NUM47 These two classical Jewish approaches, achieving holiness through abstention (Rashi) and achieving holiness by sanctifying the physical fulfillment of bodily desires (Maimonides) are both legitimate and have been argued by authorities throughout the ages. The controversy still continues today. Both refer to bodily desires such as sex and food, one claiming that abstention achieves the holiness and the other asserting that fulfillment under the proper circumstances and purpose achieves the holiness. Perhaps the classical mitzvah that typifies this clash is the two views of the nazir, the person who voluntarily abstains from drinking wine, cutting one's hair, and coming in contact with the dead. One talmudic approach (Taanit 11a) is that indeed the nazir is holy because he chose to abstain from more things than everyone else. The other opinion in that passage is that the nazir is wrong in his action because he chose to deny himself that which God permitted him. This argument about the nazir continued until the Middle Ages. At the end of the period of abstention, usually thirty days, the nazir brings a sacrifice. One of the sacrifices is a sin offering [this verse]. Maimonides (Hilchot De'ot 3:1) uses this sin offering as proof that the Torah looks at the nazir as a sinner because he should not have taken the oath to begin with. Maimonides continues to rail against the entire philosophy of fasting and using other physical denials by Jews to achieve holiness, as a perversion of the intended Torah path, quoting the verse (Ecclesiastes 7:16) admonishing the Jew not to be "too righteous." Nachmanides (commentary on this verse), who believes the nazir's act is to be praised, explains that the reason for the sin offering is because when the person stopped being a nazir, he lowered himself from a higher status of holiness to a lower status. In fact, the Torah does call the nazir holy (Numbers 6:8). According to Maimonides and his camp, the only reason the Torah permitted the concept of nazir is that it recognizes that there are some misguided individuals who think that they can become holy by denying themselves more and more. Rather than letting these people "go on their own," as is often the case with individuals who have improper tendencies, the Torah takes these feelings and channels them into the most acceptable and legitimate Torah structure. Thus, the lines of both sides are clearly drawn. There are numerous talmudic statements supporting both sides. On the one hand, the Talmud (Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 48b) says that a person will have to answer in heaven for all the permitted things he could have partaken of in this world but did not. On the other hand, there is a conflicting statement (Avot DeRabbi Natan 28:5) that says that anyone who denies himself the pleasures in this world will receive pleasures in the next world and, conversely, he who partakes of physical pleasures in this world will be denied pleasures in the next world. Thus, the argument is still not resolved, but both approaches are authentically Jewish.