Miryam's Space

If you’re ready to be One, stand strong and surrender, Ready to be One.

Billy Jonas’ song was in my head this morning, in answer to my prayer last night that this Teaching honor the memories of those lost in our lives.

On this Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial day, in this week of Gevurah, courage, in counting the omer we hauntingly read of the deaths of Aaron’s two eldest sons. They were beautiful, spiritual souls lost too young. The rational voice of the Rabbi’s says they were punished for their sins. And the mystical voice of the Rabbi’s says G!d took them to be close. I struggle with both of these interpretations. Rather G!d mourns with us always in our loss, perhaps especially when we can’t find the tears, as Aaron and Moses were silent.

Nadav and Avihu were no ordinary people, these were no ordinary deaths.

In the first verse of Shemini Moses calls Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel; This list is the first hyperlink to a previous scene. The verses continue to promise that: “Today G!d will appear to you.”  Wait, we don’t see G!d do we? We the listeners who are not to make images of G!d because nothing we see can come close. But this has happened before, it is the 2^nd  hyperlink to Mishpatim – after Sinai, Ex 24: A voice  says to Moshe: Come up to G!d, with Aharon, Nadav and Avihu and the 70 elders” and then outrageously:

 וַיִּרְא֕וּ אֵ֖ת אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְתַ֣חַת רַגְלָ֗יו כְּמַעֲשֵׂה֙ לִבְנַ֣ת הַסַּפִּ֔יר וּכְעֶ֥צֶם הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם

 לָטֹֽהַר׃  and they saw the God of Israel: under G!d’s feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the essence of sky in purity.

Imagine how inspired these two young men, the only ones chosen in their generation, must have been in this intense, mystical encounter! And now in today’s parasha, this encounter repeats.  The community offers sacrifices, G!d appears, G!d’s fire comes out of the altar, people shout and fall on their faces terrified, all except for the two, who go into the fire with their own incense and fire pans, seeking G!d.

And the Torah continues וַיַּקְרִ֜בוּ לִפְנֵ֤י יְהוָה֙ אֵ֣שׁ זָרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֧ר לֹ֦א צִוָּ֖ה אֹתָֽם׃

The trop mark under “lo”not, is rare, a mercha kefula found only 5 times in Torah, a link to aggadic legend.

They drew near before G!d with a strange fire that was not commanded to them.

So what was G!d’s response:  And a fire went out from before G!d and consumed them, and they died before G!d.

And then Moshe says to Aaron: בִּקְרֹבַ֣י אֶקָּדֵ֔שׁ   with those near to me I will show myself holy.

Moses then instructs the boys’ cousins to carry the bodies out, and to grab them by their cloaks. Wait, the cloak was not burned, neither the bodies? The majority opinion of the Rabbis is that they sinned, and were drunk, based upon the warning a few verses later not to enter the tent of meeting with wine or other intoxicant. But it is not the only opinion. Rashi, in his comment on sees Moses as explaining to Aaron: your sons who have died are greater than me and than you!”

What was this strange fire? What was this death?  Whether they chose to  leave this world an effort to unite with G!d, or were careless and ran into danger, it doesn’t matter. To do either is to kindle the strange fire not commanded by G!d! Today’s teaching is clear, no aish zarah (strange fire)  We are to always choose life so that we and our children can live. Perhaps that’s one way we have endured, still persisting, to find the Netzach sheb’gevurah, endurance within strength.

When you’re ready to be One, don’t just surrender, Stand strong and surrender, choose life, because we already are One!  Mystics seek G!d’s spirit not as others chase thrills, but to bring G!d into this world in such need! To stand and sing out the power of G!d’s healing and forgiveness, to teach this love to the lonely, so that the lost will find their way home. Noah Aronson We choose the life!

This is some of the background material for the drash.

Life is the true fire we are commanded to seek, and to seek death is the strange fire, never commanded. So choose life that you and your children may live!

The case can be made that Nadav and Avihu offered themselves up as a misguided attempt of mystical union with G!d  Here are some texts showing the existence of spiritual death-seeking as a mystical pathway. Here are some examples of this death-seeking I have found.

1.     Story as told by Reb Zalman from the  A Heart Afire,  in a story of the Avraham, son of the Dov Bear, the Maggid of Mezerich, pgs 241 and 242. Avraham, was known as “HaMalach” (the angel) He and Reb Shneur Zalman got very deeply involved in a meditation, eventually reaching the place of  atzilut, until they are at the point of being able to leave life itself.  Shneur Zalman saves the Maladkh’s life with a crust of bagel and beer, reminding me of when Eliyahu is in the cave, and suicidal, and the angel saves his life and brings him back to life by feeding him!

In a related story, the Malakh’s wife similarly saves her husband by ascending to a heavenly court in dreams, fighting against her husband’s strong desire to join them.

2.     In Melila Hellner-Eshed’s book, on the Zohar, A River Runs Through It, page 58-62, the deaths of Moses and Rashbi are considered,

a.     Rabbi Shimon said “Moses never died…It is called death from our perspective…whoesoever is in perfection, in who resides the holy faith, death has no sway over him…

b.     In the  Idra Zuta Rashbi experiences his own death as a passage into true life….the occasion of his transformation into …full..union with Schekninah. ..not merely metaphoric but mythical and mystical

c.     The white light on page 273. It is a common expression when someone has a belief in the afterlife of seeing a white light.  “The quest for the white light has another important aspect; the wish to be absorbed and subsumed within the divine – a kind of death wish (bold is mine), perhaps death by divine kiss – arising from the desire to attain the source of all. Melila footnotes this: This desire for white, associated both with the desire for perfection (eros) as well as death (Thanatos), receives expression in Alken Afterman, Kaballah and Consciousness, page 113.

Afterman’s mystical poem “Desire for White”

Everything, its open mouth

Lipless

Its gaze cloudless

Everything, its one desire

Soundless

Desire, or the inner colors of white

-The deaths of Nadav and Avihu has been interpreted in ways that perhaps once represented culture in biblical times portraying a punishing G!d, This image is no longer what is needed in today’s global society to deal with problems requiring intercultural cooperation. Therefore a paradigm shift is needed. R’ Shhulamit Thiede teaches “we worship an interpreted God” R’ Art Green in “Seek My Face” speaks of  G!d as the Oneness that unites all existence, and also in ever changing intimacy that permeates all creation. G!d is found by plumbing the depths of the soul and also, in seeking G!d, R’ Green says, look first to love! “A Jewish path to Oneness can only be the one that leads through (the metaphor) of human intimacy.  The Heart of Being, the Interbreathing of Existence, as R’ Arther Waskow explains, is more true to G!d’s creative nature, and desperately needed as models and mindsets in the healing of the human relationship with the earth, and of cultures with one another. Redemption is described as “the collective effort of all generations” across cultural boundaries

The model of a punishing G!d is part of an interpretation of Torah which models abusive patterns. The psychic trauma manifests or is mirrored in the actions one human to another and to the creatures of the earth.  Life can punish us, and there is karma, where we must pay for the consequences of our own actions. It is by G!d’s grace that we can withstand, persist and support one another.

Ironically Avihu, whose name means “he is my father” would never have descendants, and Nadav, whose name means” giving” gave himself away. The truth/ emet, is that beautiful young men and women and children die. Sometimes it is suicide, or war, or rushing into danger for thrill seeking, or cancer, or….so many other paths.

G!d as the power that feels the hole in the universe made by the death of the righteous and mourns with us, perhaps especially when we are too repressed or shocked or stressed to find the tears. I have lived this in my own experience unable to mourn until I was able to open my heart, following a more spiritual pathway. Then I was able to confront my childhood hurts and call it by name, abuse, and travel the path to healing for myself. Only then was I finally able to shed free tears for the losses in my life.

Consider the tikkun if we shift the narrative of Nadav and Avihu’s deaths as misguided young mystics, running toward death, and that the Torah’s true message of life is the true fire, the one commanded, and death is the strange fire, never commanded. So choose life that you and your children can live.