Musar for Berakhot 125:36

Chazal have also said (Berachoth 63a): "All who are lax in Torah study will lack the strength to withstand a day of affliction, viz. (Mishlei 24:10): 'If you grow lax, in a day of affliction your strength will be straitened.'" And we find in the holy Zohar on this verse:

The Torah next deals with the regulations governing the behavior of the Nazirite. Our sages in Sotah 2a, state that the reason why this paragraph follows the paragraph dealing with the Sotah is that anyone who has seen the latter in her state of disgrace may decide to abstain from drinking wine in order to fortify himself against the temptation of adultery. He will abstain from anything connected with the fruit of the grapevine. The Zohar on our verse explains that we are dealing with the mystical dimension of the fruit of man, i.e. his deeds. It is taken for granted that the fruit Adam/Eve ate from was the fruit of the grapevine, that in fact she squeezed out the grapes. This seems based on Deut. 32,32, ענבמו ענבי רוש, "its grapes are grapes of poison.” Wine, grapes and grape juice are all perceived as deriving from the "left" line of the diagram depicting the ten emanations (the passive, feminine side). Its particular source is בינה, which is also described as יין המשומר, wine that has been preserved for a long time. We know that שכר is also from that side, because it stems from grapes. Crapes in turn collect all this (poison) from the "higher” emanations, since they are a simile for the emanation מלכות. The descent on the left side from בינה to מלכות, is of course, via דין, (also known as גבורה). This is the tree with which Eve sinned. If both “wet” grapes and “dry” grapes are forbidden to the Nazirite, this is because the former represent the attribute of דין קשה, the 'hard' attribute of Justice, whereas the latter represent מדת הדין הרפה, the softer attribute of Justice.

Tosafot raise the question that since the Talmud in Baba Kama 91b, says that one may inflict injury upon oneself, whereas others who inflict injury upon a person are guilty of punishment, and Samuel there states that the kind of injury that is meant is the imposition of fasts upon oneself, we see that Samuel does not hold the opinion that someone who fasts voluntarily is a sinner! The answer given to this apparent contradiction in Samuel's statements is that such a person is called "a sinner." The proof is deduced from the case of the Nazirite as we have stated above. In answer to this apparent contradiction, we have to say that we deal here with a person who both performs a מצוה, by vowing to become a Nazirite and who at the same time commits a sin in subjecting his body to unnecessary painful and therefore harmful experiences. In this particular case the performance of the מצוה outweighs that of the sin committed. We know that fasting is sinful since if someone fasts on the Sabbath as an antidote to a bad dream, the sages rule that since he chose to fast on the Sabbath he must fast on another occasion as a penance, even though the original fast may have annulled the evil decree that he had seen in his dream and which had caused him to fast in the first place.

The example quoted from Baba Kama 91b, may also allow an easy solution. At first glance the Nazir described there who has afflicted himself by denying himself the use of wine may be one who has remained "pure" throughout the currency of his vow, and even such a Nazirite is described as a sinner for having abstained from wine. We have another place in the Talmud (Nazir 19a) where Rabbi Eleazar Hakappor is apparently on record that a "pure" Nazirite is remiss for having made a vow to abstain from wine. After various discussions both there and elsewhere, the Talmud concludes that Rabbi Eliezer Hakappor considers the vow of abstention from wine sinful only if the Nazirite has been remiss in the other conditions he has imposed upon himself, i.e. has defiled himself. Rabbeinu Tam there comments that the statement that the Nazirite is not a "sinner," is to be understood as relative to the מצוה he has performed, but not as an absolute statement. In either case the מצוה of assuming these vows stems from the position of the paragraph of the Nazirite in the Torah immediately after the legislation dealing with the debasement of the סוטה and the statement of the rabbis there that anyone who observes what happened to such a woman has good reason to become a Nazirite in order to fortify himself against the evil urge which might have tempted him to commit infidelities.

הרואה סוטה בקלקולה יזיר עצמו מהיין "If someone sees a סוטה in her state of disgrace, he should resolve to abstain from wine." I have written previously that the reason the woman becomes a curse, i.e. והיתה האשה לאלה, is because of the pollutant of the original serpent which had contaminated Eve. The Nazirite has to abstain from wine since Eve had squeezed out the juice from a cluster of grapes. Once this תקון, correction, has been made, the curse is converted into a blessing. This is why the ברכת כהנים, is written in the Torah following the paragraph of the Nazirite.

The best way to explain the Midrash is by reference to the three different kinds of crowns. When G–d describes Israel as a flock and Himself as its shepherd, this is an allusion to the crown of Torah. We have a verse in Ezekiel 34,31: "Now you My flock, flock of My pasture—you are Adam. I am your G–d, says the Lord G–d." The meaning of this verse is that though, at this time, Torah knowledge amongst the Jewish people is only at the level of sheep, there will come a time when the Jewish people will once more be comparable to Adam, a time at which the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of G–d. David Kimchi explains the verse by saying that even when we are in exile the Torah will not be forgotten, since we have an assurance כי לא נשכח מזרעו, "it will not be forgotten by his descendants" (Deut. 31,21). We are only called צאן. Our sages have used similar terminology for Jews who have studied little Torah whom they describe them as גדיים, rather than as תישים, young goats instead of mature billy-goats (Berachot 63). Solomon, referring to such immature Jewish people, says in Song of Songs 1,8: צאי לך בעקבי הצאן, "Go out and follow the tracks of the sheep "