Matot

How many promises do you make in a week?  How many do you keep?

This week’s parashah opens with a discussion of the sacredness of vows.  They are to be inviolate:  “If a householder makes a pledge to YHVH or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips”  (Numbers 30:3).

And a woman, who had less power?  The Torah considers this case next and, importantly, gives her considerable ability to make oaths to God.  If she’s married or young (that is, under her husband’s or father’s custody), he may annul the vow but only on the day he finds out about it.  If he fails to do so, it’s binding.  If he never hears about it, it’s binding.  Vows of widows or divorced women, who are under no man’s custody, are binding.

So profound, so sacred are oaths that they are not to be violated at any price.  Recall the dreadful story of Jephtah in the Book of Judges: on his way to battle, the warrior Jephtah vows that, should he return home victorious, he’ll make a burnt offering of the first thing he sees coming out of his house.  To his horror, his own daughter comes out to greet him.    Jephtah’s response?  “He did as he had vowed,” Judges tells us, in language that cannot speak the unbearable truth.

In our day, we don’t make many oaths to God.  But we do make sacred promises.  Not the little ones, like “I’ll fill the tank” or “I’ll keep an eye on your house while you’re out of town,” but the big ones, the vows we make to ourselves:  “I’ll stop procrastinating.”  “I’ll look after my father better.”  “I’ll never take another drink.”  “I’ll be a better man.”

The moon is waning in the sky tonight.  Tamuz is almost done; it will shortly be Av, the month that leads us to Elul and the High Holy Day season.  It may be too soon to make vows for the coming year, but it is not too soon to consider the vows made for the year now fading.  What did you promise?  What did you keep?  What can you keep yet?