When we make a vow to God, we must be willing to keep it even if it’s hard. Yet God also extends grace and forgiveness when we make vows rashly without informed consent.
We also learn that although God’s law protects women who make rash vows through the agency of their fathers or husband’s but when they act with evil intent, their deeds will not go unpunished.
We also learn from the prophet Jeremiah that when a nation is evil and rotten at the top, at the people follow their leaders on the path of evil, not only does the nation suffer the consequences, but even nature suffers.
This is the lesson of the Torah passage מטות Matot / מסעי Massei (“tribes” and “journeys of,” Numbers 30-36).
