For seven days, Moshe taught Aaron HaKohen and his sons the laws of their Avodah in the Mishkan. (You might say that they were given OJT from Shemayim.)
Our Parsha Sh’mini begins by relating that on the eighth day, Aaron and his sons commenced their Avodah HaKodosh.
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 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 generations. In order to distinguish between the sacred and the profane …” (Artscroll Chumash, Vayikra, Perek 10, p’sukim 8-10).
We see that 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 tobe pleasing to Hashem, many others through our history have sought to alter, to change their service, and not always seeking l’Sheim Shemayim and perhaps, eventually rendering whatever service they did unrecogizable in Shemayim.
There were those who sought to “cut corners” in their Avodah in a effort to achieve a perception of being “like 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 sooo Jewish, that then they’ll be loved by the gentiles. If their eyes would only be wide open so as to see how abysmally wrong they’ve been.
Many of our Jewish brethren, the so-called “new Jews” make no bones of their disdain for Yiddishkeit, for their Jewishness. They revile the dress and the ways of both their Eastern European predecessors and their brothers who maintain aspects of the derech today in Eretz Yisrael. They revile anything and everything Jewish and so, the evolvement of whatever they do may well be unrecognizeable. They themselves act dispicably, on a larger level by discrediting their own right to live in Eretz Yisrael, feigning “bleeding hearts” for “poor, downtrodden palestinians
For those Jews, it’s an imperative to revisit the Mitzri memory (or lack thereof) of Yosef and to contrast 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. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew, period. In the end, you can’t run and you can’t hide from from the fact that You are a Jew. Wake up and see the utter futility of self-hatred and the craving, the dying to loved by the nations. We might as well start being, internalizing and acting Jewish?
So here in our Parsha we have it, the other half of the “Tzav-Shemoneh” duo; where Aaron and his sons were called, for all time, to put into consistent and constant practice that which they learned from Moshe Rabbeinu.
Today, “Tzav-Shemoneh” is the call to divine duty for 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 inseperably linked. And today, with the next focal point to be either Amir Peretz’s attempt to draw blood to regain Labor leadership through the next expulsion of Jews from the “Peace House” between Chevron and Kiryat Arba or Olmert’s possible freeing of Barghouti, Sa’adat and many hundreds more Arab Islamic murderers to shed yet more Jewish blood, it is yet again “Tzav-Shemoneh” to all who hold that Eretz Yisrael is the Jewish Land and not the land “…of all it’s people.”
May we be zocha in this coming year that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and the 3 captive Chayalim and the other MIAs be liberated and returned to us and that we fulfill 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, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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