Torah Posting: שמיני
Eight days after Aharon and his sons, the new Israelite priesthood, entered the Mishkan for their ordination, Mosheh calls to them. He instructs Aharon to make a round of animal offerings, including a he-goat from the people as a sin offering, for today, יהוה will appear to the high priest.
The priests bring forth everything needed, and they and the council of leaders stand before God at the Mishkan.
Mosheh instructs Aharon to make the offerings upon the altar, so that יהוה will appear before him. Everything is offered up precisely in accordance with the instructions we have previously received. Then Aharon lifts his hands toward the people and blesses them, presumably with a gesture all Jewish people know, as we make the priestly blessing to this day, forming the hands into the letter ש: 🖖
Aharon steps down, and then he and Mosheh enter the Tent of Meeting. Within the same verse, they come out and bless the people again.
Then God appears to all the people in some form. Here, as in many places, the JPS English translation that has taken root as the de facto academic translation uses the word “Presence” to refer to the aspect of the divine that appears here, but I have a problem with that choice.
The word I would translate as “Presence” is שכינה, which does have foundation in this part of the Torah. Its root comes from the verb לשכון, “to dwell,” and that is the purpose for which God had Mosheh construct the Mishkan, after all — that God may dwell in it. In the Jewish mystical tradition, the word שכינה comes to refer to the embodied, present aspect of the divine, in contrast to the ineffable and transcendent aspect, and the fact that it is gendered feminine is of great importance. That is the word that refers to what I would call the Divine Presence.
Here, by contrast, the word for what appears to all the people is כבוד, or specifically כבוד-יהוה. I would prefer to translate כבוד as “Glory” rather than “Presence.” This is another word with rich mystical significance, but to me the distinction is quite clear. The Presence is God Herself, her Essence. The Glory is more like the searing intensity wave that blasts out in front of God; it’s all that most mere mortals get, because they can’t withstand it, nor do they have the inner quiet necessary to feel God’s Presence in Her still, small voice, without all the thunder and lightning.
In any case, here, “fire came forth from before יהוה” and consumes all the offerings straight off the altar. The people are terrified by this display and fall on their faces.
We have been warned many times about the dangers of doing these rituals improperly. As we read many of those warnings, I have repeatedly insinuated that they may have been foreshadowing something. What happens next here is the thing I was insinuating about.
Aharon’s sons Nadav and Avihu take their fire pans, scoop coals into them, and lay incense on top. They’re approaching the altar with a procedure for an offering that has clearly not been described. All of the incense offerings have been described as part of other offerings, or taking place in the inner sanctum, and at any rate are not things you just scoop into your pan and go to town on. They successfully offer up this “אש זרה” — “alien fire” — which had not been commanded of them, and this same fire comes forth and consumes them. They die on the spot.
And look, I’m not going to chalk this one up to God’s brutality or immaturity like I did those other times. God gave plenty of warning not to mess around with this stuff! But I think this is just scene-setting anyway. The real power of this scene is in the tension between the human beings, Mosheh and Aharon. Aharon has followed his brother, Mosheh, into this crazy, terrifying religion, and it is Mosheh’s job as leader — and as brother — to handle this tragedy. How does he do so? Vayikra 10:3 is one of the most poignant, painful lines in the entire Torah to me:
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶֽל־אַהֲרֹ֗ן הוּא֩ אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֨ר יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ לֵאמֹר֙ בִּקְרֹבַ֣י אֶקָּדֵ֔שׁ וְעַל־פְּנֵ֥י כׇל־הָעָ֖ם אֶכָּבֵ֑ד וַיִּדֹּ֖ם אַהֲרֹֽן׃
“Then Mosheh said to Aharon, ‘This is what יהוה meant by saying:
Through those near to Me I show Myself holy,
And gain glory before all the people.’
And Aharon was silent.”
That silence just… takes me out. Mosheh could have said, you know, I’m sorry, Aharon. I am so sad and sorry that your sons — my nephews — are dead. But instead, he says the thing all insufferable religious people say: “It’s okay! They’re with God now!” And Aharon. Says. Nothing.
To me, this has echoes of Avraham the wild-eyed fanatic nearly sacrificing his beloved son. And I know my interpretation — namely, “that was bad, actually” — is pretty uncommon, at least among people who love the Torah, to the point that it might seem like a stretch. But I think Mosheh’s response to the Nadav and Avihu incident shows that fanaticism blinding a male leader/prophet to real human pain is not just a one-off but an actual theme in the Torah. And this time we have a figure of no less stature than Aharon, the first high priest of the children of Yisra’el, unable to muster a single religious word in his grief.
Mosheh is still undeterred. He calls to other priests and instructs them to carry the bodies out of camp, which they do, dragging them by their tunics. Then Mosheh turns to Aharon and his two surviving sons, El’azar and Itamar, and says, “Don’t go into mourning and tear your clothes.” That, Mosheh says, could cause them to die, and for further divine wrath to strike the camp, presumably because priests are not supposed to mourn when it’s God who kills their family because of a ritual infraction. Mosheh tries to recover right at the end, saying that everyone else — the whole community — will mourn this tragedy. But he can’t let go of ritual concerns in his parting note: “Don’t go outside right now. You’ve got God’s anointing oil on you, so you could die.” And they listen to him.
Then, as promised, God speaks directly to Aharon, but God does not offer much consolation, either.
In the first law given directly to someone other than Mosheh, God instructs the high priest that the priests are not to drink alcohol before entering the Tent of Meeting, for they must be able to distinguish between the sacred and profane, the pure and impure, and they are responsible for showing the people the proper observation of the law.
Is God saying Nadav and Avihu were drunk? Or maybe they were just confused, and this is an additional exhortation that priests are not to make offerings to God while confused. (In any case, clearly this rule is about drinking, and it does not apply to topical cannabis oil.)
Seriously, though, the point stands. This is not a contradiction. As you are probably aware, wine is used all the time in Jewish ritual; in fact it is specifically used to make intentional separations between the sacred and the profane. God is not prohibiting intoxicating substances for their own sake here. God is saying, “Do not mess around with the clarity of consciousness required to conduct your holiest rituals.”
After this instruction is given, Mosheh prescribes more offerings to Aharon, El’azar and Itamar, and says they and their families should eat their portions of them that are their due. When Mosheh asks about the goat of the sin offering, though, he learns El’azar and Itamar have already offered it, and it has been burned up! Mosheh becomes angry with them. Aharon’s surviving sons have committed a ritual infraction, too, this time by not eating the sin offering within the sacred precinct, an important part of removing the guilt from the community for which it is offered up.
Mosheh offers a rather technical criticism of this operation, and finally Aharon speaks up. “We have made such grand offerings to God today,” Aharon says, “and look what happened! If I had eaten of that sin offering today, would God have approved?”
Mosheh considers this, and he relents.
It has been a pretty wild day over at the Mishkan, so clearly some more guardrails are necessary. In the last chapter in this parashah, God speaks to both Mosheh and Aharon together, laying out the definitive set of dietary laws about animals that form the backbone of Biblical kashrut laws Jewish people keep to this day.
These are the creatures the children of Yisra’el may eat: Any land animal with true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews its cud. There are some animals that have some but not all of these qualities, and they are not kosher, so they must be pointed out: The camel, the daman, and the hare chew their cud but have no true hoofs, and thus they are impure. The swine has true hoofs with clefts through them, but it does not chew its cud, and thus it is impure. The people are not to eat their flesh or touch their carcasses.
Any sea or river creature with fins and scales are kosher, but any water dweller without those features is unclean.
Of the birds, the unkosher species are named specifically: The eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the kite, all varieties of falcon and raven, the ostrich, the nighthawk, the seagull, all varieties of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the pelican, the bustard, the stork, all varieties of heron, the hoopoe, and… the bat. Way to go on the science there, Israelites.
Of the bugs with “four legs,” which I think just means big walking bugs, only specific species are kosher: locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers, the ones with jointed legs for leaping. All other bugs are no go.
Touching or carrying unkosher creatures renders you and any clothes that touched them impure until evening.
A few more creepy crawlies are listed as unkosher: moles, mice, great lizards, geckos, crocodiles, regular lizards, sand lizards, and chameleons. The same impurity rules apply. Anything upon or within which an unkosher critter dies shall also require purification and be unclean until evening. The earthen vessel factor mentioned last week is stated here; since porous materials absorb impurities, an earthen vessel that contained something impure must be broken.
The magic of this gets a little more technical. A spring or cistern can’t be contaminated with impurity, but if you touch a carcass in the water, it’s still impure. A seed grain that touches a carcass is still pure, but if the seed is watered and then touches a carcass, it becomes impure. Kosher animals that die of natural causes are impure, but eating it just makes you impure until evening in the same fashion as touching it; it isn’t the full-blown sin that eating an unkosher animal is.
Creatures that swarm upon the Earth are not kosher. The earlier bug section was for grasshoppers and other big guys like that, but this is things that crawl on their belly, have a bunch of legs, you know, creepy crawlies. This part is emphasized pretty hard; a seemingly additional commandment is given that the people are not to make themselves impure through contact with the bugs. God really goes for it here, doing the whole “For I am the one who brought you out of Egypt” bit. That’s how important it is not to eat bugs.
And now we know just how serious it is for the people living in the presence of this spiritual nuclear power plant to ensure they are properly oriented to the difference between pure and impure, sacred and profane.
🖖
