Parashat Shemini

THEY SHOUTED. Va-yaronnu (they shouted) means they raised their voices. Compare, rinnah (cry) in And there went a cry throughout the host (I Kings 22:36).

(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 the LORD alien fire, which He had not enjoined upon them. (2) And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the LORD. (3) Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD meant when He said: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent.

AND PUT FIRE THEREIN. Not from the fire that came forth from the Lord.⁵See Lev. 9:24. This is the meaning of strange fire.

ויקחו שני בני אהרן איש מחתתו, they thought that just as after the daily communal offering which was accompanied by the manifestation of G’d’s Presence as we know from Exodus 29,42 עולת תמיד לדורותיכם פתח אהל מועד לפני ה' אשר איועד לכם שמה, “the regular communal burnt offerings for your generations in the presence of the Lord, where I will manifest Myself there,” there would come the incense, so it would also be in order on this occasion to present a new incense offering honouring the manifestation of the Lord to the whole people and in honour of the heavenly fire having descended.

ותצא אש AND THERE WENT OUT FIRE — Rabbi Eleizer said: the sons of Aaron died only because they gave decisions on religious matters in the presence of their teacher, Moses (Sifra, Shemini, Mechilta d'Miluim 2 32; Eruvin 63a). Rabbi Ishmael said: they died because they entered the Sanctuary intoxicated by wine. You may know that this is so, because after their death he admonished those who survived that they should not enter when intoxicated by wine (vv. 8—9). A parable! It may be compared to a king who had a bosom friend, etc., as is to be found in Leviticus Rabbah 12:1, 4 (cf. Biur).

Let us now explore what caused the scholars who claimed ‎that these two sons of Aaron were drunk on the occasion ‎mentioned in Leviticus 10,1-3, to arrive at that conclusion.. At ‎first glance one shudders how these scholars could accuse these ‎אצילי בני ישראל‎, “these noble souls” amongst the Israelites of ‎having been guilty of such conduct when the Torah had not ‎spelled it out! ? Had not the Torah in Leviticus 10,8-11 spelled ‎out that entry into the Tabernacle in a state of inebriety is a ‎capital sin? How could these sons of Aaron have ignored this?‎
I believe we can find the answer to this question by ‎examining the text in Leviticus 10 more closely.‎
The words: ‎זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' לעשות וירא אליכם כבוד ה'‏‎, “this is ‎the thing that you must do in order that the glory of ‎‎Hashem will appear to you,” in that paragraph appear to be ‎superfluous, or at least not connected to the subject under ‎discussion. (Leviticus 9,6)‎
‎Rashi, in commenting on Leviticus 9,23 near the end of ‎this paragraph where the Torah writes: ‎ויצאו ויברכו את העם‎, “they ‎came out (Moses and Aaron from the Tabernacle) and blessed the ‎people,” writes that during the seven preceding days of the ‎consecration rites for the Tabernacle the Shechinah had not ‎manifested itself so that the people had complained why they had ‎gone to such lengths to build the Tabernacle if after all this G’d ‎had not seen fit to take up residence among them. Moses told ‎them what they must do in order to merit that the ‎‎Shechinah would manifest itself amongst them again as ‎proof that the sin of the golden calf had been forgiven. He ‎explained that seeing that his brother Aaron, who was the High ‎Priest was more worthy than he, until Aaron had presented ‎sacrifices in the Tabernacle, G’d’s glory would not become ‎manifest. This is why in verse 24 we are told that Aaron ‎performed his duties as a result of which the Shechinah ‎manifested itself in that heavenly fire consumed the portions of ‎the sacrifices on the altar. There does not appear to be an allusion ‎to all this in the text of the Torah, so where did Rashi take ‎his exegesis from?‎
When man serves his Creator he experiences a feeling of great ‎pleasure as he is aware that he thereby provides pleasure for his ‎Creator. This is the allegorical meaning of Proverbs 10,1 ‎בן חכם ‏ישמח אב‎, “that an intelligent son provides pleasure for his father.” ‎This pleasure or joy is not limited to one domain in the universe ‎but spreads throughout the universe. A call goes out in all parts ‎of the universe to honour the person who, through his devoted ‎service to his Creator, has provided so much pleasure in the ‎whole universe. There is no greater pleasure than this.‎
However, seeing that we are aware of this, this reduces our ‎service to the Lord to one that is tied to the expectation of ‎reward. Maimonides in his hilchot teshuvah chapter 10 goes ‎so far as calling such service of G’d as being ‎שלא לשמה‎, “keeping ‎Torah commandments for ulterior motives.” The principal ‎purpose of pure service of the Lord is that it is performed in ‎recognition of the greatness of the Creator Who provides all ‎forms of life in this universe and Who has endowed us with souls ‎that contain Divine qualities.‎
We may well ask why no mention is made in the Torah of any ‎reward for performance of the Torah’s commandments that ‎accrues to the doer in the world beyond death of the body. ‎Reward in the ‎עולם הבא‎, the world to come, while discussed at ‎length by our sages, is not dealt with in the written Torah at all. ‎‎[The conclusion of the author’s paragraph is ‎missing.]‎

ותצא אש, “Fire came forth;” the Torah first reports the fact that fire originated in heaven, before going into details, i.e. that this fire was triggered by actions taken by the two sons of Aaron mentioned here. The fire mentioned here is the fire mentioned in verse 24 of the previous chapter. The “details” commence with verse 1 in our chapter, i.e. “the two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu each took his own censer and placed man made fire and incense on them, fire that G-d had forbidden to be put on these censers.” It was the custom of that heavenly fire to travel first to the Holy of Holies and from there to the golden altar in the Sanctuary and there to consume the incense offered. In this instance, the heavenly fire did not stop there, but travelled beyond the boundary of the Sanctuary to the copper altar in front of the Sanctuary and consumed these two sons of Aaron there.

וידום אהרן, seeing he consoled himself after having been told that the death of his sons represented a sanctification of the name of the Lord.

(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 and do not rend your clothes, lest you die and anger strike the whole community. But your kinsmen, all the house of Israel, shall bewail the burning that the LORD has wrought. (7) And so do not go outside the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, lest you die, for the LORD’s anointing oil is upon you.” And they did as Moses had bidden. (8) And the LORD spoke to Aaron, saying: (9) Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons, when you enter the Tent of Meeting, that you may not die. This is a law for all time throughout the ages, (10) for you must distinguish between the sacred and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean; (11) and you must teach the Israelites all the laws which the LORD has imparted to them through Moses.

IF A WOMAN BE DELIVERED.¹Hebrew, tazri’a (literally, produces a seed). After Scripture concludes the law of clean and unclean food, it deals with human uncleanliness. The Torah starts²Its regulations of human uncleanliness. with the woman who gives birth, because human life begins at birth. Many say that if the woman produces the seed first,³Before the male. then she gives birth to a male.⁴However, when the male produces the seed first then the result is a female. See Berakhot 60a; Niddah 28a. Scripture therefore states, and bear a man-child.⁵That is, Scripture therefore says, If a woman produce seed and bear a man-child. The wise men of the Greeks similarly believed that the seed is of the woman. The seed of the male congeals.⁶The Greeks believed that the male seed gives form to the seed of the woman. All of the child is created out of the blood of the woman.⁷According to the Greek sages the woman provides the matter and the man the form of the embryo. See I.E. on Deut. 13:7 (Vol. 5, pp. 89,90). Note, the meaning of tazri’a (be delivered) means will give seed, for a woman⁸Reading he (she) as in Vat. Ebr. 38 rather than hu (it) as in some printed editions. is like the ground.⁹The point is that the field nurtures the seed planted in it. The same is the case with a woman. Compare, And as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it (zeru’ehah) to spring forth (Is. 62:11). Thus ishah ki tazri’a (if a woman be delivered) literally means if a woman gives forth her seed, i.e., the seed planted in her.