The account of the deaths of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu is the most frequently discussed topic in Parashat Shemini. Most comment addresses what the brothers actually did and why their action merited the punishment they received.
The text is not seriously disputed to this extent: the brothers literally took their firepans, put fire in them, placed incense on the fire and brought the burning incense before Adonai without being required or asked to do so.
The questions raised are:
1. What does the Hebrew phrase esh zarah actually mean? What did they actually do?
2. Why did the brothers bring this offering without its being required or requested?
3. What about their actions warranted the severity of the punishment?
I will not address the second question. For the purposes of this exploration, the motivation of the brothers is of only secondary concern. My sense is that the punishment had little actually to do with the brothers themselves and much more to do with the effect on those who witnessed their behavior and its consequences. Whatever the brothers’ motives were, everyone could see what they did and what happened as a result.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his comments on this parasha makes the point that Aaron and his family are priests, but that Moses is a prophet. The two roles, he points out, are quite different.
Priests are responsible for the accuracy of ritual. We depend on them to do things in the proper way and at the proper time and to be fully occupied in the detail of prescribed rituals. They are to be consummately objective in their professional affairs.
Prophets, on the other hand, are conduits for the expression of spirit, of ruach. They are by their nature subjective. Whether they seek it or not, they are instruments for the communication of a different kind of truth. Their truth is beyond form and ritual; it is found in the language of emotion and in the intensity of spiritual experience.
The priest looks at a situation and finds halachah, the law and the rule. The prophet looks at the same situation and finds midrash, intuiting connections from conditions experienced throughout his environment.
The priest does not create, he officiates. The prophet is open to and guided by spirit and channels that guidance in a language that is not restrained by convention.
Let’s try to look at the issue of Nadav and Avihu through prophetic eyes rather than priestly ones.
Priestly eyes see an action that was not authorized, or that was strange or alien. These are the typical translations of the word zarah. And if we accept as literally accurate the account of the brothers’ actions, then there was a clear violation of critical priestly duties. Punishment is warranted.
But if we look with a focus that is less sharply on the priestly infraction, what other connections might we see? What is a more prophetic, midrashic view of the action and the justification for the punishment?
Let’s look beyond the traditional associations to the word zarah.
The first association that came to my mind was to the Hebrew term avodah zarah, in which we find the word zarah modifying the term avodah, meaning work or worship. But this is an ominous association. This is the term we use for idol worship! And few things are more consistently and insistently condemned in the Biblical literature than that.
The word avodah does not in itself have any negative connotation. But when it is used in conjunction with zarah, it becomes deadly!
In this the usage parallels that of esh zarah.
Esh, itself, has no negative connotation in the context of priestly offerings, but when paired with zarah, things change in a hurry!
A closer look seems reasonable not only because of this difficult association but also because the word is translated in three different ways, suggesting some ambiguity.
My first inclination was to look at the Hebrew zayin-resh-hey as an adjective modifying the word esh, or fire. But the word zarah, I found, does not derive from the root zayin-resh-hey. It derives from zayin-vav-resh.
The root zayin-vav-resh in its verb form means to be a stranger, to become estranged, to be loathsome. Here we find the idea of strangeness in very negative senses. An isha zarah is not just a strange woman, she is a harlot. A god who is zarah is a foreign god. When Job’s breath is bad, resh-vav-chet-yud zarah it is loathsome to his wife.
So, this is not strange, as in unusual, it is strange as in very dangerous or really bad.
Interestingly, in Arabic the equivalent root means to incline toward. To incline toward is the literal meaning of the Latin components of the English, to attend, to lean toward. And the third definition given for zayin-vav-resh is to press down. In Hebrew the word samach, to lean upon or lean against, which is similar to press down, is the term used in consecrating both animals for sacrifice and priests to the priestly service. So, we find at least a latent connection to priesthood or consecration in this root also.
So zarah as a derivative of zayin-vav-resh can have a much more ominous sense than is conveyed by the words unauthorized or strange or even alien. And it contains an allusion to the priesthood as well.
Turning back, now to the root zayin-resh-hay. That root in its verb form means to scatter or to winnow (to throw grain up in the air to allow the grain to separate from the chaff). In one of its forms it describes the scattering of the powder into which the golden calf was ground. In Arabic it is to cause to fly or scatter. In Jeremiah it is used with the sense of a chastisement. In Ezra we find it in the phrase “when ye shall be dispersed”. In Ezekiel it describes the scattered or dispersed of Israel.
The idea conveyed by the word ‘unauthorized’ is hardly a mortally dangerous one. But if we use our prophet’s eyes and intuition there is much to fear in the phrase esh zarah.
There is an allusion to priesthood gone awry.
There is allusion to estrangement.
There is allusion to danger.
There is allusion to immorality.
There is allusion to idolatry and foreign gods.
There is allusion to developing loathsome characteristics.
There is allusion to violent action to separate the good from the bad.
There is allusion to the scattering of the people Israel.
If we consider the possibility that these allusions might represent real possibilities, is it then so difficult to understand the punishment of Aaron’s sons?
©Charles R. Lightner