Shmini

 We do not know what we do not know.

Sometimes we even do not know what we do know.

Man was endowed with sechel.  It is our gift of understanding.  From the time when God took the golem-form from the earth and breathed into it the Breath of Life to the moment of overwhelming desire to have open eyes and peer the universe we became people in search of ourselves.

We fervently desire to understand what life means.  We want to know why we live.  What is our purpose?   That is why stories such as the one told here in parshat  Shmini are so vexing.

Here, Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aaron, die.  Near the holy altar of God they are enveloped by a conflagration that excoriated their inner being while leaving their body/husk intact.  The father has watched horrified to see his sons die.  What does this passage mean?

Some scholars tell that Nadav and Abihu were drunk.  Intoxicated, they approached the holy of holies and were punished by a heavenly flame.

Others tell that Nadav and Avihu were presumptuous.  They came into the holy of holies unbidden.  For their trespass they died.  Was such a punishment warranted by their error?

Yet another commentator expresses the belief that they offered up incense out of their zealousness rather than follow the instructions of their father.  

What is the truth?  Which story answers the question of why they perished?

God then approaches the father, Aaron, to have a word with him after the inferno that left his sons dead.  He says, “I will be sanctified by those who are most dear to Me.  I will be honored in front of the entire people.”

At these words Aaron was silent.

Did he understand what God meant? Was his silence the response to hearing God?

 

Many, many years later a great Sage, Rabbi Yehudah, lay dying.  His disciples arranged themselves around his bed and prayed from their teacher.  They investigated the holy books, fasted and begged God to listen to their prayers.

 

Rabbi Yehuda’s servant left the group and opened her heart before God.  She prayed, “In the upper world they want our master.  In the lower world they keep the Rabbi here with their prayers.  Listen, Lord, to only the voice from Above.”  

She then took a jug and smashed out so that all the holy men were distracted from their prayers.  In that instance the Angel of Death kissed the venerable leader.

 

What did the maid servant do?  Was she guilty of killing the holy rabbi?  In distracting the Sages from their prayers, she lifted the protective veil keeping Rabbi Yehudah alive.  Was she guilty?

One the Sages investigated and found the reason Rabbi Yehudah’s soul was snatched.  He saw what the servant had done and then commented, “Both the angels and human beings were clinging to the holy ark.  The angels overpowered the humans and the Ark has been taken from us.”

Bar Kappara told his contemporaries that Rabbi Yehuda was like the holy Ark.  Just as the holy Ark has been removed when the Temple was destroyed so it is with our leader, our teacher.

 

Every loss is a devastating loss.