Leviticus Cycle Four Shemini 9:1-11:47

Shemini

Ready or not…here comes Hashem.

Shemini is not about kashrut (alone) or death (alone) or even the visioning of God (alone) or even the consecration of the mishkan (alone). Each of these, as crucial as they are to understanding how we create a sacred connection with the divine…they are not what this parsha is really about. In my opinion, the lesson is the experiential discernment of the holy from the not-so-holy. Feeling that hook-into the radical glory of Hashem by feeling the dirt stuck in our throats. Accessing sod by sticking our face in the p’shat.

So, it’s not just about saying…hmmmm, this is good, this is bad. It’s about fumbling within the great schism of the holy dichotomy from below and from above realizing that there isn’t any dichotomy at all. And therefore being in absolute humility and gratitude to the Holy One.

Let’s look at death in Shemini. How does death brings us to gratitude? We’ve all been around it. It's painful, terrifying, sad. Sometimes it feels like God’s cosmic joke. First we see a loved-one with eyes-a-sparkle and skin so warm and then they are skin-hard and eyes-blank. The body, the energy, this person is gone. We dream about them, reach for them, cry for them, flail out in anger, race around in black in case we also crash, try to make a reason around it, place a stamp on it, blame ourselves, blame others, sue the doctor, or decide not to sue the doctor, imagine our own hard-skin and blank-eyes, try to see the world beyond our body-energy, leave our body in meditation or drug-induced flashes to bring ourselves into crystal clear intimacy beyond it. But we always return, always return to the body-world, to the pain of pure exhaustion…and to the oh so human exhilaration of God’s filtered light.

Gratitude?

In Shemini, the story of death is of Nadav and Avihu. In order to understand it we must look at it in context, not just in the parsha but in terms of death-stories in Torah. And while there are many, perhaps you will agree with me that four (altogether) make the headlines. We want to see these four as a frame as to how we humans handle death. Most important, we want to perceive the clear difference between them so they are distinct enough to clarify the vision beyond.

The realm of human emotion is boundary number one. Let’s look at the death of Sarah. How she is treated in death! Mourned for! Loved! Abraham eulogizes her and weeps for her ( Genesis 23:2). Abraham works hard to procure a burial place for her and then ( 23:19)buries her. This takes time, determination. We relate. We feel the sadness. This death takes up exactly 20 lines (from 23:1 to 23:20). It feels well balanced, not over-expressed (or over-emotional).

The realm of human honor is boundary number two. Let’s look at Jacob. If you include the blessings he bestows upon all twelve of his children (and Joseph’s two children as well) we have a huge amount of space dedicated here (Genesis 47:28 to 50:12)…exactly 70 lines. This is kingly. Blessings, instructions (what can be seen as an ethical will) a procession of mourners, the kisses, the embalming, the pomp and circumstance. And in the middle of all of this…the sign of true honor…humility…. when Jacob curls his feet into his bed (Genesis 49:33).

The realm of the concealed, the prophet. This is the next boundary of our frame. Here, we have both Joseph and Moses. The former, after all the lines dedicated to his father, receives two (Genesis 50:24-26). Two. This doesn’t mean that his death isn’t important. It means, especially since it is in immediate transition/comparison to the death of Jacob…that a lot more happens than is written. Hashem is concealed. Joseph is concealed. There’s an intimacy with Hashem here that is beyond basic understanding. As Rabbi Nachman says, there are those of us who understand that Hashem is concealed. And there are those of us who don’t experience that concealment…because the concealment is concealed. Joseph, as well as Moses, has moved beyond the veil and the veil of the veil into the place of the most heightened intimacy. In the case of Moses, we don’t know even where he’s buried.

Now for the fourth boundary. Nadav and Avihu. Here, death is p’shat. It’s about as grounded as you can get. Whether (according to the sages) they are zapped or punished they die mid-sacrifice mid-line. Then Moses says…well this is to prove that we can really see God. And Aaron stares. Sort of like life. Whether we are zapped or punished, we die mid-something mid-story, someone has to find some kind of reason for it and the rest of us just stare if we have that humility. Or cry. Or scream. Next, in Torah, Moses instructs their brothers to carry them outside the camp. There isn’t any procession. They aren’t concealed. They are just there, burnt bodies of two kids given five lines during mid-mishkan consecration (all but two of which are really about how to discard them). Again, like life. Someone dies. It’s going to be the closest kin who deal with it. It isn’t pretty for the most part or really that spiritual or even emotional mid death-scene. You’re in shock and taking care of the details. Whether we like it or not, this is the way it is. At that level.

And this is the truth of our frame here. One boundary is way extended beyond the other. The schism is huge between the death of Moses and that of Nadav and Avihu. And it’s not to say that someone is better than the other. Nor to say that it’s best to be a prophet. What is does say is this: Within the holy…within the consecration of a home for God to dwell in…our mishkan…and in the divine vision and glory of Hashem…there lays the primitive rude shocking horrifying blatant fact of our base humanity. And in order to get beyond this fact we have to see the raging dichotomy between it and the very beauty of the prophetic vision. And once we do…if we ever do… part of what we get is the beauty also of the shock, of the horror, of our humanity, of our very death, of our humility in the face of it all. But if we don’t work to make the discernment, we don’t have the frame or the vision. And then we end up eating our fear and doubt for breakfast lunch and dinner. As it says (10:10) you will thus be able to discern between the holy and the common and between the ritually unclean and the clean. And as the Sfas Ems says …only the lowest creatures could bring this possibility (repentance) to fruition….therefore we know we are all capable of achieving this state of vision and unity with the Holy One.

So we may be thankful for the death of Nadav and Avihu (as we mourn). May we be thankful for our bodies, for our lives and our deaths. May we practice the art of discernment between the holy and the profane every moment with every thought that flies through our heads. May we create strong solid boundaries with hard and fast gevurah so that we may shine our chesed through the opening and be nourished with the radiance of the beloved Hashem.