Our parasha tells the story of the yëmei ha-millu’im, the initial erection of the Mishkan and installation of Aharon and his sons as kohanim. The Talmud tells us: תניא אותו היום הי' שמחה לקב"ה כיום שנבראו בו שמים וארץ וגו' (“It is taught: On that day the Holy One, Blessed is He had joy like the day on which the heavens and the earth were created....”; מגילה י: וע"ע בראשית רבה פ"ג). Yet, as the same Talmudic source informs us, it was also a time marked by tragedy, for on the eighth day, as the climax of the installation drew near: ויקחו בנו אהרן נדב ואביהוא איש מחתתו ויתנו בהן אש וישימו עלי' קטרת ויקריבו לפני ד' אש זרה אשר לא צוה אתם: ותצא אש מלפני ד' ותאכל אותם וימתו לפני ד': (“And the sons of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu’, took each one his censer, and they placed fire in them and placed upon it incense [qëtoreth], and they brought close before Ha-Shem a strange fire [ésh zara] which He had not commanded them. And a fire went forth from before Ha-Shem and consumed them, and they died before Ha-Shem”; X, 1-2).
Talmudic and midrashic sources abound with suggestions concerning the precise, technical nature of the brothers’ offense That they had ruled halachically in the presence of their teacher, Moshe; that they had entered the Holy of Holies illicitly; that they had been drunk and improperly attired during their service, or had failed to wash their hands and feet beforehand; that they had neglected the mitzva of marrying and having children; even that they had whispered impatiently behind their father’s and uncle’s backs, "When will these two old men die, and you and I will lead the generation?" (עירובין ס"ג., מדרש תנחומא פרשת אחרי מות סי' ו', וסנהדרין נ"ב.). Whatever we are to make of these competing claims, the fact is that the written Torah invites such speculation by contenting itself with informing us that they had brought ésh zara asher lo’ tzivva otham, “strange fire which He had not commanded them.”
Why does the written Torah not specify the technical nature of the violation? What lesson lurks in this simple statement, which the Torah is trying to impart?
Hazal are quite insistent that, before offering the Torah to the bënei Yisra’él, Ha-Shem first offered it to each of the nations (עיי' למשל ספרי ריש פר' וזאת הברכה, עבודה זרה ב:, וזוה"ק ח"ג קצ"ב. ). Lest one ask why it s that there is no historical of mass gatherings of the other nations, similar to that of Israel at the foot of Sinai, the Zohar explains that He approached each nation’s sar, the mal’ach which looks after and guides each nation’s destiny with His offer of Torah. Each time the sar, conscious of the characteristics of his charge, asked what was in it, and each time G-d mentioned some mitzva calculated to give pause to each of the nations. For instance, He approached the sar of Edom, the nation ancestral to the Romans with His offer, and when asked its contents, He replied, lo’ thirtzah, “you shall not murder.” The sar of Edom, entirely aware that his nation’s entire claim to fame and success would be through war and conquest, demurred. Similarly, on approaching the sar of Yishma‘él, who asked what was in it, He replied, Lo’ thin’af, “you will not commit adultery.” The sar protested that Yishma‘él had been pronounced “wild,” and also told that he would be a great and numerous nation (Genesis XVI, 12; XXI, 18); a prohibition of ni’uf would be incompatible with those two pronouncements. And so on. But when He came to Israel, here was no mention of any such challenge; they were simply given the Torah, the first dibbëroth directly from Ha-Shem, and the rest through Moshe (who, after all, was also part of Israel). Why were the bënei Yisra’él not challenged in the same way that the bënei Edom and bënei Yishma‘él were?
This question bothered the Hiddushei ha-Ri”m, the first Gerer Rebbe, who answered that, in fact, such a challenge had been offered Israel. It can be found in Exodus XIX, 12, in which Moshe is told: והגבלת את העם סביב לאמר השמרו לכם עלות בהר ונגע בקצהו כל הנגע בהר מות יומת (“And you will bound the people around, to say, 'Be careful of ascending on the mountain and touching its edge; anyone who touches the mountain will certainly be killed”). What is there about this provision as challenging to Israel as the prohibition against murder was to Edom or against adultery to Yishma‘él? As the Hiddushei ha-Ri”m explains it, much in the same way as the Roman national character was informed by bloody-minded aggression, and that of the Yishmë‘élim was – and is – conditioned by utter, chaotic wildness, a refusal to be fettered by any sense of responsibility or obligation, so is Israel’s national character marked by soaring spiritual aspirations, reflexively unwilling to recognize any boundary or limitation to the degree of qurva and dëvéquth achievable by the Jewish soul. Yet, the bënei Yisra’él stood the test; the Torah records no instance of anyone trying to cross the boundaries established by Moshe. Despite the apparent paradox, all of Israel recognized that the greatest possible closeness could only be achieved by keeping a certain distance, if that distance was decreed by their rebbe, Moshe, ‘al pi Ha-Shem.
We now fast-forward to the great-grandson of the Hiddushei ha-Ri”m, the Imrei Emeth, third rebbe of Ger. When the Imrei Emeth took the helm of Ger, in 1905, he decreed that henceforth his hassidim should be scrupulously observant of the halachically mandated times for tëfilla. The decree sent a shock-wave through the realm of Ger. For decades, it had been a hallmark of Gerer hassiduth to engage in elaborate preparations for tëfilla, and to defer punctuality in favor of achieving the highest possible levels of spiritual uplift when they actually davened. One of the veteran hassidim complained to the rebbe that, since he had been following the rebbe’s instructions, he had not felt the same levels of exaltation he had experienced before, and begged that the decree be rescinded. The rebbe responded by quoting the Talmud: פיטום הקטורת כו' ואחד עשר סממנים היו בה כו' ואם נתן בה דבש פסלה ואם חסר אחד מכל סממני' חייב מיתה כו' תני בר קפרא אילו הי' נותן בה קורטוב של דבש אין אדם יכול לעמוד לפני ריחה ולמה אין מערבין בה דבש שהתורה אמרה "כל שאר וכל דבש לא תקטירו ממנו אשה לד'" (“The compounding of the qëtoreth... and there were 11 ingredients in it... and if one puts into it honey he rendered it invalid, and if one left out one of the ingredients he was liable for death... Bar Qappara taught, If one were to put in a tiny bit of honey, no man would be able to resist its aroma; and why do we not mix honey into it? Because the Torah says, ‘Any leaven and any honey, you will not raise a burnt offering from it to Ha-Shem’ [Leviticus II, 11]”; ירושלמי חומא פ"ד ה"ה וכריתות ו.). The Qorban ha-‘Éda explains that the honey would cause שהי' נודף ריח טוב ממנה ביותר (“that an extremely good aroma would waft from it”). In other words, the rebbe was saying, if one’s preparations cause one to exceed the parameters of halacha, the spiritual “gain” therefrom is illusory, just as the irresistible aroma created by the addition of honey to the qëtoreth does not offset the fact that the Torah forbids it.
D.
This, I believe, is the simple but powerful lesson which we are to learn from the story of Nadav and Avihu’, that the precise technical nature of the transgression described as ésh zara is secondary to the fact that it was asher lo’ tzivva otham, something which they had not been commanded to do. This is an extremely powerful message in our day. The price of living in a free and open society is that we are exposed to many influences and currents in that society, some of which can induce a yearning for spiritual experiences and innovations contrary to Torah and established halacha. Doubtless this cautionary aspect is one of the reasons that we read the account of the brothers’ downfall on Yom Kippur, serving to remind us that all such alien aspirations must be resisted, and that feeling of validation or closeness to G-d which their practitioners may appear to achieve through them is in fact a pësul and a rihuq, an invalidation and distancing from Him, for it is asher lo’ tzivva otham.
