night. When he heard Rabbi Kook praying in the morning, he was overcome by his holiness and: “ I became a different man. . . I had found a teacher.”

In 1922 the Nazir moved to Israel and continued to study with Rabbi Kook in his yeshiva, Mercaz HaRav. He also chose to take a Nazirite vow and from then until the end of his life he abstained from wine and grape products and did not cut his hair (he was a Cohen so he stayed away from impurity and dead bodies in any case). In effect, he was a nazir olam, a lifelong nazir, like on daf 4 of our masechet. He also took on a form of vegetarianism that would not be out of place today, refusing to wear leather as well as not eat meat or fish. In addition, he would do a taanit dibbur between Rosh Hodesh Elul and Yom Kippur, only speaking of holy things.

Why did the Nazir take on this lifestyle, something unprecedented in Jewish life for the past two thousand years? One reason was that he wanted to remind the Jews of their past and inspire in them a hope for the future:

נזיר הנני, מדרגה לנבואה. אילו זכיתי לבוא לעולם רק לשם כך, לפרסם מחדש שם זה, נזיר, כעובדת חיים בימינו, כדי להזכיר שאנחנו עומדים ערב תחיית הנבואה בישראל, דייני

I am a nazir, a step towards prophecy. If I only merited to come into this world for this reason, to make known again this concept, “nazir,” as a fact in our days, to remind us that we are on the cusp of reviving prophecy in Israel, it would be enough.

This quote leads us to the second reason for his choice  - he believed it was a step on the way to prophecy, a state that he yearned for his whole life. 

Rabbi David Cohen led an extraordinary life and had an unusual family as well. His wife, Sarah, was one of the founders of Emun which became Emunah women. She would attend his lectures and he would not start until she had arrived and was seated. His daughter, Tzipiya (צפיה לישועה I assume)married Rabbi Shlomo Goren. And his son Shear Yashuv (the name of the prophet Isaiah’s son) was a Nazir from birth. He relates that when he was a teenager, a bet din was convened in his home to release him from this status. He fought in the Haganah and was captured by the Jordanians with the fall of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Eventually, he became the Chief Rabbi of Haifa and remains a vegetarian and does not drink wine.

For an excellent article on the Nazir, with many references, see Rabbi Josh Rosenfeld at http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2013/11/the-nazir-in-new-york.html