Shemini
Leviticus 9:1-11:47
II Samuel 6:1-7:17
The troubling story of the death of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, in this week’s parashah strikes me very differently this year. I am blessed to be the mother of three adult children. It is clear that all three (and their partners) are extraordinary people, and I have profound respect for their values and the life paths they are crafting for themselves.
And yet sometimes I am aware that their view of the world is different from mine. How could it be otherwise? I have lived decades longer than they have. The new and ever-changing world in which we live is their native landscape, and they can glimpse historical developments that will unfold long after my death. How could our perspectives not be different?
In traditional societies, it is assumed that elders are wiser than the young, and indeed the Hebrew word for elder, zaken, connotes wisdom. By contrast, American society has tended to idolize youth, especially youthful beauty, failing to honor the wisdom of age. I wonder whether there is a golden mean and a path of wisdom that lies between the unfaltering assumption that elders know best and the equally unquestioned notion that the young are to be admired in every way.
I bring this question to the disturbing story of the destruction of Nadav and Avihu. The Torah (Leviticus 10:1-11) tells us that, just after Aaron and his sons were installed as kohanim (priests), Nadav and Avihu “offered before God strange fire that God had not commanded of them” (10:1), that fire came forth and they died.
Traditional commentators have searched the story for meaning. What was the sons’ sin that resulted in their death? What could have drawn such a harsh judgment from God, just after the glorious moment of the initiation of the sacrificial rite under the leadership of the priestly family?
An early midrash (Vayikra Rabba 20) lays out four possible explanations for the punishment:
1. The sons came into the holiest area of the desert sanctum unbidden, failing to honor the prescribed boundaries governing access to holy space.
2. They offered a sacrifice at their own initiative, not in response to God’s command, again, exhibiting arrogance and self-centeredness, rather than honoring their elders, the emerging tradition and God.
3. They brought “strange fire” — again, taking independent initiative rather than respecting tradition, or perhaps, choosing a method that would draw attention to themselves rather than highlighting God’s power to ignite the sacrifice.
4. They acted as individuals, not in partnership, as the text says that each brought his own fire pan for the offering.
None of these possibilities answers the question in an entirely satisfying way, and the proliferation of explanations indicates that the commentators were also not convinced. This year I am struck that God takes the side of the elders, condemning the (perhaps) arrogant, individualistic, independent-minded young people to death.
This is, after all, the critique that elders always level at those who come after them. The young ones fail to respect tradition or our own wisdom. They substitute their own independent judgment for that which they have received from those who came before. They think they know everything (and hence don’t need to turn to us as repositories of wisdom). And they are self-centered, even failing to collaborate with one another. This is exactly the critique that people of my generation level at millennials.
The young people in our time may, in fact, tend toward individualism, independence and even excessive confidence (outwardly, at least). The Torah’s emphasis on honoring tradition, humility, and the need for divine guidance is eternal wisdom that today’s young people definitely need. But our older generation, too, has much to learn from today’s young people, who may grasp the challenges of a rapidly changing world better than we do. And they may be able to bring the blessings of their idealism, energy and ingenuity to address problems that afflict us all. Perhaps there is humility work for us to engage in, checking our instinctive judgment of those younger than ourselves and being ready to learn from their wisdom as well as expecting them to learn from ours.
I am reminded of the beautiful closing passage of the Haftarah on Shabbat Hagadol, the Shabbat just before Passover, two weeks ago. When the prophet said, “God will turn the hearts of the parents toward their children, and the hearts of the children toward their parents” (Malachi 3:24), he sought to direct us to a blessed time of more harmony and mutual understanding among the generations and among all people. May we all work to bring this vision closer to reality.
Rabbi Eilberg’s thoughts on this subject are questionable in at least two ways.
One is that her separation of young people from old people as though they were two different sets of people, is just wrong. Old people are young people who have been around for a while. Young people are people who, with any luck, will all too soon become old people. Not two separate groups of people.
Unless the young people are opaque to further experience, much of the difference between young people and old people is that old people are young people who have spent decades learning things that young people have not yet learned. Think back over your life and all the books, magazines, and other stuff you have read, all the things you have seen and heard and done. When you were young you did not yet know any of that, had not seen or heard any of that. It is not too strong a word to say that young people are ignorant compared to old people.
Wisdom is vague and problematic. Information and education are definite and measurable. What makes Jews who we are is our tradition of lifelong learning. It isn’t an empty piety. It is the way we live. If wisdom flows from information and education, and especially from life experience, as one would expect, so much the better.
There is an old story about the arrogant young man who sets out from home after a row with his father. After a few years on his own in the world and suffering some hardships along the way, he returns home and exclaims about how much smarter his father has become.
Which is to say that we give too much deference, way too much, to the opinions of young people. Our young people are misled by our misplaced deference into putting way too much value on their own ideas and opinions. Most of us with any capacity for self-reflection realize when we think back, that we were guilty of exactly the same thing when we ourselves were young. It is not something that ought to be encouraged
It was not uncommon in my generation to imagine that our generation had invented sex and that our elders did not know about it. How youthfully unthinking was that!
As to the specifics of the Torah passage, none of the interpretations offered includes the notion that the two sons of Aaron attempted to set up their own sanctuary and sacrificial altar. (Though her 2. comes close.) In effect they were setting up a rival sacrificial sect.
This is to take “strange” in “strange fire” to mean “novel” or “alternate”. This view is consistent with the phrase, that “Hashem had not commanded them”. Which is to say their fire was not the original and legitimate one, not the one set up by Aaron.
That “the fire came forth and they died” can be understood as some sort of industrial accident, that they were killed in their own fire. But that is not what the text says. A more likely exegesis is that they were warned not to do it, but they did it anyway. And were promptly killed for their impiety by others who saw this as both dangerously dividing sacrificial worship into competing sect and as a profanation.
Nor is there any reason to assume that those who killed them, if we assume that is what happened, for their blasphemy, were any older than they.