Weekly Torah Reading in Israel, Tazria‘-Metzora‘, April 14, 2018; Outside Israel, Shemini, April 14, 2018
Why These Two Readings?
As sometimes happens, the Torah readings in Israel and outside it are scheduled to be out of sync for a while. The reason is that, outside of the land of Israel, Shabbat last week was still part of Passover, with its special Passover reading. Within Israel, by contrast, it was an ordinary Shabbat, so the next Torah reading in the annual sequence, Shemini, was read, and this week’s reading in Israel will be Tazria‘–Metzora‘.
So, for the coming weeks, I’ll be including comments on both Torah readings, the one for Israelis and the other for people outside Israel.
This Week’s Torah Reading inside Israel: Tazria‘-Metzora‘
Last week’s reading, Shemini, began with the death of Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu. They obviously did something wrong in what was to be the inauguration of the tabernacle (mishkan). Whatever it was—bringing an improper incense offering into the tabernacle, or doing so when intoxicated, or yet something else—their misstep was immediately punished: a “fire came forth from God” and they died on the spot.
Next week’s reading, Aḥarei Mot, picks up where last week’s left off: In fact, its first verse reports that God spoke to Moses “after the death (aḥarei mot) of Aaron’s two sons.” This leads to an obvious question. What are the two intervening readings—this week’s Tazria‘ and Metzora‘—doing there? Logically, Shemini ought to have been followed immediately by Aḥarei Mot. The readings of Tazria‘ and Metzora‘, should have been put someplace else. The answer to this seemingly trivial question is actually quite important.
The death of Nadab and Abihu was not only a personal tragedy for them and their family; it raised a crucial question for all of Israel. What do we do when someone dies suddenly in the sacred tabernacle or, later on, in the Jerusalem temple? The tabernacle/temple was deemed to be nothing less than God’s earthly habitation, the holiest spot on earth. As such, it had to be protected from any form of impurity, and there was no greater impurity than the presence of a dead body in God’s sanctuary.
And yet, as the bumper-sticker has it, “Impurity happens.” Despite all the caution exercised by priests and Levites as well as ordinary Israelites present in the temple, you could never be absolutely sure that some source of impurity might not somehow find its way inside and thereby render the sanctuary impure. In fact, it was not just ritual impurity (contact with dead bodies, or various other sources deemed impure) that needed to be ritually purged, but human sinfulness as well.
The day on which the purging took place was Yom Kippur, and the procedure is described in Aḥarei Mot. We think of Yom Kippur as the fast day par excellence, a day of introspection and a time of forgiveness. It certainly is all these things, but its focus, and the significance of everything that the High Priest did in the temple, was connected to the need to return the temple to a state of absolute purity, as it was in the beginning.
So the answer to the question of why the readings of Tazria‘ and Metzora‘ occur where they do is simple. Having described how Nadab and Abihu died and thereby rendered the tabernacle impure, the Torah then goes on to discuss other sources or transmitters of impurity: animals, birds, and fish that are impure; a man’s seminal emission or other discharge; mothers during the period immediately following their giving birth; people suffering from various diseases; and more. These subjects are treated in Tazria‘ and Metzora‘. Then, having discussed all these, the Torah goes on to detail the way the sanctuary is to be restored to its pristine state of purity.
What is remarkable in all this is the very concept of impurity. On the one hand, impurity is inevitable. Babies have to be born, and their mothers unavoidably become impure in the process; indeed, men and women procreate in order to have children, thereby contracting impurity; in addition, people contract all sorts of impurity quite unwillingly and simply in the course of nature. On the other hand, impurity and God’s holiness cannot coexist, which is why the sanctuary must regularly be purged.
And what is holiness? The word for holy, kadosh, is not easily defined, but at the most basic level, it applies to God: God is supremely kadosh. But holiness is contagious: it passes automatically from God to His dwelling, the temple or mikdash (literally, the holy place), as well as to the kelei kodesh, the interior furnishings and implements of the sanctuary.
This week’s combined readings of Tazria‘ and Metzora‘ serve to make clear that impurity is in a way the antitype not just of purity, but of holiness. Like holiness, impurity is contagious, attaching to people’s bodies and other objects which, therefore, have to be ritually purged.
Yet neither holiness nor impurity is merely concrete and physical. For example, the Sabbath is also described as kadosh; somehow, but not physically, God’s holiness is held to permeate that day. And Israel is likewise described as God’s holy people, attached to God by bonds altogether invisible. In the same way, impurity has a non-physical side. Specifically, people’s sins cling to them and have to be purged as well—and on the same day of physical purgation, Yom Kippur.
In this sense, then, impurity’s opposite is holiness, and our bodies are thus a bit like the temple of old. We acquire impurity in the most down-to-earth ways—as Tazria‘ and Metzora‘ detail—but our sins also cling to us in some analogous but non-physical way. To be a fit home for God’s holiness, these likewise have to be purged.
Shabbat shalom!
This Week’s Torah Reading Outside Israel: Shemini
Our Religious Leaders
Why were Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, struck dead in the desert tabernacle (mishkan)? Everything was all set for the inauguration of regular sacrificial worship in the mishkan, and then this tragedy—why?
The Torah seems to suggest several answers. To begin with, it says that Nadab and Abihu had brought a “foreign fire” (esh zara) into the mishkan just before the incident. Fire itself could hardly be called “foreign”; most commentators believe this is a reference to the incense that was burned inside the mishkan. If so, then saying that the incense was a foreign might mean that it had been put in the innermost part of the mishkan, where it would indeed be foreign. Or perhaps their offering was foreign in the sense that the coals that they had put in their incense pans had come from an ordinary “outside” source rather than from the incense altar itself. Or perhaps they had somehow omitted from, or added to, the required ingredients of an incense offering, or had put the proper ingredients in the wrong proportion—either way making their incense “foreign.”
Then again, it might be Nadab and Abihu were drunk, or even just a little tipsy, at the time. After all, not long afterwards, God says to Aaron, “Do not drink wine or any other liquor, you and your sons, when you enter the Tent of Meeting, lest you die” (Lev 10:8). Was not this a subtle hint as to the cause of Aaron’s two sons’ death?
Whatever the precise reason, or combination of reasons, what seems most significant is what Moses says to Aaron immediately after his sons have been struck dead: “This is what the Lord [intended by] saying: ‘I will be sanctified by those close to Me, and I will be honored before all the people.’ And Aaron kept still.” Apparently, this is the lesson of the whole incident. But what do these words mean exactly?
“Those close to Me” refers to the kohanim, the priests who bring offerings in the mishkan and are closest to the Holy of Holies. (Ezek 42:13 similarly refers to “the kohanim who are close to the Lord.”) If so, I think a somewhat freer, but clearer, translation might be: “This is what the Lord [intended by] saying: ‘If the kohanim respect My sanctity, then I will be honored by all the people.’” For whatever reason—by putting their incense in the wrong place, or having made it from the wrong ingredients, or in the wrong proportions, or any of the other explanations offered—Nadab and Abihu did not properly respect God’s sanctity. This, God says, might in turn lead the whole nation into error.
The underlying principle is that the people charged with being the closest to God are ipso facto held to a higher standard. If they are not meticulous in observing all the laws and restrictions connected with God’s sanctity (laws of ritual purity, all the regulations governing the offering of sacrifices, laws of marriage, and so forth), then how can the rest of people, watching from the sidelines, be expected to honor God properly? This is what Moses said to Aaron, and Aaron knew that he was right, so he remained silent and did not offer a word of protest.
It is difficult to read all this without thinking that it has a message for people today. Those “closest to God,” who in our day should be our rabbis and scholars and others who act as religious spokesmen, are likewise to be held to the highest standards. In reality, however, the opposite often seems to be the case. How many such leaders nowadays end up in court or in jail, convicted of theft on a massive scale, or simply of abusing their office for personal gain?
Others are just morally bankrupt, assuring their followers that any act is permissible, so long as it is done in the name of Judaism and/or the state of Israel. Or else they are just silent—not the silence of Aaron, who accepted the justice of Moses’ words, but the silence of the uninvolved. The case of Nadab and Abihu ought to give such “leaders” pause. Even if they haven’t committed an actual crime, have they really upheld the standard of “I will be sanctified by those close to Me”?