In our study of Parshat Shmini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47), we will explore Nadav and Avihu’s strange fire and how it relates to dietary laws. What boundaries are blurred? What risks or rewards do they and the Israelites face?
Blessing for Torah Study
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la'asok b’divrei Torah. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who hallows us with mitzvot, charging us to engage with words of Torah.
Beginning with Our Own Torah
1) Think of a moment when you felt a deep sense of passion. You can imagine a deep passion for a subject, a person, an activity, or something else. How did it feel in your body? How did you or would you respond to that feeling?
2) In what ways do you blur lines? You can think of how you blur lines through gender, ideology, or something else. What are the risks and rewards of blurring lines?
A Strange Fire
Context
Aaron and his relatives––including Nadav and Avihu––have begun the process of becoming the first priests. Moses instructed and helped them prepare through anointment oils, elaborate sacrifices, special clothing, and other rituals. Finally, they were told to spend seven days in a tent together.
Questions to Consider
Who is present and who is at the center in each part of the story? What feelings do they display? What is a "strange fire"? What risks and rewards do the Israelites face?
(1) On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel... (5) They brought to the front of the Tent of Meeting the things that Moses had commanded, and the whole community came forward and stood before GOD. (6) Moses said: “This is what GOD has commanded that you do, that the Presence of GOD may appear to you”... (16) He brought forward the burnt offering and sacrificed it according to regulation.
(22) Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them; and he stepped down after offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the offering of well-being. (23) Moses and Aaron then went inside the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people; and the Presence of ה' appeared to all the people. (24) Fire came forth from before ה' and consumed the burnt offering and the fat parts on the altar. And all the people saw, and shouted, and fell on their faces.
(1) Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before ה' strange fire, which had not been enjoined upon them.
Through those near to Me I show Myself holy,
And gain glory before all the people.”
And Aaron was silent.
(4) Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come forward and carry your kinsmen away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.” (5) They came forward and carried them out of the camp by their tunics, as Moses had ordered. (6) And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not bare your heads* (or dishevel your hair”). and do not rend your clothes, lest you die and anger strike the whole community. But your kin, all the house of Israel, shall bewail the burning that ה' has wrought.
Tamar Kamionkowski, "Nadav and Avihu and Dietary Laws: A Case of Action and Reaction," Torah Queeries, 2009, page 137
These men, having been in close proximity to other men for a week, and in the presence of the male figure that elicits trembling, passion, and is seemingly unattainable, choose to risk all the cultural norms and legal prescriptions of their generation in order to merge with this ultimate male figure. In a world with highly prescribed rules regarding every aspect of their behavior, rules that are infused with strict boundaries regarding what it is to be male and female, what it means to be religious leaders, they break through all the boundaries for the sake of love and the desire for an ultimate merging....God accepts the men and takes them into his innermost sanctum, and he consumes them in an act of burning passion. There is no indication that God is angry with them; in fact, one could argue the opposite. God’s verbal response is, “I am made holy through those that come close to me” (Lev. 10:3). Thus, God’s holiness is supported and even enhanced by the acts of Nadav and Avihu. This text offers an example of homoerotic attraction between human males and the male God of the Bible. Each desires to come closer to the other. Nadav and Avihu strip themselves literally and figuratively—they strip themselves of their clothing, of societal expectations, of confining rules—and they come forward. God meets them in a passion of fire, taking them in completely.
Blurring Boundaries
Questions to Consider
Which boundaries are being reinforced and which are being blurred? How does this section relate to Nadav and Avihu?
(9) These you may eat of all that live in water: anything in water, whether in the seas or in the streams, that has fins and scales—these you may eat. (10) But anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales, among all the swarming things of the water and among all the other living creatures that are in the water—they are an abomination for you...
Tamar Kamionkowski, page 138-9
Animals that fall outside of what fits into the “natural” structure of the universe are forbidden. A common example might be animals such as lobsters and crabs: as sea animals they belong in the water, yet they transgress their place in nature by walking on land as well.... [I]t is not happenstance that the dietary laws follow the story of Nadav and Avihu. Like the swing of a pendulum, the dietary laws are the response, the text’s way of imposing further restrictions and categories in a world in which people believed that chaos and death could ensue if there were not rigid classifications.
Ending with Our Own Torah
1) Return to that moment when you felt a deep sense of passion. Did it feel risky? Did you feel rewarded? Do you relate to Nadav and Avihu?
2) Return to thinking about the ways in which you blur boundaries. How does passion inform it? Does it come naturally or is it something you put intention into?
Tamar Kamionkowski, page 138
The text suggests that the problem with this human impulse lies not within the moral realm but within the pragmatic realm: passion at the cost of death…. Although it is important to maintain boundaries, order, and structure to prevent ecstatic, potentially
destructive relations with the Divine from rupturing the community, something is
lost in that suppression: passion.