Weekly Torah portion – שְׁמִינִי – Shemini – Eighth – Leviticus 9:1–11:47; 2 Samuel 6:1–7:17
Our weekly Torah portion begins with a peak of divine revelation and ends in a tragedy that exposes an uncomfortable truth: not every longing for closeness is permitted, and not every fire is holy.
The portion Shemini, which refers to the eighth day of consecration, begins at a high point. After seven days of preparation and ordination comes the eighth day, the day on which service in the sanctuary actually begins. Aaron and his sons enter into their priestly service, the offerings are brought, and in a dramatic moment the glory of God is revealed: fire comes forth from the Eternal and consumes the offering on the altar. The people see this and fall on their faces. It is a moment of closeness, an instant in which heaven and earth seem to touch.
But immediately afterward comes one of the most shocking stories in the Torah. Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons, offer a strange fire, one that had not been commanded...
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‘The holy is that segment of time and space God has reserved for His Presence. Creation involves concealment. The word olam, “universe”, is semantically linked to the word ne’elam, “hidden”. To give humankind some of His own creative powers – the use of language to think, communicate, understand, imagine alternative futures and choose between them – God must do more than create Homo sapiens. He must efface Himself (what the Kabbalists called tzimtzum, self-limitation) to create space for human action. No single act more profoundly indicates the love and generosity implicit in creation. God as we encounter Him in the Torah is like a parent who knows they must hold back, let go, refrain from intervening, if their children are to become responsible and mature.
But there is a limit. To efface Himself entirely would be equivalent to abandoning the world, deserting His own children. That, God may not and will not do. How then does God leave a trace of His Presence on Earth?
The biblical answer is not philosophical. A philosophical answer (I am thinking here of the mainstream of Western philosophy, beginning in antiquity with Plato, in modernity with Descartes) would be one that applies universally – i.e., at all times, in all places. But there is no answer that applies to all times and places. That is why philosophy cannot and never will understand the apparent contradiction between Divine creation and human freewill, or between Divine Presence and the empirical world in which we reflect, choose, and act.
Jewish thought is counter-philosophical. It insists that truths are embodied precisely in particular times and places. There are holy times (the seventh day, seventh month, seventh year, and the end of seven septennial cycles, the jubilee). There are holy people (the Children of Israel as a whole; within them, the Levi’im, and within them the Kohanim). And there is holy space (eventually, Israel; within that, Jerusalem; within that the Temple; in the desert, they were the Mishkan, the Holy, and the Holy of Holies).
The holy is that point of time and space in which the Presence of God is encountered by tzimtzum – self-renunciation – on the part of humankind. Just as God makes space for humanity by an act of self-limitation, so humanity makes space for God by an act of self-limitation. The holy is where God is experienced as absolute Presence. Not accidentally but essentially, this can only take place through the total renunciation of human will and initiative. That is not because God does not value human will and initiative. To the contrary: God has empowered humankind to use them to become His “partners in the work of creation”.
However, to be true to God’s purposes, there must be times and places at which humanity experiences the reality of the Divine. Those times and places require absolute obedience. The most fundamental mistake – the mistake of Nadav and Avihu – is to take the powers that belong to man’s encounter with the world, and apply them to man’s encounter with the Divine. Had Nadav and Avihu used their own initiative to fight evil and injustice they would have been heroes. Because they used their own initiative in the arena of the holy, they erred. They asserted their own presence in the absolute Presence of God. That is a contradiction in terms. That is why they died.
We err if we think of God as capricious, jealous, angry: a myth spread by early Christianity in an attempt to define itself as the religion of love, superseding the cruel/harsh/retributive God of the “Old Testament”. When the Torah itself uses such language it “speaks in the language of humanity” (Brachot 31a) – that is to say, in terms people will understand.
In truth, Tanach is a love story through and through – the passionate love of the Creator for His creatures that survives all the disappointments and betrayals of human history. God needs us to encounter Him, not because He needs humankind but because we need Him. If civilisation is to be guided by love, justice, and respect for the integrity of creation, there must be moments in which we leave the “I” behind and encounter the fullness of being in all its glory.
That is the function of the holy – the point at which “I am” is silent in the overwhelming presence of “There is”. That is what Nadav and Avihu forgot – that to enter holy space or time requires ontological humility, the total renunciation of human initiative and desire.
The significance of this fact cannot be over-estimated. When we confuse God’s will with our will, we turn the holy – the source of life – into something unholy and a source of death. The classic example of this is “holy war,” jihad, crusade – investing imperialism (the desire to rule over other people) with the cloak of sanctity as if conquest and forced conversion were God’s will.
The story of Nadav and Avihu reminds us yet again of the warning first spelled out in the days of Cain and Abel. The first act of worship led to the first murder. Like nuclear fission, worship generates power, which can be benign but can also be profoundly dangerous.
The episode of Nadav and Avihu is written in three kinds of fire. First there is the fire from Heaven:
Fire came forth from before God and consumed the burnt offering.
Lev. 9:24
This was the fire of favour, consummating the service of the Sanctuary. Then came the “unauthorised fire” offered by the two sons.
Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorised fire before God, which He had not instructed them [to offer].
Lev. 10:1
Then there was the counter-fire from Heaven:
Fire came forth from before God, and it consumed them so that they died before God.
Lev. 10:2
The message is simple and intensely serious: Religion is not what the European Enlightenment thought it would become: mute, marginal and mild. It is fire – and like fire, it warms but it also burns. And we are the guardians of the flame”
Shalom Everyone,
I would give Messianic comments.
Messiah has come and He anounced Himself as King at the exact time that the prophet Daniel gave (Daniel chapter 9).
At the beginning of Messiah’s ministry, John the Baptist had proclaimed Him as the ultimate sacrificial Lamb. John 1:29 and 36 and also gave record that Messiah was the Son of God.
Isaiah 53:5-12 and Psalm 2.
All mankind fall short of God’s glory since Adam and Eve disobeyed and were barred from the Garden of Eden.
Sadly HaShem had to make the first sacrifice and killed animals to clothe them.
Leviticus 17:11 It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.
The custom of sacrifices continued and was a required part of worship at the Temple.
Cain’s offering was rejected because he presumed to offer the works of his own hands, not a blood sacrifice as G-d required.
Hebrews chapters 9 and 10. 10:12 says we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Yeshua, Who is the Messiah and the Son of God.
1 John 1:7 If we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ, G-d’s Son cleanses us from all sin.
John 1:12. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to to become the sons and daughters of G-d, even to them that believe on His Name.
The blood of animals could not fully help. They are a picture to help us understand the principle. Messiah rose from the dead and we can have His life to help us live in obedience and fellowship with Him.
(We won’t be perfect until we get to Heaven!)
True Believers know we are for ever indebted to to the people of Israel and stand with them always. Our understanding has come from them and the Jewish Messiah.
All will be well in the end and much honour as the prophets have written. Many prayers at this difficult time.