delivered by Gene Bodzin
July 12, 2003
By this point, the
main narrative of the Torah is almost finished. A couple of weeks ago, we read
how Moshe sent spies to scout out the Promised Land, and how the people were so
fearful because of the report that most of them brought back that almost the
whole generation had to die out. Hence, the forty years of wandering in the
desert.
As some of you
might recall, the last time I spoke it was about Nadav and Avihu, the
sons of Aaron who died when they brought aish zara [strange fire] into the mishkan [tabernacle] on the
day it was inaugurated. [See Vayikra 10:
1, 2] I promised then to get back to the subject the next time their names came
up, and that happens to be in next week’s reading. This is close enough.
Parshat Balak ends with a bizarre incident featuring Pinchas, who happened to be the nephew of Nadav and Avihu. At the end of
the story of Balak and Balaam, we find that some of
the Israelites began mingling with the women of Midian
and worshipped the Baal of Peor. Many were killed as
a result, but one couple openly defied Moshe and Pinchas
ran them through with a spear. By virtue of this action the priesthood devolved
to descendents of Aaron in perpetuity. All told, twenty-four thousand people
died as a result of this episode.
And Pinchas is further remembered every time we pass this way
as we read the Torah. Next week’s Parsha is
identified by his name.
The reference to Nadav and Avihu in next week’s Parsha—in the census that was taken at the end of the forty
years—is odd. You’d expect a census to count only living people, but the ghosts
of Nadav and Avihu show up
when the descendents of Levi are mentioned (Bamidbar
26:61) . The text tells us that these men were not around because they died
when they brought aish zara [strange
fire] into the tabernacle on the day it was inaugurated. We’ve heard this before.
The Torah doesn’t seem to be able to tell us this fact enough times.
The commentators,
of course, aren’t going to let this one rest. It’s axiomatic that the Torah
doesn’t repeat itself unnecessarily. Why then do we read the same details about
Nadav and Avihu so many
times?
A hint comes from
the text: Vayakrivu lifnei adonai aish zara
asher lo tziva otam [and they offered a strange (or foreign, or alien)
fire that God had not commanded them] .
To understand
this, let’s look first at the places where Moshe was told how to build the mishkan. A number of sentences contain some form of the
words ka’asher tziva adonai et Moshe [as God had commanded Moshe]: In Shemot 39: verses 1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31, 32, 42, 43; and
in Shemot 40: verses 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29,
32. That makes 18 references.
In relation to the
sacrifices, we find something similar: In Vayikra 8:
verses 4, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 29, 34, 35, 36; and in Vayikra
9, verses 9: 5, 6, 7, 10, 21—another 16 references. A total of 34.
Look especially at
9:6—Do this thing that God has commanded
you, and God’s glory will appear to you. The implication is that the Kohanim must not be tempted to do their own thing. The
service in the tabernacle was to be lmited to those
things that were commanded.
Now think again
about Nadav and Avihu.
We’ll look at exactly what they did in a minute. There are dozens of opinions,
but everybody agrees that, whatever they did, it was something that God had not commanded.
WHAT DID THEY DO?
Nadav and Avihu could easily be seen as the Jewish counterparts of Icarus, flying too close to the sun and having their wings
singed by the heat, spiritually presumptuous men who were destroyed by a fire
that they had made.
But leave it to
the rabbinic commentators. They have a field day explaining the meaning of aish zara and
trying to figure out exactly what Nadav and Avihu did.
At one extreme,
the Rashbam
says that Nadav and Avihu
did no more than enter the holy of holies at the moment the divine fire
descended. In effect, they were the victims of a work accident!
There are batches
of other rabbinical interpretations:
1. They failed to
comply with ritual laws
They brought a
sacrifice that God had not commanded.
2. They were
intemperate
Rabbi Yishmael said they were punished for entering
the mishkan after having drunk wine. As evidence of
this, the next subject brought up after their death is a warning to Aaron and
his descendents to avoid drink when they are carrying out the holy service.
3. They were
irreverent at matan torah
Some commentators
say that during the time of the revelation on Sinai (Shemot
24:12), they ate and drank irreverently. They should have died then but did
not. They were put on probation, and now they were zapped because they did
something wrong again.
4. They were
impatient
According to Rashi, they died
for entering the holy of holies before Aaron had a chance to do so.
5. They failed to
consult with their elders
They acted
independently, without consulting the leaders, or even each other
Vayikra Raba 20:8 says
that Aaron’s sons died because of four things:
entering the holy
of holies
offering a
sacrifice that had not been commanded
bringing an alien
fire
failing to consult
each other
For evidence that
they failed to consult, Vayikra Raba
quotes Bar Kappara
b’shem Rav Yermiyahu ben Eliezer,
who makes much of Vayikra 10:1 “Each of them took his
fire pan.” It’s them doing their own thing.
5a. According
to Vayikra Raba,
Aaron’s sons died because they issued a halachic
ruling in the presence of Moshe and Aaron without consulting them. That’s why
the Torah always describes them as the sons of Aaron: to emphasize
that they should have been subservient to their elders.
5b.
Other commentators insist that they were called the sons of Aaron because they
were under twenty. There’s lots of discussion about why they were punished so
severely even though they were young, but we won’t get into that now.
5c.
They failed to marry and have children
The commentators
who said this were obviously part of the “Twenty already and not married yet?”
school
6. They were
haughty
According to a Midrash, Nadav
and Avihu resented the authority that Moshe had
invested in their father Aaron. According to the Midrash, they were overheard
asking: “When will these old men pass on so that we may be the nation’s new
leaders?”
=================================
Some commentators,
who are far more kind to Nadav and Avihu, give other reasons for their being killed:
7. They were
killed because they showed excessive zeal
Ba’al ha’Turim comments on the extra vav in 10:2: And
a fire went out from before God and
it consumed them and they died before
God. The numerical value of vav is six, and this
commentator gives six reasons for their death, including the following: for offering a voluntary incense offering,
though the Ketores could be offered only
obligatorily, twice daily.
In a book called Heichal Beracha, a
scholar called The Yitzchak says
that although the actions of Nadav and Avihu were incorrect, their intentions were pure. They were
punished for their wrong actions in this world but rewarded for their
intentions in the world to come. They left their bodies in a state of union
with God and that they ascended to cling to the Tree of Life.
=================================
Then there’s the
mystical view:
8. God wished to
have the brothers closer to him
In Shaar HaGilgulim, The Ari (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria)
claims that Nadav and Avihu
didn’t actually die. Rather, their souls resided at a very high level, the
level of Atzilut. When they were taken by God, their
souls returned immediately as an ibur (a higher soul entering a person while he is still
alive)
What makes this
tradition interesting is its assertion that the souls of Nadav
and Avihu transmigrated to the body of Pinchas the son of Elazar
the son of Aaron! Not only that, but those souls returned as an ibur many more
times—in the prophets Elisha and Elijah, Hezekiah king of Yehuda,
Matityahu ben Yochanan the Hasmonean high
priest, Akavia ben Mahalalel, Rabbi Akiva, and many
others.
This view says
that Nadav and Avihu
intended to sanctify themselves, but that God judged them harshly simply
because they did something they had not been commanded to do.
Which leaves us no
farther ahead than when we started.
I have told you
that this story was part of the Torah reading for my Bar Mitzvah. I have given
lots of thought to the incident over the years, but if you ask me what Nadav and Avihu actually did, I
would have to say that I really don’t know. The commentators cannot all be
right, and I cannot tell you which reading of the story is correct. (Nobody
likes to say this, but all of the commentators could be wrong. So how can I
claim to know any more than I did when I was thirteen?)
Instead of
focusing on what Nadav and Avihu
did, let’s think about the lessons that can be taken out of the story.
====================================
1) To be born is
to be at risk.
2) Sudden calamity
can strike at any time.
3) We may be able
to avert the severity of our suffering, but not the suffering itself.
4) The lives of
those who presume to speak for God must be beyond reproach.
5) Good intentions
are not enough; we are judged by our actions as much as by our motives.
6) There can be no
holiness without an acceptance of the commandments of God.
7) Taking the
initiative in holy matters is serious business.
===============================================
FINALLY, MY OWN
POINT
The conservative
movement must constantly cope with a paradox: It introduces innovations and
alters the legacy of the past because no tradition can survive by remaining
entirely static. But if in the tension between tradition and innovation it
leans too far in the direction of innovation, it risks obscuring the
tradition, making it unrecognizable.
Taking the initiative in holy matters is serious business.
The exact actions
that sealed the fate of Nadav and Avihu
may be unknown; what we do know is that they died because they did something
that had not been commanded by God.
I’m only raising
this issue because I believe it should be considered and openly discussed by
every conservative congregation. It is not enough for a committee to vote on
changes to the service or to other ritual matters. The validity and value of
any aspect of Judaism is not a matter of majority rule. The key criterion is
whether an action was commanded by God, or consonant with a commandment of God.
In any society or
association, people expect to be able to depend on each other for certain basic
things. Over the years Jews everywhere knew that other Jews would use the
mitzvot as touchstones of behavior. A stranger who claimed to be a Jew in a
European shtetl was asked to produce his tzitzit. If he could not, that was ipso facto proof that he was not one of us; if he could, the
community welcomed him, no strings attached.
You may have heard
the story about the young man who refused to go to shul on Rosh Hashana. He was an atheist, he explained to his father.
“You’re Jewish too,” his father retorted, “and Jewish atheists go to shul on
Rosh Hashana.” There are some things that Jews simply
do. That’s what it means to be a Jew.
Not to do them is to change the definition of Jewish so much that nobody knows
what it means any more.
At a certain
point, innovation begins to obscure the traditional limits of right and wrong.
What people can depend on each other to do, or be, becomes doubtful.
I humbly submit
that as we tinker with ritual we may be ignoring more meaningful issues, such
as the ways to be more connected to each other, the nature of the assumptions
that hold us together, and the responsibility of each of us to help build our
community.
If we took those
things seriously, we wouldn’t have trouble getting a minyan
together when we want to begin our services at 9:45. And we wouldn’t have to
scrape and beg to gather a minyan at other times of
the week. Early this year we held a number of “learning services” on Sunday
mornings. We invited people to come and learn how to put on tfilin,
how to lead services. There were few takers. The only time we had a minyan was when the event coincided with the shul’s
anniversary Shabbaton.
As a congregation,
we can dance on the head of a pin belaboring ritual details all we want; if we
can’t get ten people together when we want to begin our services, how can we
even claim to be a congregation?
That’s enough to
think about for a while. Clarifying some of these issues could help define the
conservative movement, and perhaps we can discuss them in greater detail as
part of our adult education program. Let me just finish with another short
parable: A certain town had just enough Jews for a minyan, and a minyan always
showed up for services. One day an eleventh Jew came to town, and they never
had a minyan again!