פרשה: שמיני · עלייה: שלישי (תפארת)

It seems to teach that the place of their error was for two reasons. The first was that in becoming priests, they erred in their service, and this ( is implied in the text) beginning by saying they were 'sons of Aaron'; the two of them (thought) they were great in deeds and should be weighted like Moses and Aaron [Torat Kohanim Achrei Mot 53]. And as the Zohar teaches, they were on a high spiritual level in the realm of deeds, hence they were called ('sons of Aaron') Nadav and Abihu, and this trait is not so for Elazar and Itamar (the Torah does not refer to them as 'sons of Aaron'); they too are 'sons of Aaron', but are not at the spiritual level themselves that Nadav and Abihu were. So too we find this explanation where (the Torah) says

וישימו עליה קטורת, they placed incense on it (the censer). The Torah does not write that they placed the incense "on them," as it had described the act of placing fire on the censer in the plural, i.e. ויתנו בהן lumping the censers together. The reason the Torah distinguishes in its description is to emphasise that the crucial part of their error was the fire which did not originate on the altar.

זדה, אשר לא צוה אותם, strange fire, which He had not commanded them. The words "which He had not commanded them" define the nature of the strangeness of the fire. It is possible that if these two sons of Aaron had taken the fire for their incense from the altar G'd would not have minded so much; it is also possible that G'd would have minded for a different reason; at any rate, the sin consisted in their doing something on their own initiative which G'd had not commanded them.

וימותו לפני השם. They died in the presence of the Lord. The words: "in the presence of the Lord" may be intended to inspire fear and reverence for the Tabernacle in the people who witnessed that even people who entered in order to offer the offering dearest to G'd, incense, had died as a result of doing something unauthorised. There is also an allusion here that their death was due to something they had done previously and which involved the presence of G'd. I refer to Exodus 24,10 where these two sons were reported as having beheld G'd (compare Vayikra Rabbah 20,10 and G'd was reported there as not punishing the "nobles of Israel" at that time). These "nobles" were Nadav and Avihu.

הוא אשר דבר השם, this is what G'd has said: etc. The word הוא needs further analysis. Another word which seems peculiar is the word לאמור. This word gives the impression that Moses had already been commanded to communicate this idea that G'd is most exacting with those near and dear to Him. If Moses had been instructed to communicate this concept, why had he not done so before? Perhaps this error of Moses was similar to the one we described in connection with Moses' failure to communicate to the people all the details about the manna on the Sabbath, as mentioned in Exodus 16,23 where we also find the expression הוא אשר דבר השם. We had supplied sufficient reasons why Moses at the time did not communicate the laws about the Sabbath to the Israelites in advance, basing ourselves on the absence of the word לאמור in that context. In this instance then, why had Moses not told Aaron of this concept sooner?

Our sages in Torat Kohanim on our verse describe Aaron as in despair accusing both himself and his sons as having sinned and having been punished for it. When Moses heard this, he entered Aaron's tent and tried to put his mind at ease by telling him that G'd had told him when he was on Mount Sinai that in the future He, G'd, would sanctify the Tabernacle by means of persons of great stature. At the time, Moses said, he had thought that G'd referred either to himself or to Aaron. Now, in view of what had just occurred, it had become clear to him that both Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than either he or Aaron seeing G'd had selected those two to sanctify His Tabernacle. Thus far Torat Kohanim. Another approach may be this: while it is true that Moses had been told about this concept at Sinai, he had not understood in which context this lesson would assume practical significance. Only now, when Nadav and Avihu had died under peculiar circumstances did he, Moses, realise what G'd had meant to tell him at that time when He said to him: בקרובי אקדש, "I will be sanctified by means of those who are close to Me." Moses told Aaron: "the only reason your sons had to die was to glorify the name of the Lord." This is how he suddenly understood the words in Exodus 29,43: ונועדתי שמה לבני ישראל ונקדש בכבודי, "there I will meet with the children of Israel and there My glory shall be sanctified." As soon as Aaron heard that the two sons of his who had died were ידועי השם, based on Exodus 29,43, he remained silent and did not utter a lament.

According to the first approach the word הוא has to be understood thus: Seeing Aaron was saddened by his interpretation of the reason his sons had died, Moses corrected him by saying הוא "this is the reason your sons died," i.e. because they were too close to G'd not because they had become estranged from G'd. Accordingly, the word הוא refers to the cause. According to the second approach to our verse we have to understand the word הוא as a reference to the comment G'd had made to Moses without specifying His meaning. Moses said that now he understood הוא, i.e. "it," the "it" being what G'd had told him about being sanctified by men of stature. As to the meaning of the word לאמור, Moses now understood that when G'd had told him that He would be sanctified ונקדש בכבודי, you may understand this as לאמור, "to say," בקרובי אקדש. This takes care of the various problems in the text we have raised. There remains the difficulty why Moses had failed to communicate the concept of בקרובי אקדש sooner. We also need to understand the deeper meaning of why-according to Torat Kohanim -Moses did not practice his customary humility when saying to Aaron: "I thought G'd referred either to me or to you." We would have expected Moses to have said: "I thought G'd referred to either you or me." Why did he mention himself first?

We have to remember that we are dealing with an event which contained two vastly different elements. 1) The lesson that Nadav and Avihu were men of great stature. 2) The fact that they died while in the process of committing a sin. When Moses told Aaron that he had understood what G'd had meant when He spoke about being sanctified by men of great stature, men close to Him, he did not necessarily refer to the first element. If Moses had only related to G'd having spoken about people of great stature being the ones by means of whom He would be sanctified, the fact that he mentioned himself first would indeed have to be interpreted as somewhat presumptuous. However, seeing that Moses added that he had now become aware that G'd had considered Nadav and Avihu as greater than himself or even Aaron, it became clear that Moses had not meant to be presumptuous at all. Also, if the major aspect of Moses' new understanding had been who was supposed to be the victim in terms of giving up his life so that G'd would be glorified, it would hardly have been appropriate for Moses to volunteer this honour for Aaron. This is why he mentioned himself first. On the contrary, when one speaks of a possible tragedy befalling either oneself or the person with whom one discusses such an eventuality, good manners require that one mentions oneself as a possible victim first. Moses phrased the whole matter as something concerning which he had previously entertained some doubt.

There remains the difficulty that according to what Moses told Aaron only one person had to die in order to demonstrate to the people that G'd is sanctified by someone close to Him. Why did both sons die? After all, according to Moses' own words he had only been in doubt which one would be the victim. He never considered that there could be two or more victims to demonstrate the point G'd wanted to make. Besides, whence did Moses know that Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than either Aaron or himself? Seeing that G'd had mentioned one person as dying, it is plausible that that one person was of greater stature than either Moses or Aaron. Why would I assume that both were greater? In fact it seems strange that two had to take the place of one, i.e. either Moses or Aaron? If so they were not greater than Moses or Aaron individually. One can certainly not argue that in this case Solomon's rule (Kohelet 4,9) applies that טובים השנים מן האחד, "that two are better than one?"

I believe what Torat Kohanim had in mind is that when G'd said to Moses ונקדש בכבודי that the Tabernacle would be sanctified by a person who is considered as of great stature by Me (G'd), Moses realised that one of the צדיקים, righteous persons, would die. However, he assumed that according to the plain meaning of the words that G'd referred to an outstandingly righteous person (singular). This was the reason he was not sure whether the victim would be either himself or Aaron. Now that he saw that two men had died he re-evaluated the meaning of what G'd had told him. He now realised that when G'd had spoken about ונקדש בכבודי, the meaning was not that it required a single person whose death would confer glory on G'd and the Taberncale, but that G'd had referred to something of a more comprehenive nature. This is why Moses re-phrased what G'd had told him and he said to Aaron בקרובי אקדש, "by means of those who are close to Me (plural) I will be sanctified." He added that G'd had said: ועל פני כל העם אקדש; "and I will be seen to have been glorified in front of all the nation." This meant that when G'd had previously spoken of כבודי, My Glory, the meaning was "on account of My Glory." If we accept this interpretation G'd never applied the singular as applying to the צדיקים. The word ונקדש is a collective term referring to whatever righteous will be the instrument by which G'd's Glory is sanctified. The proof that this had indeed been G'd's meaning was the fact that two people died. Moses said "this is what He had said" in order to console Aaron. The word לאמור means that Moses now understood that he had to communicate, i.e. explain G'd's meaning as being: "I will be sanctified by those who are close to Me." The principal reason for the word לאמור was to forestall any other erroneous interpretation of what G'd had in mind in Exodus 29,43.

It is also possible that Moses had already understood G'd correctly originally; he had realised that there were actually three possibilities. Either several people would die, or he himself or Aaron would die and thereby demonstrate G'd's principle of ונקדש בכבודי, i.e. the same as בקרובי אקדש. When Torat Kohanim quotes Moses as having said to Aaron that he had thought that either he or Aaron would be chosen to demonstrate the principle in question, Moses meant that originally he had entertained three doubts about who would be the people chosen for this kind of martyrdom. He had now learned which of the three possibilities was the correct one.

There still remains one difficulty. How could Moses have been certain that he had interpreted G'd's words correctly? Perhaps the combined merits of Nadav and Avihu equalled that of either Moses or Aaron and that is why both of them had to die to demonstrate the principle of בקרובי אקדש? This latter supposition is quite untenable. The whole purpose of G'd allowing those who were close to Him to become the victims of the principle בקרובי אקדש was to inspire sufficient reverence in the people not to treat the sanctity of the Tabernacle lightly. Once the people had observed that G'd had taken up residence in the Tabernacle, as it were, they would begin to take His presence for granted and not relate to it with the necessary degree of reverence. The more highly placed the individual Israelite, the more likely that he would feel so familiar with his G'd that he would become guilty of a trespass. The people most likely to make such an error were the spiritual elite of the people, among them Nadav and Avihu. As a result these people would enter the Sanctuary at will whereas the lesser individuals would keep their distance as required. The result of such considerations would be that the spiritual leaders would be less respectul towards the sanctity of the Tabernacle than their counterparts the ordinary Israelite. In order to prevent such a situation from developing, G'd had to demonstrate by what happened to Nadav and Avihu that He was especially mindful of His honour when it came to the elite in order for the common people not to ever lack in reverence for the Tabernacle. If we were to accept that Moses or Aaron individually were more outstanding than either Nadav or Avihu, G'd would have failed to demonstrate His principle seeing He had excluded both Moses and Aaron from the restriction the principle of ונקדש בכבודי was to teach the people. G'd demonstrated the principle of בקרובי אקדש by literally applying it to the people who represented the elite of the elite. The death of Nadav and Avihu demonstrated that nobody, Aaron and Moses included, could treat the Tabernacle as such familiar ground that they were allowed to enter it at will. The suggestion that only Nadav and Avihu combined represented greater stature than either Aaron or Moses is rejected by the author who explains that if you have a single diamond of ten carats, such a diamond does not become relatively inferior because someone else has two diamonds the combined weight of which is eleven carats.

ראשיכם אל תפרעו; "do not let the hair of your head grow wild." The Torah warns that if the people at large were to do the same as the priests, i.e. trim their hair while in mourning for a close relative, G'd would become angry. There are differences in the manner ordinary Israelites mourn their dead and in the manner in which priests charged with serving the Lord do this. Whereas the priests are not allowed to let their hair grow wild, they are obligated to rend their garments when hearing of the death of a close relative. Perhaps, in this instance, the rules applied were those we apply when the president of the Supreme Court dies; at such a time all of Israel are commanded to rend their garments as a sign of mourning (Moed Katan 22). In view of the opinion that Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than even Moses and Aaron, it was certainly appropriate for the whole nation to mourn their deaths.

ואחיכם כל בית ישראל יבכו, "and your brethren the whole house of Israel will weep, etc." This is a מצוה, a desirable act; failure to do so will not arouse G'd's anger. The Torah is particular to write אשר שרף השם. This may best be understood in accordance with a statement in Shabbat 105 that anyone who weeps and mourns another person' death has his own sins forgiven and will not have cause to weep [for a tragedy in his immediate family. Ed.]. This thought is alluded to in the words אשר שרף, "He had burned." If the Israelites were to weep for the death of Nadav and Avihu now, there would be no future burning to be wept for. The words ולא תמותו ועל כל העדה יקצוף "so that you will not die and G'd will be angry at the whole congregation" mean, that when the righteous die G'd's anger is unleashed against the whole of Israel. The reason is that the righteous by their very existence had kept G'd's anger against Israel in check while they were alive. The death of priests is especially apt to result in G'd's anger becoming manifest as it was the task of the priest to assuage G'd's anger by means of the Temple service he performed while alive.