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And he shall put lots on the two goats,
one for the Lord
and one for azazel
(Vayikra 16:8)
And Aharon
put lots on the two goats - one goat he
placed on his right hand, the other on his left. He then put both hands in the
urn, took one lot in each hand and placed it upon the corresponding goat. One
of the lots was inscribed " for the Lord"
and other " for Azazal"
. Azazel - (Yoma
67, Torat Cohanim) is
a strong and mighty mountain; a precipitious cliff,
as is written "wilderness" . Jagged.
(Rashi, ibid., Soncino
translation)
...Simply
understood, the word "Azazel"
is a composite of "Az
El" ["Az"
means " strength" ; "azal"
means (in Aramaic) "gone away"]; he who is of
mighty spirit - who went away, without a future; he thought he was powerful -
and thereby he had to leave and pass away. The reference is to sensuality,
which had been elevated to level of principle; but God denied him all future in
the destiny of Man and humanity. A barayta in
Tractate Yoma (67b) relates
the word to "Azaz El"
or "Azael"
[The Lord is Mighty], and this interpretation leads us to
the same concept. He is the mighty, a suitable term for the nature of the gods
and their mission. For the gods are the forces of nature external to man. The
Creator gave them a single direction- "They did not turn when they
moved" (Ezekiel 1:17)- they must not deviate from this
direction - therefore they cannot deviate from it. They perform the will of
their creator - by the very fact of their compliance with their nature; for
their nature is the only direction they have been granted. This is the portion
and the mission of the world of the freedom-less elements and of the organic
world. The destiny of Man, however, is sharper and nobler; only if he fulfills
this noble mission is he deserving of the name Man.
For the Jewish God, free and omnipotent, is supreme above any law of the gods.
He created them and imposed his laws upon them, and they are subject to these
laws. Their power lies in their not changing their assignment of fulfilling the
desire of their Creator.
(Rabbi
Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, 17:10)
This issue of "
Shabbat Shalom" is dedicated by the Watzman
family in memory
of their son and
brother, Niot, z" l, a
soldier in the Golani Division,
who was killed in
tragic circumstances during Chol HaMoed
Pesch 5771
Coming close to god
Leah Kalibnoff
In memory of my beloved father,Mosheh ben
Avraham and Pessia Leah,
Five years after his passing
Two
sets of verses, one in Vayikra and the second in Bemidbar, relate two stories that seem to be contradictory.
One is about remoteness, the other about closeness.
The
first set:
And
the sons of Aharon, Nadav
and Avihu, took each of them his fire-pan and put
fire in it and placed incense upon it and brought forward alien fire before the
Lord, which He had not charged them (Vayikra 10:1).
And Nadav and Avihu died before the
Lord when they brought forward unfit fire before the Lord in the Wilderness of
Sinai... (Bemidbar
3:4).
And also:
And Nadav and Avihu died when they
brought forward unfit fire before the Lord (ibid., 26:61).
The
opening passage of our parasha, Vayikra, Chapter 16, Verse 1, however, reads:
And
the Lord spoke to Moshe after the death of Aharon's
two sons when they came came near before the Lord and
died.
The
verses in Vayikra 10 and in Bemidbar
tell of death following 'bringing close, but the object brought forward is
alien fire; the opening passage of our parasha,
Parashat Acharei Mot, tells
of death striking as Aharon's sons came near the
Lord. It would seem that the two stories could not be further from each other;
the bringing of "alien fire" before
the Lord is a story of the greatest possible distance from the Lord. We know,
however, that both stories are one and the same. Yet more, further on in
Chapter 10 of Vayikra itself, Moshe says to Aharon: "Through those close to Me shall I be hallowed" . The Holy One himself says
that Nadav and Avihu, the
sons of Aharon who were devoured by the fire of the
Lord, were those close to Him. Alien fire resulting from
closeness. Remoteness and closeness.
What is
closeness to God? What truth does it embody? And what is alien fire - might it
be the lie accompanying the coming close to God?
It is
doubtful whether one can think of questions greater, more profound, more threatening than these. It is also doubtful whether it
is at all possible to give these questions a clear-cut, definite answer; truth
be said, even a partial answer is no simple matter. And it is important to
remember that by the very asking of the question we begin to tread on dangerous
territory, because the question itself is part of the search process. It may
even be that asking the question 'what is closeness to God' is in itself the
closest Man can approach God in this world.
We
have before us the parasha and the story of
the sons of Aharon, told in two versions, poles
apart. But perhaps the difference between the two sources is Scripture's way of
telling us that the quest for proximity to God, the search for the path to it
is to be found in an area beyond the concrete world in which there are answers
of 'yes' and 'no', of good and bad, a world in which there is not always one
clear and sharp answer, a world which is, in essence, incomplete and blurry,
fragmentary, in which Man may think that he is coming closer to God - and
perhaps, in certain respects, actually does come close - but at the same time
he blends into his service alien fire...
The NeTZiV deals with this in his commentary on these verses in
his "Haamek Davar":
"They entered because of the fire of the fervor of love of God, but the
Torah said that even though love of God is dear in the eyes of God, this is not
the way which He commanded." In
other words, they entered because of love of God, really sought to come close
out of love, but despite this their act did not conform to His will, and
therefore the fire which was offered was alien fire. The two can coexist.
The MaLBiM interprets the alien fire as an expression of the
position in which Nadav and Avihu
served: " Because of love of honor, seeing that
they followed Moshe and Aharon."
Nadav
and Avihu wanted to be first. We cannot, however, as
we read the words of the MaLBiM, ignore the Biblical
text that tells us that Nadav and Avihu
were close to God, and that they died as they came close to Him.
Searching the point of contact between the text and the MaLBiM's
interpretation, we can observe and conclude that the quest for honor was not a
desire for primacy in material wealth, for example, but it was a desire for the
honor of spiritual leadership that flowed from closeness to the word of the
Lord. Yet this offering constituted alien fire.
The
commentary of Rabbi Shimson Raphael Hirsch seems to
synthesize the two above commentaries: He writes that the sons of Aharon acted haughtily, but adds that the intention was
desirable, for they are later - even after their sin - called " those who are close to Me" . Hirsch explains
that their sin was in 'adding love to love" .
They acted out of love for God, but did not totally humble themselves; when all
of
It is
easy to go astray in the search for the true fire. It is easy to err and act
when hidden in the yearning for closeness to God, lies personal desire, that
place where Man sees only himself and does not really meet the word of God. But
is there a way for a human being not to mix in some of his personal desire in
his quest for the proximity of God? If Nadav and Avihu, living in an era of overt prophecy, could so
stumble, how much easier is it to falter in times when there are no prophets
and the search for proximity to God falls upon each and every one of us … to
walk the long road, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.
But from the incident in the parasha, we learn
that searching for the love of God necessitates meeting with the word of
God, that great risk awaits one whose actions are motivated by a burning drive
for holiness, one who does not wait for clarification of what is really God's
command.
Nadav
and Avihu lit fire that God did not command. They
brought in their own rather than wait for God's fire to descend. And perhaps it
will not descend? Instead of allowing for the possibility of a meeting with
God's presence, running the risk that perhaps this meeting will not materialize
they did not wait and, in the enthusiasm of desire, they brought in their own
fire. Alien fire.
But
the principle element of love lies in listening, in clearing space which
will facilitate a meeting. But they brought of their own, something they were
not asked to do, impatiently, without listening. The desire to glorify, to act
stringently, sometimes to forcefully imbue prayer with enthusiasm, to continue
and demand revelation of God's word even as it hesitates to arrive, to act with
force. In his passion for encounter, Man sees himself instead of meeting God,
and when he injects himself - as explained by MaLBiM
and Hirsch - a desire to be the first, the unique, to establish contact with
the Almighty, may develop.
Perhaps
we can find here a line, howbeit primary and hesitant, which can sketch a
signpost for us distinguishing between true closeness to God, and
over-involvement of self, even though one's heart pulsates with a real spirit
of love for God, even if one be truly close. Ego is ego, it always demands
"first place" or
perhaps even "the one and only". And when one strives to be "the
first" or "the only" it
may be in place to examine whether he has not injected himself
disproportionately, whether he has not forcefully added of himself to become
"the one and only" - whether he has included alien fire.
But where there is waiting and patience for a
true meeting with God's word, there is no importance whatever to such
"exclusivity", to the question of who's
first and who's second, and it is possible to admit that the Creator speaks to
others just as He speaks to him (18). And who is like unto Moshe our teacher,
to whom God spoke face to face, who said: "Would that all
the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would place His spirit
upon them". (Bemidbar 11:29).
"Gifts to the Poor" - Human Reformation and Social
Justice
For the Lord, may He be blessed,
wanted His chosen people to be adorned with every good and precious moral
virtue, and that they be endowed with blessed souls and magnanimous spirits. I
have already written that the soul is affected by actions so that it may be
good and that the Lord's blessing be upon it. There is no doubt that when one
abandons a portion of his fruits in the field so that the needy might enjoy
them, his soul will enjoy satisfaction and a correct and blessed spirit, and
that the Lord, may He be blessed, will satisfy him with His beneficence and his
soul shall rest in goodness.
(Sefer HaHinukh,
Positive Commandment 213)
You shall leave them for the poor and
the stranger - It is evident that these laws
are not made for the direct purpose of the actual maintenance of the poor. Even
the poor man himself has to leave his gleanings, the forgotten sheaf,
and the edge of the field from his own field to other poor people! It is
clear that, at once at the harvest, at the moment when a person takes home that
which Nature and his own hard-work has yielded to him, and puts the proud and
far-reaching words "my own" in
his mouth, these laws are to remind every member of the Nation, and to demand
an act of recognition from him, of the fact that this "my own"
includes for everybody the duty of caring for others who are
needy...that in God's holy state the
care for the poor and the stranger without property is not a matter
which is left to the greater or lesser soft-hearted feelings of sympathy...
but is raised to a God-given right to the poor, and a God-ordained duty to the
owners of property from God.
(Rabbi
S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 19:10, Isaac Levy translation)
When a stranger
resides in your land, you shall not wrong him.
(Vayikra 19:33)
The true moral
test occurs in your land
We
learned - Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol
says: Why does the Torah warn us thirty six times - some say: forty-six time -
regarding [mistreatment of] the stranger? Lest you drive him back to evil ways.
Why is it written, You shall not wrong a
stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the
(Bava Metziya 59b)
A stranger
resides in your land: If he was a stranger in a
foreign country where you too are a stranger, it would only be natural to love
him, for it is the custom of strangers [i.e. aliens] to love each other (Pesahim 113), and you
sympathize with his troubles in order to avoid them yourself. But if he lives
in your land, in any case do not wrong him.
(Ha-Emek Davar Vayikra
19:33)
And love your
neighbor as yourself
And
love your neighbor as yourself - Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principle of the Torah.
Ben
Azzai says: This is the record of Adam's line
[When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God] (Bereishit 5:1) is an even
greater principle.
(Sifra, Kedoshim 2)
It
cannot be understood literally, since it is well-known that "your life
takes precedent over that of your friend." Rather, the RaMBaM
(Hilkhot Avel 14)
explains it as meaning "[doing for your friend] as you would wish your
friend would do for you." It is obvious that no one would expect his
friend to love him as much as he loves himself, but rather to the proper extent
taking into account good manners and how close the people are to each other -
to that same degree you must love other people. That is why it [love your
neighbor...] appears immediately after the preceding admonition [You
shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge]. Just as in the case when you
wrong someone, you would not want him to take vengeance, but you would rather
have him forgive your sin, so you should treat your neighbor as well. This is
how the juxtaposition of the passages is to be interpreted according to the RaMBaM.
I
learned another explanation of their juxtaposition from the Jerusalem Talmud (Nedarim 9:4), which
states:
"It is written; You
shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk How does
this work? If one cuts meat [with one hand] and accidentally cuts [the other]
hand would he then cut the ["offending"] hand? And love your
neighbor as yourself. Rabbi Akiva says: This is
the great principle of the Torah."
This
means that one who takes vengeance against his fellow is like someone who cuts
meat. The hand holding the knife is negligent and cuts the other hand. Could
someone imagine striking the hand that cut to avenge it? Similarly, love
your neighbor as yourself follows you shall not take vengeance Even
though one's own life and well-being take precedence over those of one's
friend, in any case it is as if the two were one in the same person - even
though it be proper for one limb to strike the other, in any case if the damage
is already done there is no point to taking vengeance against the offending
limb. Similarly, one should not take vengeance against one's fellow who has
already harmed him, since he is just like you, all of
(The
NeTziV MiVolozhon's Ha-Emek Davar, Vayikra 19:18).
And love your
neighbor as yourself - Not that one should love every
person as he actually loves himself, for that is impossible, and Rabbi Akiva already taught that "Your life takes precedent
over your friend's life." Rather as yourself in the sense of
[your neighbor] who is like you - as in [the verse] for you
are like unto Pharaoh. So here too as well Love your neighbor who is
as yourself; he is equal to you and similar to you in that he was also
created in the image of God, he is a human being just as you are,
and that includes all human beings, for they were all created in the
divine image. The Torah concluded [in the passage] everything with this
commandment, just as it began with each man shall fear his mother and father,
because one who honors the human image and considers it excellences treats
himself and all other people well.
(R.
Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Vayikra
18:19)
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