Leviticus 9:1-11:47

 

After the Crisis

 

After the crisis, people weren’t sure what had caused it, and they didn’t know what to do next. After the crisis, some people weren’t even sure there had been a crisis. It’s always like that. And so:

 

Why were Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, struck dead in the desert tabernacle (mishkan)? 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. This probably did not mean fire itself, but rather the sweet-smelling embers of incense that were burned inside the mishkan. If so, then saying that the incense was foreign might mean that it had been put in the innermost part of the mishkan, where it would indeed be foreign.

 

Or, possibly, Nadab and Abihu’s 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 that Nadab and Abihu were drunk, or even just a little tipsy, at the time. After all, not long after this incident, 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?

 

But whatever the precise reason, or combination of reasons, for what took place, it is important to consider not just the incident itself but what happened after the crisis: Aaron “kept silent.” He had just lost two of his sons to the holy fire, yet he just “kept silent”? Really, nothing to say?

 

In today’s Israel, what happens after the crisis seems particularly relevant, because everyone knows what might take place. “Don’t get so excited,” some are already saying. “Put down those signs and let’s talk.” But really, they’re not interested in talking; they’re interested in going ahead as planned.

 

Some of them may even understand that what is at stake is not so much a “reform” (sic), but how that issue might ultimately spill over into a real rethinking of the status quo. Which is why Aaron’s silence is so eerie.

 

Shabbat shalom!