Fire and Fragmentation

Personal Spiritual Growth and the Needs of the Community

In the opening of this week’s text known as Aharei Mot (translated as “after the death of”), we are once again told of the death Nadav and Avihu, the two older sons of Aaron the priest, who died while bringing a ‘foreign flame before Gd, of which they were not commanded’ as narrated earlier in the text of Perashat Shemini.

While the story itself seems to be concerned with very technical Temple rite matters, we will see how readings see it as a message about personal spiritual growth versus the needs of the community.

While the central concern of the text is with the Day of Atonement rites, a prologue is provided, narrating how God spoke to Moses after the tragic deaths, followed by a cautionary instruction to Aharon regarding the proper way to approach the holiest part of the sanctuary.

What I intend to do in the course of this piece is detail the changes in approach to the Nadav and Avihu texts by the commentators over time, how there is a change in reading from that of a cautionary and harsh tale of sin and its punishment to an entirely different reading, which regards the episode of the sons of Aaron as one of heroic but premature spiritual achievement, what went wrong, and how we can learn from this error for the benefit of our own growth.

The text tells us, in Vayiqra 10:1, that during the overall celebration of the initiation of the Mishkan, the portable desert Temple, after the people were overcome by the visible appearance of the Divine Presence at the Tent of Meeting, the sons of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu spontaneously took censers, added fire and incense, and offered them before God, despite not having received a command to do so. A flame then leapt out from before God and devoured them fatally. Moshe subsequently turns to Aharon and says, now I understand what God meant when he said (according to Rashi in Shemot 29) ‘b’krovei akadesh’, that God will be sanctified by those close to him.

Abravanel summarizes fully the accepted medieval commentators’ views regarding the sins which might have brought about the death of Nadav and Avihu ; and blames Nadav and Avihu as being guilty of all of them: Nadav and Avihu contradicted the halachic teachings of Moshe (as in BT Eruvin), they were drunk, they didn’t have children, they were missing part of the sacred vestments, they didn’t scrub up properly, they weren’t married, they were arrogant, etc. Most of these improprieties are suggested in the Midrash, in the Abravanel they are summarized as a laundry list of bad behaviors.

A closer look at the way these suggestions are actually presented and edited in Midrash Vayiqra Rabba suggests a more complex approach to the episode. These sins are fully enumerated, but in a middle section of the Midrash; flanking the list on both sides is a text presenting a much more ambiguous approach to the tragedy.

The Midrash actually begins with a lengthy exposition recounting many episodes where a tragic outcome is apparently unjustified and unfair, where more wicked motivations and outcomes are not punished at all, let alone so severely.

There is a moving passage focusing attention on a mother, who, it is stated in our version, never had any joy in the world – this mother being the wife of Aharon, mother of the two sons who died- on this day her brother in law, Moshe, became like a king, her brother, Nachshon, was a nasi of his tribe, her husband the High Priest, her sons second in line, and her grandson Pinchas the war-priest. Yet, what should have rightly been a day of total joy was transformed into anguish.

Similar stories of unfair joy to anguish are presented without any puerile attempts at theodicy. After enumerating several potential justifications for this dramatic punishment, the Midrash presents a series of teachings which link the death of the righteous to collective atonement, suggesting that the death of the sons of Aharon, was as efficacious as Yom Kippur, or the ashes of the burnt heifer, in that their deaths represented an ultimate sacrifice of the holiest, espousing a more sophisticated approach to the tragic combined with an attempt at deriving some kind of solace, rather than merely looking to fix the blame.

As I pointed out above, the medieval thinkers primarily focused upon the tragedy as a outcome of the sins of the sons, that is, emphasizing those middle section of the Midrash (this medievalist trait lives on in most religious societies, that personality type that likes to fix blame and focus on “leakers” and “wrongdoing”).

My sense is that the Hasidic writers, who take a very different approach to this episode, seem to be more influenced by the flanking sequences in the Midrash.

Ohev Yisrael points out that the opening of this perasha states, that after the tragedy, God speaks to Moshe, but no speech act is detailed there, that is, we are not given any specific message or command; there being a command present in the next verse, but which has its own unrelated opening of God telling Moshe to command Aharon.

Thus, explains Ohev Yisrael, the first verse, in which we are told of a communication to Moshe but not given any content, implies a pure speech act to Moshe.

Perhaps this ‘pure speech act’, which conveys no content, is akin to the type of speech act Kristeva would label as ‘semiotic’, one meant more to express an emotion than to transmit information message (as opposed to the ‘symbolic’, one that transmits information of a textual sort).

At any rate, the expressive communication was relayed in order to point out that these sons of Aharon were not merely sinners but had in fact demonstrated something great and transcendent: Ohev Yisrael suggests that their greatness was in that they were unwilling to forestall drawing close to God even knowing the great risks involved.

The approach of Tiferet Shelomo is striking for several reasons, and I would like to present it in full. His approach throughout is that the meaning of the Nadav and Avihu episode is the idea of total self sacrifice for the ultimate rectification of the community as a whole, and thus, is to be expounded mystically, with the attendant lessons and warnings, in the same manner one would read the trials of Avraham or the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva.

He supports his reading by pointing out several textual superfluities: the verse (16:1) emphasizes a second time that they died ‘b’karvatam’, while sacrificing (or coming close) to God, even though this fact is fully explained earlier in Shemini. Noteworthy as well is the redundant use of the term ‘and they died’, even though it stated earlier in the verse that they had died.

To ground his reading, he falls back to the Lurianic reading of this episode, wherein the souls of Nadav and Avihu being so lofty, were recycled, so to speak, later on, into the persons of Pinchas and Eliyahu, individuals so zealous and self sacrificing for the sake of the people that they were willing to risk their lives to complete their mission.

His reading, then, is that Nadav and Avihu, at the moment of initiation of the Mishkan, wanted to make of themselves, of their own bodies, the ultimate sacrifice, thus setting in motion, or to use kabbalistic language, ‘lubricating’ the machinery necessary to enable humanity’s absolution through sacrifice (the Kabbalistic term used is ‘mayim nukvin’), the process and route by which all the holy sparks in all existing things are elevated, enabling the transformation of the entire universe into a utopian realm of holiness.

They felt that the animal sacrifices brought up until this time, despite the heirophany described in Shemini, were inadequate for this lofty goal because the animals were not ‘conscious’ enough for their sacrifice to bring about this rectification.

This, expanded consciousness, he says, is the reason for the repetition of the word vayamutu, ‘and they died’-, insinuating a second moment of death; they had, he suggests, the choice of turning back, while in the moment of ecstasy, to return to mundane existence after this ecstatic experience, much as did the Israelites at Mt. Sinai (who are described by the Midrash as being so overwhelmed that they died but God had their souls returned to them)- this death by spiritual overload transpired in the case of Nadav and Avihu as well, but this time, the sons of Aharon chose to remain disembodied, that is, they gave up their souls a second time and died.

This is what the text means by their bringing what is called an ‘aish zara’, a strange fire- strange as in ‘stranger’, remote, a fired-up coming from afar, from somewhere outside of the realm of the holy. They connected to these spiritual flames, coming from outside of the ordinary perimeters of the holy, in a positive way, as representing the sparks waiting to be elevated and redeemed in the cosmic drama of human spiritual activity, which they hoped to bring along with them.

Their only mistake was thinking that this transformation of humanity, this rectification of all being, could be effected in one fell swoop; however, the bitter truth is that such matters are meant to be accomplished gradually (much like the disputes regarding enlightenment in Zen vs Tibetan schools of sudden enlightenment vs enlightenment requiring many kulpas and rebirths), and as a result of spiritual growth within all of humanity.

Thus, ‘asher lo tzivah lahem’ ‘that was not commanded to them’- what was not commanded ‘lahem’, not commanded to the sons of Aaron alone; this sublation and transformation of all the remote aspects of existence, is a mission meant for all the people, though time and history, and not solely for them to complete.

This is how Tiferet Shlomo reads the midrashic statement that ‘they did not take unto themselves wives’: the feminine being in Kabbalistic terminology a metaphor for "knesset yisrael", the full community- they did not concern themselves with the totality of the entire society’s relationship with the divine, only their own.

Tiferet Shlomo notes that this repeat mention of the death of the sons of Aharon is presented just after the completion of the laws of purity, particularly those related to genital emission. (The Talmud also makes a connection of this sort, stating in Shavuout that those who are not careful about the laws of nidah, menstrual purity, even if the offspring are as great as the sons of Aharon, risk losing these children as a result.) A further metaphorical linkage between the Temple and menstrual purity is found in verse 15:31 which warns the people to be careful regarding menstrual matters so as to not contaminate the Mishkan.

Tiferet Shelomo, sees this as a real conceptual link between the Mishkan and nidah (which here is a metaphor for the womb and birth process) and similar linkages in the Talmud (when Titus desecrates the holy of holies, he takes a prostitute in with him), metonymically links them, creating a link between womb and the sanctuary; what is true of one is true of the other.

As the desecration of the Temple is related to menstrual impurity, so too does the purification of one signify regarding the purification of the other. Thus, to Tiferet Shlomo, one approach to this link between womb and Temple suggests that story of the sons of Aharon could be read as their attempting to create this union, to be the ‘mayim nukvin’, to bring about total universal transformation of biological life into holiness, but it was not their moment alone, it was meant to be the birthing not of a private experience but that of a better society.

There is yet another deeper sense to this linkage between offspring, womb, sanctity, sacrifice, and loss. I would like to suggest that perhaps this set of signifiers, linking the womb, birth, ritual purity, and death, may be revelatory of a deeper process. Would not the narrative, of a tragic event coming just at the time of a new stage in religious accomplishment, which should otherwise be marked by joy, be akin to the growth of the individual, reflective of every person’s passage through individuation?

According to Lacan, the central event of individual differentiation and individuation, is known as the ‘mirror phase’. This mirror phase moment is triggered when the baby sees itself in a mirror, and begins to realized that it is a separate entity, seen by others at a distance as it sees itself in the mirror, as an intact entity distinct from its mother.

This recognition of individuality, while being the first step towards independence and autonomous function, also brings with it the sense of separation, distance, boundaries, which we know as civil behavior, proper social interaction, and the need for communication across this distance, which we know as language.

While the attainment of language is a joyous event, according to Kristeva, at the same time, according to Lacan, it is also a rupture to the infant, with the Desire of the Mother, that is, the loss of that state of secure one-ness with the baby's surroundings (where the mother is regarded by the pre-individuated, pre-mirror stage infant as part of the baby itself) and thus represents that ultimate rupture, known in Freud as the castration complex, or in Lacanian terms as the ‘Name of the Father’, that recognition that the Mother is also a differentiated individual that has her own desires and claims upon her (other than the infant’s), thus bringing about that rupture necessary to become an individual.

Thus we can see how spiritual growth is a road fraught with potential trauma and danger, one in which frustration is deeply intermeshed with accomplishment, every gain comes at the expense of loss, right from the very beginning of human self awareness.

Tiferet Shelomo continues, that despite the danger to ‘self’, the altruistic desire to transform all existence into something holy, is the ‘zot’, the “this”, the mindset with which the priest (and consequently, all of us) is instructed by the verse with which ‘bezot yavo el hakodesh’, ‘with this one must enter into the holy areas’, that is, one must approach achieving greater spiritual goals with a willingness to take risks, to stumble if necessary, in order to reach greater spiritual heights.

But then, if this approach of risk-taking for spiritual progress is so desirable, then, why were Nadav and Avihu annihilated, if what they desired was correct and their spontaneous risk taking worthy? Why did they not glow like Moshe did after his divine encounter?

Tiferet Shlomo answers using the boddhisatva-like motif uncannily found in much Hassidic writing. He explains that Nadav and Avihu differed from Moshe in one critical regard- Moshe’s divine encounter was for the sake of all of Israel, whereas they served ‘lifnei Hashem’, before God- before God alone, on their own without involving the community.

In other words, they were so caught up in their own spiritual trip that they failed to bring the people along on their journey.

The point of Jewish spiritual attainment is not just some personal metaphysical ‘trip’. To truly achieve the goal of enlightenment one must be charged with a sense of responsibility for the entire community, the entire world, really, with the goal of spiritual growth being the elevation of the entire spiritual congregation (Tiferet Shlomo himself famously refused to withdraw into full asceticism though he had the genius for it, but made sure to continue to hear the mundane day to day needs of his community).

This “this” is meant to be the defining characteristic of both Jewish spirituality and Jewish leadership- a care for the concerns, even the most trivial, of every level of the community must infuse even the most personal spiritual communion.

A mystic who does not feel for the spiritual needs of the entire populace is not a true mystic, and a ‘leader’ who does not care for the growth and success of the entire populace is not a leader.

Thus, as their enthusiasm was proper, their lofty spirituality-seeking souls were ‘recycled’ in Pinchas and Eliyahu, according to the mystics, in two great leaders whose spiritual attainment also involved serious personal-risk, but this time around, with the understanding that the goal is not only personal spiritual enlightenment, but for the growth and development of the people as a whole.

Leadership is not meant to be a power trip or a grift.

(As an addendum, I’d like to present another great spiritual reading of this passage, the reading of the early master Noam Elimelech. Noam Elimelech wants to understand, what motivates and drives the great spiritual leaders to achieve such spiritual heights, to reach transcendent states of communion with the Absolute?

His suprising answer (and the Tibetan Book of the Dead hadn’t appeared in the West yet): it is all an overcoming of the fear of death.

The ultimate stumbling block, the true test of spirituality, is the recognition that there is more to existence than the mortal phase we experience in this world. Transcendence of the fear of death is called by the Noam Elimelech the state of ‘aharei mot’, that is, ‘post-mortality consciousness’, a spiritual state transcendent of, and no longer frightened by death.

Upon attaining this "aharei-mot consciousness", this recognition of the “beyond mortal”, this overcoming of the fear of and limitations of death, one then achieves a state of being spiritually intermediate between this world and the upper worlds, and thus capable of world transformation, signified by the rest of the verse, ‘bkirvatam lifnei Hashem’, they can now approach even unto the Divine, and become the vehicle by which all of the people are transported with them into greater, more meaningful, existence).