From: Yisrael Yitzchak Rosenfeld
Yesterday we explained that someone who makes a neder effectively shifts his spiritual residence to the fiftieth gate, the domain of holiness (kedushah).
Among those who make vows, there is one very special individual: the Nazirite.
A Nazirite is not allowed to cut his hair.
As the Torah teaches:
“No razor shall pass over his head; until the completion of the days of his Nazirite vow that he consecrated to Hashem, the hair of his head shall be holy.”
We see that the Nazirite’s hair itself is called kadosh (holy).
Likewise, the Nazirite is forbidden to become tamei (ritually impure) through contact with the dead.
The Torah says:
“For he shall not defile himself for his father or his mother, for his brother or his sister, when they die, because the crown (nezer) of his G’d is upon his head.”
Here too, the Nazirite’s hair is called nezer.
The word nezer (נזר) can be understood as nun zer (נון זר) — “the crown of the nun” —
In the Holy Temple (Beis HaMikdash) we find the same term zer:
“A golden zer shall encircle it.”
The word zer thus means a crown.
Nun zer means “the crown of the nun,” the crown of the fiftieth gate, the realm of the highest holiness.
Normally only the High Priest wears a crown—the golden zer zahav.
But through the path of vows (nedarim), even an ordinary person can enter the realm of holiness, into the sphere of priesthood.
And through the unique vow of Nazirite-hood, the Nazirite is elevated, so that spiritually he carries the same crown as the High Priest and enters that exalted space of divine closeness.
Wow! What power our words have!
