Parsha Sh’mini — Call to Duty, Guard, Consistency!

Our Parsha Sh’mini begins by relating that on the eighth day, Aaron and his sons commenced their Avodah HaKodosh; meant to be constant and consistent for all time.

But our Parsha also relates the tragedy of the deaths of Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadav and Avihu who died while performing an unauthorized Service, offering a “strange fire …, which he [Hashem] did not command them…” (Artscroll Chumash, Vayikra, Perek 10, posuk 1) And our Parsha relates that “Hashem spoke to Aaron saying: Do not drink intoxicating wine, you and your sons …, when you come to the Ohel Mo’ed (the Tent of Meeting), that you not die — this is an eternal decree for your gemerations. In order to distinguish between the sacred and the profane …” (Artscroll Chumash, Vayikra, Perek 10, p’sukim 8-10).

We see Nadav and Avihu were so wrapped up in the joy and euphoria of the moment that they chose to serve Hashem in a unique way, untaught by Moshe during the previous training. And they chose to offer their fire without asking Moshe for his ruling. The Imrei Shefer quotes R’ Eliezer as saying, “Aaron’s sons died because they gave rulings in the halacha in front of Moshe, their teacher” (rather than asking him for p’sak Halacha). (Torah Gems, Aharon Yaaakov Greenberg, page 267)

And while we note that Nadav and Avihu sought to perform a unique service., thought by them to be pleasing to Hashem, many others through our history have sought to alter, to change their service, and not always seeking l’Sheim Shemayim.

There were those who sought to “cut corners” in their Avodah in a effort to achieve a perception of being “like the nations.” There are many among our Jewish brethren who would deny Hashem’s control of the world and seek to tailor Torah and their Jewishness to fit the ways of the nations, rather than accepting Hashem’s reishut (command) over the world. They perceive that if only they didn’t look and act Jewish, that then they’ll be loved the gentiles.

We just completed Pesach. But for secular Israel, mind, heart and speech are disconnected and they apparently have no connection to belief, to principle, to Torah, to Hashem. They apparently go through the Haggadah by rote, the sooner, the better and let’s eat.

And when Sharon brought them “disengagement”, they were apparently mesmerized, with no forethought, no contemplation of future consequences and total lack of recognition of the pain and suffering of their fellow Jews. For secular Israelis, perhaps Religion, Torah and Religious people are seen through the distorted eyes of the non-believing, those lacking elementary faith in, awe and fear of Hashem as being Asaf-Suf, different, not like them and therefore “abnormal.”

Such was their total insensitivity that “During the week of the disengagement, half a million Israelis traveled abroad. They didn’t even want to be here; they were not interested in your pain. They didn’t come to block soldiers with their bodies.”

They didn’t care enough on any level; the expulsion of their fellow Jews or the myraid of consequences of the entire event.

But there are outreach organizations among both the National Religious and the Chareidim who continue to reach out to the secular to bring them back to Torah.

During Yom Tov, at one of the meals which this author partook in, guests told of attending a Seder in Tel Aviv where a number of secular Israelis participated. It was explained that the highlight of the Seder for these Israelis was when they saw and ate round, hand-made Shmura Matzah, the 18 minute, watched Matzah which they never saw or knew of before, for the first times in their lives.

For those Jews, there is an imperative for revisitation, brought down to the street level where secular Israel gains a clear inalterable understanding of what being a Jew means. There is an imperative to reinstill the Haggadah, to reinstill an understanding of the Mitzri memory (or lack thereof) of Yosef and our enslavement. And Megillat Esther must be more deeply understood than costumes and the noise of groggers at the sound of Haman’s name.

Secular Israel needs to be feed the dialogue between Haman Y’machsh’mo and Ahasuerus — Haman’s top 10 reasons for seeking the annihilation of the Jews as found in Daf Yud Gimmel (page13), amud(side)Bet, with the contemporary Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. Neither Haman nor Hitler Y’machsh’mom, made any distinction between the Religious or Secular Jew.

And so secular Israel must know in their hearts and their guts that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew, period. You might change your name, or try to adopt some other religion, or intermarry. But, in the end, you can’t run and you can’t hide from from the fact that You are a Jew. So might we as well start being, internalizing and acting Jewish?

So here we have it, the other half of the “Tzav-Shemoneh” duo; sometimes paired, sometimes separate, but linked none-th-less and where Aaron and his sons were called, for all time, to put into practice that which they learned from Moshe Rabbeinu. Today, “Tzav-Shemoneh” is the call to divine duty of all of B’nai Yisrael; true, believing Jews, be they Dati or Lo Dati; those possessing even a “pintele yid”, who feel in their hearts, their bones, their guts, that their fate and the fate of Eretz Yisrael is inseparably linked.

It is “Tzav-Shemoneh” to all who hold that Eretz Yisrael is the Jewish Land and not the land “…of all it’s people.”

May it be in this year and beyond, that our brethren; the refugee families from Gush Katif and the Shomron (may they soon be restored to new homes and neighborhoods, Bati Knesset, Yeshivot in Gush Katif and the Shomron and only happiness and success for all time), as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard (may he soon know freedom and long life in Eretz Yisrael) be central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream.

May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!