On Saturday, April 16th, I offered the d'var Torah, literally, "words of Torah" in the alternative worship service at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, TX. In Jewish congregations, one portion (or parsha) is studied each week. The parsha for this week was Leviticus 16.1-18.30, and is called Acharei Mot. My words are below:
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This morning, our parsha begins by recalling the death of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu. It’s been a few weeks since we learned of their unfortunate end—and in order to get a sense of why they are showing up again here, we need to go back a little bit.
At the end of Exodus, the people have completed work on the Tabernacle, and God’s Presence has come to dwell there, with the people. As we move into Leviticus, we move into a time and space in which God and the people are working out the details of how they will be together—how they will relate to each other. There is a lot, apparently, that the people need to know about offerings, and vestments, and the ordaining of priests.
As Shemini opens, we are told that in order for the Presence of the Lord to appear to Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel, there must be a series of offerings and sacrifices. In response, the people do everything as God commands through Moses, and—behold!—the Presence of the Lord appears to all the people. They see, and shout, and fall on their faces.
This should be the beginning of a new level of God-connected reality for the people. But then—there’s the Nadab and Abihu episode: sudden strange fire, punishment, death. And right on the heels of that, a close call—Aaron’s remaining sons don’t eat the sin offering in the sacred area, like they are supposed to.
Things had been going so well—what has gone wrong?
I wonder if seeing God is such an overwhelmingly intense encounter that when it happens, people get disoriented, excited, confused—they don’t know quite what to do with themselves. We are just human, after all, so it’s understandable. But this is God we’re dealing with here; we can’t just go off and do things like make strange fire and eat the sin offering in the wrong place, all willy-nilly. It’s reckless—even dangerous.
God gets it. We humans need structure. We need practice. We need a holiness-training-regimen to keep our minds, bodies and souls focused, as we’re in relationship with God. We begin with the laws of kashrut, the basics—food. What we eat is important, and says something about our relationship with God.
In the next parsha, we are given another basic: self-care. Here we have detailed instructions about cleanliness, and what to do when major things happen with our bodies—like childbirth—or unusual things, like discolorations of the skin, scaly patches and inflammations. Taking care of our bodies is important, and says something about our relationship with God and with each other.
Then in Metzora, we have a detailed discussion about leprosy and discharges. In this parsha, we explore ways that we affect—and can infect—each other in community.
That brings us to this week’s parsha, Acharei Mot. With all of those instructions about daily life set forth in previous weeks, we return again to the sudden deaths of Nadab and Abihu. The reference to their deaths here reminds us of the purpose behind all these seemingly unrelated teachings and commandments: they are God’s gift to us, so that we might prepare ourselves to encounter God without then going loopy and doing something reckless like making strange fire.
God tells Aaron, through Moses, to be careful. You can’t just waltz in to the Shrine behind the curtain any ole’ time. You have to dress up, prepare, make offerings of expiation for yourself, your household, and all the people. Instructions about coming before God are not limited here to the High Priest. Expiation must be made for all the people, once a year, and the Shrine and the Tabernacle must be purified, too.
But wait, there’s more: if you sacrifice an animal, make sure to bring an offering to God. Also, don’t eat the blood of an animal, for the blood is its life. Respect God, respect the life of animals. Oh, and: respect each other. There’s this long list of various categories of people whose nakedness we shouldn’t uncover. Each person is listed here separately as important, uniquely deserving of respect and care.
To emphasize just how much our actions matter and have consequences, not just for ourselves but also for others, God says here that when we aren’t careful to follow the holiness-training-regimen that God has given us--when we go through life willy-nilly, not thinking, not preparing, not caring for ourselves or each other or honoring God--then there’s the possibility not just of being zapped by God, as Nadab and Abihu were, but it is also possible that the land itself will become defiled and spew us out.
Why? Because our relationship with the Lord our God—is holy, and it includes our relationship with other people, with animals, and with the land itself. These, all of them, are holy relationships, and they are interconnected.
As we travel together today, we are no longer in the desert with the Tabernacle, but we are still in relationship with each other, with the earth, and with God. I wonder, though, how carefully we are approaching these, our holy relationship partners, today—how well, in our daily lives and choices, we are treating other people, the environment and ourselves—and what that says about our relationship with God.
Why does what we do matter so much to God, anyway? Why bother here in Leviticus with the details of ritual offerings, vestments, kashrut, leprosy and nakedness? Why give the people all these commandments?
Because God so wants to be known, and to have real partners in the world. Partners that will be able to encounter God without going loopy. We will soon be told, “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And for that, I don’t know about you, but I think we might need a lifetime—or even, generations of lifetimes—of training.
Shabbat shalom.