Leviticus Cycle Two Shemini 9:1 to 10:20

SHEMINI

What goes around comes around, right? We create our realities, correct? It’s all about karma. Just say the word and we are seemingly set free. Yes, we have to watch our actions in the future, but once we give something the stamp of karma, we don’t have to take on the responsibility of struggling over that action anymore. We can let it go.

In this week’s parasha Shemini, the sons of Aaron are making a sacrifice. They are coming near to God and there are rules for this. There’s spiritual muscle here, blood, smells, chanting, fire, love. The whole community is watching. Nadav and Avihu get wrapped up in the continuum, the rhythm, the sounds, the sparks. They make an unauthorized sacrifice, a burnt offering and the flames jump out and consume them. Aaron their father watches and is silent.

Rabbi Eliezer says that Nadav and Avihu die because they render halachic or legal decisions in the presence of Moses, the prophet. In other words, they defy the divine hierarchy. Rabbi Ishmael says they drink too much wine. In other words, they do something wrong and get what they deserve. With all respect to these rabbis it seems they are also saying what goes around comes around. Something bad has happened to the boys and they must have done something wrong to deserve it. After all, why would God punish the innocent?

Here’s the question though. What if this happens to us? What if we are Nadav and Avihu? What if we are Aaron, their father? Should we die because we drink too much wine? Should our children die if they dare make decisions for a prophet?

In the Babylonian Talmud Rabbi Assi of Hozna’ah has brought us to another understanding, He says that the words in Exodus 40:17…and it came to pass in the 1st month of the 2nd year on the 1st day of the month…mean that the Tabernacle was erected on the 1st of Nissan.

To continue, a tanna taught that the 1st of Nissan took 10 crowns of distinction through 10 momentous happenings that day. It was the first day of creation (Gen 1:1-5), the first day of the prince’s offerings (Num 7:10-17), the first day for the priesthood to make the sacrificial offerings (Lev 9:1-21), the first day for the public sacrifice, the first day for the descent of fire from heaven (Lev 9:24), the first day that the priests eat the sacred food in the sacred area, the first for the dwelling of the Shechina in Israel (Ex. 25:8), the first for the priestly blessing in Israel (Lev 9:22 and Num, 6:22-27), the first for the prohibition of the high places (Lev. 17:3-4) and the first of the months of the year (Ex 12:2).

Any one of these events is momentous within itself and lifts the others with divine sparks. One of them, the descent of fire from heaven, describes the moment after the priestly blessing and immediately before the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. The fire comes forth before God…v’tatzah aish milfnay adonay …and the people shout praises and fall on their faces. The glory of God has been revealed. In the very next action…v’tatzah aish milfnay adonay…fire comes forth from before God and it consumes Nadav and Avihu as they are making the sacrifice.

Here’s my question. Why the repetition of the same words, one to describe this great awe and the other, this tragedy? When repetition of two long phrases is used in Torah, especially with such close proximity, there’s a reason. It’s just not for the sake of convenience. There’s a rhetorical connection being made. This is what I think. The two actions have merged like the upper and lower worlds, like dark and light. The two actions are one. Therefore, since the first is included in the ten momentous occasions of the 1st of Nissan, the deaths of Nadav and Avihu are as well.


To repeat, this is one long happening and included in it are the great sparks of our lives and our love shooting towards God and the deaths of the people close to us and the feeling of getting so near God you taste His tears and you want to die or cry with humility or glory and make more offerings and included in this one joyous painful action are all the tiny movements we make with our hands and feet, the people we touch, our excitement, our anger, our awe, our death. These two actions cannot be separated, no matter how we try to hide from the terrifying reality that we don’t have the power to judge, organize or even know the amazing brilliant exquisite radiance we call God.

In fact, all we can do is be thankful for the buffet brought before us, the great love. We can realize that we have never been victims at all but blessed by God even when we feel we are cursed in the darkest most impossible corners. All we can do is bless God as well, even as souls after we die or in the soul-form of dieing.

Nadav and Avihu wear crowns of that love today. We all do as parts of us are re-born in our offerings to the impossible beauty beyond blindness, in the lifting of ourselves to a radiance that penetrates deep within our hearts and eyes and merges all into one solid point.

The Zohar says this: All those who study Torah and cleave to the Holy One are adorned with the crowns of Torah.

May we all be adorned. May we all create a reality of Torah and be released from ourselves in our love for God. May every day be the 1st of Nissan. May we feel the deep pain but never blame God and be very hesitant before claiming that God blames us. Instead, may our days be full of gratitude and the silence of Aaron.